"Space, the final frontier," boomed forth. "These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise, its continuing mission to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before . . . ."
"A split infinitive!" roared the monster. He spun around and glowered fiercely at the television set. He then inhaled—but nothing happened.
That is to say, he attempted to inhale, but he failed. The television set shifted slightly but remained in place, causing the Grammarosaurus to try even harder. The results, for him, were disastrous.
Aron, Justin, Lauren, and the other students watched as the monster huffed and snorted and desperately willed the television set to perish, but to no avail. He met with some success, which seemed to encourage him, but falsely so, for he promptly began to choke.
Everyone watched as the Grammarosaurus asphyxiated. At last, with a spectacular blue flash, he managed to choke and electrocute himself. Finally, he faded away, leaving only the mangled TV behind.
"Wow," Lauren said. "I'd forgotten that thing was plugged in."
" . . . So what, exactly, was that about?" Justin asked, gingerly stepping over the charred remains of the television set.
"I told you. Split infinitives," Lauren explained. Seeing that this might not be enough, she added, "Oh, fine. Let's go to the library. It might make more sense then." Aron and Justin followed her into the library, where she led them to the unabridged dictionary on the stand. She flipped to a page near the end and read aloud,
"'Split infinitive. . . . An expression in which there is a word or phrase, [especially] an adverb or adverbial phrase, between to and its accompanying verb form in an infinitive, as in to readily understand. . . . Usage. The "rule" against placing a word, especially an adverb, between to and the verb in an English infinitive (To really understand a language, you have to stay in a place where it is spoken) is based on an analogy with Latin, in which infinitives are only one word and hence cannot be "split." The modeling of English style on Latin has in the past often been considered the epitome of good writing; the injunction against splitting the English infinitive is an example of the misguided application of this notion. Criticism of the split infinitive was especially strong in 19th-century usage guides. Nothing in the history of the infinitive in English, however, supports the so-called rule, and in many sentences, as in the example above, the only natural place for the modifying adverb is between to and the verb (To really learn . . .). Many modern speakers and writers depend on their ear for a natural sentence rather than on an arbitrary rule. Writers who ordinarily prefer not to split an infinitive will occasionally do so, to avoid awkward or stilted language.'"
" . . . So what does all that mean?" Aron asked.
"The monster got hung up on a useless rule," Lauren summed up. "Literally. 'Star Trek' is famous for that 'to boldly go,' but of course a TV set doesn't work the same way a human does, so he couldn't just inhale it. . . . I didn't even plan on the electrocution; that was pretty cool." Aron and Justin had to agree with that. "Anyway," Lauren continued, "the point is, there's a stupid, obscure grammar rule that's not really even a rule, but that didn't matter to the monster, and he choked on it."