Wordplay©
Grammar clinic
Common mistakes in English grammar,
and the simple rules that will keep you on track.
Common mistakes in English grammar,
and the simple rules that will keep you on track.
An infinitive is the basic unit of a verb.
Examples include:
to eat
to sleep
to do
to jump
to sigh
That means whenever you use the infinitive form of a verb, you shouldn’t put anything after the ‘to’ and before the rest of the verb.
To heavily sigh is wrong.
To sigh heavily is right.
Creative splits
The script writers for Star Trek obviously thought it was worth breaking this rule, and now the phrase ‘To boldly go’ is an accepted and understood (if grammatically incorrect) part of our culture.
Any form of the verb ‘to try’ has to be followed by an infinitive.
I am going to try to get home by 6pm this evening.
Often in speech, we drop the second infinitive to say ‘to try and get home’ – which is wrong.
JK Rowling uses this incorrect structure throughout the Harry Potter books. She used to teach English, so she probably knows it’s grammatically incorrect, but is happy that it reflects the way her characters talk to one another.
