> > Anyone who has a problem with split infinitives has not really studied English grammar beyond grade school. They are likely the same sort of people who believe it's ungrammatical to begin sentences with conjunctions or end them with prepositions.
>
> Darien's rule on split infinitives: they sound inelegant, and so should be avoided when it's not impractical to do so (e.g., "to use language correctly" vs. "to correctly use language"), but if avoiding the split infinitive would require amazing grammatical gymnastics, you can probably find SOMETHING better to do with your time. Split the stupid thing and move on.

For all the people offering the "best" way to split infinitives, my point was simply that splitting infinitives is grammatical.

How to do it well is a matter of style and form, not of grammar. There are any number of clunky, awkward, inelegant constructions that are also perfectly grammatical.

It simply drives me crazy when people (not saying those offering suggestions are among those people) try and claim their stylistic preferences as hard-and-fast rules of grammar.

Stephen