I’ve heard a few times, that infinitives should not be split. What does it even mean?
Well, let’s take a familiar sentence.
When one is in a pub, and decides to go to the loo before continuing on to the next pub, one might say,
“I’m just going to quickly piss before we get on the lash again.”
Here, the infinitive is ‘to piss‘. We have split it with the adverb ‘quickly’. Those who have been taught archaic grammar would tell you that you can only say,
“I’m just going to piss quickly before we get on the lash again.”
therefore, leaving the infinitive completely unfractured. But it is perfectly ok to split infinitives, in fact, whether the infinitive is split or not affects the emphasis of the sentence.
When your tipsy friend tells you that he/she/it is ‘just going to quickly piss‘, then the emphasis is on the piss. From this sentence you can infer that they will be as quick as possible on their visit to the WC, and you will probably have time to chug a cheeky half before they get back.
But when your friend tells you that they are ‘just going to piss quickly‘, then the emphasis is less on the time taken to piss and more about the speed at which the urine will be leaving their urethra during the event. In this situation, you may interpret the phrase as suggesting that your friend has been recently increased the frequency of their pelvic floor exercises, and, as much as you also wanted to go to the bog, you will decide to wait until they return, for fear of being golden-showered by the ricochet from their powerful micturation.
So, there you go. If you want to go to the toilet by yourself, just split an infinitive.