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Where Did The Split Infinitive Originate?

It is likely that the split infinitive originally entered the English language under the influence of French; at any rate, it first appears in the time after the Norman Conquest when English was borrowing very widely from French. Germanic languages (including Old English) do not permit an adverb to fall between an infinitive and its preposition. Compare German:

Ich beschließe, etwas nicht zu tun.

I decide not to do something.

Romance languages, on the other hand, do separate infinitives from their prepositions, though grammarians of those languages do not normally use the term “split infinitive” to describe the phenomenon. Compare French:

Je décide de ne pas faire quelque chose.

I decide to not do something.

English writers have been splitting infinitives at least since Layamon in 1250. However by the 16th century the construction was still rare in some of the most notable authors. William Shakespeare used only one. Edmund Spenser, John Dryden, Alexander Pope, and the King James Version of the Bible used none. Notable authors who have used them at least once include John Donne, Samuel Pepys, Daniel Defoe, Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Johnson, William Wordsworth, Abraham Lincoln, George Eliot, Henry James, and Willa Cather^[1].

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