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Split infinitive

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by prinkalvaid » Sun May 01, 2011 2:26 am
To speak habitually of the "truly needed" is gradually instilling the notion that many of those who are just called "needy" actually have adequate resources; such a conclusion is unwarranted.

a) Original sentence
b) To speak habitually of the "truly needed" is instilling the notion gradually
c) To speak habitually of the "truly needed" is gradually to instill the notion
d) Speaking habitually of the "truly needed" is to instill the gradual notion
e) Speaking habitually of the "truly needed" is instilling the gradual notion


In my opinion the answer should be d),but the correct answer is c)

Does anyone has any explanations??
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Source: — Sentence Correction |

by Chaitanya_1986 » Sun May 01, 2011 3:02 am
To speak habitually of the "truly needed" is gradually instilling the notion that many of those who are just called "needy" actually have adequate resources; such a conclusion is unwarranted.

a) Original sentence
b) To speak habitually of the "truly needed" is instilling the notion gradually
c) To speak habitually of the "truly needed" is gradually to instill the notion
d) Speaking habitually of the "truly needed" is to instill the gradual notion
e) Speaking habitually of the "truly needed" is instilling the gradual notion


See this is purely parallel structure error...
To speak/speaking should be in parallel to to instill/instilling

Eliminate all except C and E

Generally we use + ing form for something that is going on (or) if we speak on complete process.
+to form for something to start.

So here C is better than E; more over E changes the meaning.
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by atulmangal » Sun May 01, 2011 3:06 am
prinkalvaid wrote:To speak habitually of the "truly needed" is gradually instilling the notion that many of those who are just called "needy" actually have adequate resources; such a conclusion is unwarranted.

a) Original sentence
b) To speak habitually of the "truly needed" is instilling the notion gradually
c) To speak habitually of the "truly needed" is gradually to instill the notion
d) Speaking habitually of the "truly needed" is to instill the gradual notion
e) Speaking habitually of the "truly needed" is instilling the gradual notion


In my opinion the answer should be d),but the correct answer is c)

Does anyone has any explanations??
You can solve this question by applying the parallelism concept: Verbs like IS, ARE demands a parallelism on both sides...

Gradually is just an adverb, so we need to make the part before IS parallel to part after gradually..
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by force5 » Sun May 01, 2011 3:37 am
ok what we are doing here is maintaining parallelism on both sides of "IS" A, B, D can be eliminated because they are breaking parallelism.

back to C and E.

E is incorrect because

speaking is a gerund and habitually is a adverb (incorrect modifier). i should say habitual speaking instead of speaking habitually.

C maintains that parallelism to speak ........ to instill.
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by Jim@Grockit » Sun May 01, 2011 7:56 am
A "split infinitive" is the insertion of one or more words between to and the plain form of the verb; it is usually the adverb inserted, as in to boldly go where no man has gone before.
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by sharmasumitn1 » Sun May 01, 2011 11:40 am
Jim@Grockit wrote:A "split infinitive" is the insertion of one or more words between to and the plain form of the verb; it is usually the adverb inserted, as in to boldly go where no man has gone before.
instead of
c) To speak habitually of the "truly needed" is gradually to instill the notion

the correct answer should be

c) To speak habitually of the "truly needed" is to gradually instill the notion
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by mankey » Thu Sep 22, 2011 12:33 pm
Some please provide explanation for this one.

Thanks
Mankey
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by gmatblood » Fri Sep 23, 2011 11:41 am
Thanks all for the wonderful explanations
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