Grammar Girl here. This week I have a quick and dirty tip about capitalizing theories,

a meaty middle about splitting infinitives, and a tidbit about language rock star Samuel

Johnson.

Phyllis P. wrote in and asked, should theories be an uppercase or identified by italics

when adding them to a research paper? In other words, in Dr. Goodman's theory of whole

language, should whole language be uppercase or lowercase?

Very question Phyllis. Theories aren't capitalized or highlighted with italics. They don't

require any special formatting at all, but you do capitalize someone's name when it's

part of a theory, of course. So in Dr. Goodman's theory of whole language, Dr. and Goodman

are capitalized, but the rest is lowercase. And the same rules apply to laws and hypotheses.

And that was your quick and dirty tip.

Next, let's learn about split infinitives. They have an interesting history. When adults

are ambushed with a concept of grammar, for example, when they meet someone who goes by the name

grammar girl, they often reach into the depths of their grade school memories and come up with

something along the lines of, don't split infinitives, right? Indeed, splitting infinitives

is a grammar topic, but the rule you may have learned against splitting infinitives isn't as

hard and fast as you might imagine. First, let's define infinitives. They are the two word forms

of verbs, such as to read, to write, and to illustrate. When you split an infinitive, you put

something between those two parts, usually an adverb. Here are some examples. To diligently

read, to happily write, and to scientifically illustrate. The idea that you shouldn't put an adverb

in the middle of an infinitive was mentioned earlier, but was most prominently introduced by Henry

Alfred, the Dean of Canterbury, in his 1864 book The Queen's English. Alfred didn't state it

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