To Boldly Go Where No Man Has Gone Before

Are you ever tempted to split infinitives? If so you’re in good company. They did it in Star Trek, as demonstrated by the title of this post,  and it’s since become an often quoted example.

A split infinitive occurs when an adverb or adverbial phrase is placed between the word to and the relevant verb. In this case the adverb boldly comes between the words to go, and this construction really gives emphasis to the boldness of the enterprise (pun intended). Somehow To go boldly where no man has gone before doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.

Although there has been quite a lot of controversy over the practice of splitting infinitives, these days it’s generally acceptable, provided of course the sentence is not weakened or made to sound clumsy.

More than a few writers have found ways to send up the use of split infinitives. Wikipedia gives us this example:

The split infinitive, specifically its famous use in the Star Trek opening sequence, is the basis of a joke from Douglas Adams‘ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy:

In those days men were real men, women were real women, small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri. And all dared to brave unknown terrors, to do mighty deeds, to boldly split infinitives that no man had split before – and thus was the Empire forged.

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