Calm a llama down.

I am of the opinion that it is inherently funny to successfully ignore the rules.

I think that mocking convention is both big and clever. That's not to say that the consequences of this shouldn't be taken into account mind you. I mean, the famous Star Trek infinitive split never did anyone any harm did it? And it sounded more poetic than 'go boldly' because the word 'go' has an 'open' sound at the end which signifies movement for a start.

My split infinitive in the first line of this blog is less poetic (indeed it is somewhat clunky) but serves to cheaply illustrate the point.

Had I not used it deliberately then would I have been ignoring the rules? Can you ignore something if you are ignorant of its existence? Even if you know the Star Trek example, but you don't know what an infinitive is?

Well, the infinitive is usually 'to' followed by the simple form of a verb (there is no information given about subject, context or time or any of that stuff that verbs often give) but it is not a verb: it can act as a noun, adjective or adverb. 'To boldly go' (or even 'to go boldly') is an adverb (I think) because it tells us why the Enterprise is in space.

It's not always so easy though;

When I heard my alarm clock ring I threw the fucking thing across the room.

If you can spot the infinitive then you are ready to break the rules. Go forth and undermine.

Good luck.