The Writing Across the Curriculum "Grammar Stud," also known as English graduate assistant Jonathan Cook, will answer randomly chosen queries from a multitude of pressing writing and grammar questions each month. To make him aware of your burning question, simply send him an e-mail.

Dear Grammar Stud, I need help with one of my professors! She circled the words "to needlessly split" in my first essay and told me that split infinitives were completely and utterly wrong! I don't even know what that means! Can you help me?

-- Confused in Charleston

Dear Confused,
No, I cannot help you. I'm terribly sorry, but that's just the way it is.

Not going away, are you?

Okay, I'll do my best, but I'll need to give a brief history lesson first. Many, many years ago, a group of people called Romans had a language called Latin. This language was pretty cool, full of nice sounding words and highly complicated inflections. For reasons both aesthetic and religious, Latin became something of a standard, causing it to exert a strong influence on, amongst other things, the development of the English language. Because of this, many of the rules of Latin grammar have flowed down the ages and into our modern English. One such rule is that which governs infinitives.

An infinitive is simply the word "to" added to the simple form of a verb: "to wave," "to kiss," "to laugh," or "to split." A split infinitive occurs when an adverb is added between the two words: "to needlessly split."

Latin grammar does not allow the infinitive to be split because the infinitive is one word. As in many other foreign languages that find their roots in Latin, the infinitive is the unconjugated form of a verb; it makes no reference to a particular tense or subject. For example, findo is the Latin word that means "to split." As you can see, it is impossible to split the Latin infinitive by adding an adverb. What became a rule of English grammar started out as nothing more than a technical limitation of the Latin language.

Your professor is not entirely wrong in disapproving of split infinitives. She has many, many years of linguistic history to support her stance. However, there really is not a solid consensus amongst grammarians. While some still adhere strictly to tradition, there are others who are a bit more flexible. Your best bet would be to stay away from split infinitives whenever possible. "To needlessly split" can be just as easily written "to split needlessly," and in doing so, the phrase takes on an almost poetic sound. There may be times when you wish to place a special emphasis on the adverb, in which case breaking the split infinitive rule would work in your favor. Before doing so, however, I strongly urge you to discuss the rule with your professor.

Dear Grammar Stud,
Stud, you've got to help me! I've got a date with this real hottie on Saturday, but she's really smart about stuff I've never heard of. I'm afraid I won't be able to think of things to talk to her about. Help!

-- Desperate in Danville

Dear Desperate, I cannot help you with your hottie troubles because I, being an English major, know nothing about women.

But I can help you with your prepositions, which should impress her almost as much as if you were to start reciting the Iliad in Ancient Greek.

A preposition is a word used with-and usually before-a noun or pronoun in order to show a relationship with another part of the sentence, e.g. "I found a tire under my bed." In this case, "under" establishes and explains the connection between "tire" and "bed." Where was the tire? Under my bed. This construction is called a prepositional phrase because it consists of a preposition and the object of that preposition. The phrase itself can act either as an adjective or an adverb, as it almost always functions as a modifier.

In the case of your letter, two of your sentences are grammatically incorrect because they end with prepositions. "I've got a date with this real hottie on Saturday, but she's really smart about stuff I've never heard of. I'm afraid I won't be able to think of things to talk to her about." At this point, we must consider which is more important, being formal and correct or being casual but incorrect. From a purely technical standpoint, a sentence should absolutely never end with a preposition. "...[S]he's really smart about stuff I've never heard of" should be written "...[S]he's really smart about stuff of which I've never heard" because the object of the preposition "of" is really the entire phrase "I've never heard." The word "which" is used to indicate that the object will be a construction unto itself. However, the sentence "...[S]he's really smart about stuff of which I've never heard" is a bit awkward and in casual conversation may lead to many jeers. Is it really necessary to be so stuffy in one's language?

Many grammarians will agree that it is a matter of formality. In academic writing, yes, one should be a bit stuffy. Not so much in love letters and casual conversation. In short, you should ask yourself how important the words and their arrangement are in any given situation. If you are trying to impress a hottie, go for formal and correct. It will work like a charm.