Splitting infinitives? Let's split

First you learn to crawl, then you learn to walk, then you learn to run (then you learn to drive five miles to the place where you like to walk or run).

The same process applies to learning about split infinitives, with just as much crashing into walls and falling on your butt. First you learn that you've been doing something wrong, then you learn that it wasn't wrong in the first place, then you learn that your initial grasp of why it's not wrong was in fact wrong.

For those of you on deadline for your blogs or eager to turn to the horoscopes, here's the must-know stuff about the dreaded split infinitive: Don't worry about it. Ninety-nine out of 100 language authorities agree there's nothing wrong with it. So if your energy for learning grammar is limited, this one does not belong on your priority list.

But for those who enjoy case studies in craziness, read on.

I recently came across a guest column in a Florida newspaper by an English tutor who was fuming about other people's grammar ignorance. Among the crimes she decried: the split infinitive.

The concept of the split infinitive has to do with constructions like, "I wanted to really make a difference." The idea is that "to make" is an infinitive ? a form of the verb in which two words comprise a single unit ? and that you shouldn't go breaking it up by sticking words like "really" in the middle. And this is the widespread belief that most language authorities call a bunch of hooey.

I wrote to the columnist saying she should probably look into the matter because most of the language authorities I know of say there's no rule against this. I mentioned a few.

Her response: "I could not disagree more."

So, stripping off some of the candy coating of my first e-mail, I wrote again, citing "The Chicago Manual of Style," "The Associated Press Stylebook," "Garner's Modern American Usage," Strunk and White, "The Oxford English Grammar" and "Lapsing Into a Comma."

Her response: "I still disagree."

I suspect that by now she has opened a book or two and therefore is transitioning from her crawling phase into an era of linguo Homo erectus (linguo Homo erectus: the species not prone to hunching over in shame due to frequent discoveries that she's been dispensing bad grammar advice; that no longer holds superstitions about split infinitives; and that has mastered hunting the mighty thesaurus).