An "infinitive" in English is a verb preceded by the word to, as in to study. Many English verbs can be followed by a grammatical structure that contains an infinitive and is known as an "infinitive ...
Reader Don in Los Angeles County wrote recently with a question about a well-known grammar issue called a “split infinitive.” “I learned about them 50 years ago and I am somewhat sensitive about them ...
When you look up a verb in the dictionary what you find is the verb in the infinitive form. In English it’s two words - ‘to swim’ - but in German it’s just the one schwimmen. In German, there’s a ...
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW was once so angry with a subeditor that he complained to the newspaper. “I ask you, sir,” Shaw wrote, “to put this man out.” The cause of his fury? The editor had insisted on ...