{"id":3291,"date":"2023-08-21T19:43:19","date_gmt":"2023-08-22T02:43:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/informalenglish.com\/go\/?p=3291"},"modified":"2023-08-21T20:45:51","modified_gmt":"2023-08-22T03:45:51","slug":"to-not-split-the-infinitive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/informalenglish.com\/go\/3291\/","title":{"rendered":"To not split the infinitive"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"724\" src=\"https:\/\/informalenglish.com\/go\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/farmer0027-1024x724.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-3309\" srcset=\"https:\/\/informalenglish.com\/go\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/farmer0027-1024x724.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/informalenglish.com\/go\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/farmer0027-300x212.jpg 300w, https:\/\/informalenglish.com\/go\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/farmer0027-768x543.jpg 768w, https:\/\/informalenglish.com\/go\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/farmer0027-1536x1086.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/informalenglish.com\/go\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/farmer0027-2048x1448.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 706px) 89vw, (max-width: 767px) 82vw, 740px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>An editor at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/dictionary\/eb\/qa\/Split-Infinitives\">Britannica<\/a> pointed out an artful use of &#8216;not&#8217; when splitting an infinitive:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span class=\"quo\">Be aware that putting &#8220;not&#8221; or another adverb between &#8220;to&#8221; and its verb adds some emphasis to that adverb. For example, in the sentence &#8220;They decided not to stay another night&#8221; the phrase &#8220;they decided&#8221; is the most important information, but the sentence &#8220;They decided to not stay another night&#8221; tells us that maybe they decided to stay another night before, but now it is important that they will not stay.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>An excellent use of &#8216;not&#8217;, this is. Often, however, there are more expressive, positive alternatives to a negative splitting of the infinitive:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span class=\"reject\">Jack hoped <em>to<\/em> <strong>not<\/strong> <em>need<\/em> another surgery.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span class=\"suggest\">Jack hoped to avoid another surgery.<span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span class=\"suggest\">Jack hoped to forego surgery by taking a holistic approach.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span class=\"suggest\">Jack hoped that proper rest and exercise would make additional surgery unnecessary.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is best to pair &#8216;hope&#8217; with some sort of positive action, not &#8216;not&#8217;. After all, Jack had plenty of work to do on the farm. He had no time for negativity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An editor at Britannica pointed out an artful use of &#8216;not&#8217; when splitting an infinitive: Be aware that putting &#8220;not&#8221; or another adverb between &#8220;to&#8221; and its verb adds some emphasis to that adverb. For example, in the sentence &#8220;They decided not to stay another night&#8221; the phrase &#8220;they decided&#8221; is the most important information, &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/informalenglish.com\/go\/3291\/\" class=\"more-link\">See entire post<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;To not split the infinitive&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47,59],"tags":[51,50],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/informalenglish.com\/go\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3291"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/informalenglish.com\/go\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/informalenglish.com\/go\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/informalenglish.com\/go\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/informalenglish.com\/go\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3291"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/informalenglish.com\/go\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3308,"href":"https:\/\/informalenglish.com\/go\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3291\/revisions\/3308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/informalenglish.com\/go\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/informalenglish.com\/go\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/informalenglish.com\/go\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}