Editing Split infinitive (section)

== History of the term ==
It was not until the very end of the 19th century that terminology emerged to describe the construction. The earliest use of the term ''split infinitive'' on record dates from 1890.<ref name=MWnotes>{{cite web | title = To Boldly Go: Star Trek & the Split Infinitive | work = Usage notes | publisher = Merriam-Webster.com | date = April 26, 2018 | url = https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/to-boldly-split-infinitives | access-date = 2018-04-26}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | journal = The Scots Observer | date = September 13, 1890| title = Reviews: A Novel in Journalese | volume = IV | number = 95 | page = 489 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=94oeAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA439 | access-date = 2018-04-27 | quotation = The split infinitive ('to solemnly curse') is a captain jewel in the carcanet [referring to 'gems' of a novel's grammar].}}</ref> The now rare ''cleft infinitive'' is almost as old, attested from 1893;<ref>''OED'' 1900; ''OEDS. A Supplement to the Oxford English Dictionary''. 1972–86. Ed. R. W. Burchfield; ''Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary'', Eleventh Edition (2005–2006), "split infinitive".</ref> in the 1890s it was briefly the more common term but almost disappeared after 1905. "Splitting the infinitive" is slightly older, going back to 1887.<ref name=MWnotes/> According to the main [[Etymological dictionary|etymological dictionaries]], ''infinitive-splitting'' and ''infinitive-splitter'' followed in 1926 and 1927, respectively. The term ''compound split infinitive'', referring to a split infinitive with more than one word between the particle and the infinitive, is not found in these dictionaries and appears to be very recent.

This terminology implies analysing the full infinitive as a two-word infinitive, which not all grammarians accept. As one who used "infinitive" to mean the single-word verb, [[Otto Jespersen]] challenged the epithet: "'To' is no more an essential part of an infinitive than the definite article is an essential part of a [[nominative]], and no one would think of calling 'the good man' a split nominative."<ref name="Jespersen1956">{{cite book | last = Jespersen | first = Otto | year = 1956 | title = Growth and Structure of the English Language | page = 222 | publisher = Doubleday}}</ref> However, no alternative terminology has been proposed.