150. Split Infinitive.—Next to faulty reference in frequency comes the use of incorrect verb forms. Of these probably the most common error among cub reporters is the employment of the split infinitive,—to quickly run instead of to run quickly. The split infinitive is not necessarily an error. There are times when one's precise meaning can be expressed only by the use of an adverb between to and its infinitive. But as a rule one should avoid the construction. Certainly there was no excuse for the following in a Chicago paper:

President Yuan Shi Kai declared he was willing to permit Professor Frank Johnson Goodnow of Brooklyn, legal adviser to the Chinese government, to in August accept the presidency of Johns Hopkins University.

151. Infinitive and Participle with Verbs.—The use of the infinitive and the participle with the past tense of verbs is also a cause of frequent error. Our English rule regarding these parts of the verb is mainly a matter of usage, accuracy in which may be attained only by habits of correct speech. But if the reporter will bear in mind that the infinitive and the participle have no finite tense of their own, that they always express time relative to the time of the main verb, he will have taken a real precaution toward preventing confusion. For example, the newspaper man who wrote,

Detective McGuire had intended to have arrested him when he began blowing the safe,

did not say what he meant, because the past infinitive here makes the writer say that Detective McGuire had intended to have the yeggman already under arrest when he began blowing the safe. What the writer meant to say was:

Detective McGuire had intended to arrest him when he began blowing the safe.

Likewise the reporter was inaccurate who wrote:

Going into the basement, they found the cocaine stored beneath a heap of rags.

He was not accurate, unless he meant that they found the cocaine while on the way to the basement. The cause of his inaccuracy lies in the fact that the time expressed by the participle going varies from that of the main verb. What he should have said was,

Having gone into the basement, ...