For my money:
“To boldly go” conveys a state of boldness which almost incidentally takes the form of going
“To go boldly” conveys an action “going” possessed of a quality “boldness”
They are not the same. I need access to both. That’s all it takes.
“To boldly go” conveys a state of boldness which almost incidentally takes the form of going
“To go boldly” conveys an action “going” possessed of a quality “boldness”
They are not the same. I need access to both. That’s all it takes.
Reposted from
Adam Kotsko
The "to" is not a *part* of the infinitive, it's a convention for clarification since the infinitive takes the exact same form as most present-tense conjugations. The proof of this is auxiliary verbs (can, must, etc.). So there's nothing to split. The infinitive is just the verb, not "to + verb."
Comments
We could have boldly travelled. Or boldly searched. Or boldly explored. Whatever we did it was bold.
The choice was bold not the doing.
Or we could have gone boldly. Valiantly. Curiously. But we were already going, we were just choosing how.
https://www.arrantpedantry.com/2008/12/23/less-and-fewer/
To which I say “no”.
If you need it, use it. The end.
Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
Passive-aggression in a very highly-developed form.
And you can only really split a modal infinitive.
I don't believe the splitting of infinitives is wrong anyway. The distaste for it is relatively recent.
You are requesting kindness from guests. You are not acting kindly in asking rather than hitting them with a wet fish and ordering them to do as they’re told.
what if... the sign-makers sincerely believe the latter?
Which would still be hideous.