joined by a conjunction. This is not objected to even when an adverb precedes the second infinitive. Examples include "We pray you to proceed/ And justly and religiously unfold..." (Shakespeare, Henry V, Act II, scene 9) and "...she is determined to be independent, and not live with aunt Pullet" (George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss, volume VI, chapter I). History of the term It was not until the very end of the 19th century that terminology emerged to describe the construction. The earliest use of the term split infinitive on record dates from 1890. The now rare cleft infinitive is almost as old, attested from 1893; in the 1890s it was briefly the more common term but almost disappeared after 1905. "Splitting the infinitive" is slightly older, going back to 1887. According to the main etymological dictionaries, infinitive-splitting and infinitive-splitter followed in 1926 and 1927, respectively. The term compound split infinitive, referring to a split infinitive with more than one word between the particle and the infinitive, is not found in these dictionaries and appears to be very recent. This terminology implies analysing the full infinitive as a two-word infinitive, which not all grammarians accept. As one who used "infinitive" to mean the single-word verb, Otto Jespersen challenged the epithet: "'To' is no more an essential part of an infinitive than the definite article is an essential part of a nominative, and no one would think of calling 'the good man' a split nominative." However, no alternative terminology has been proposed. History of the controversy Although it is sometimes reported that a prohibition on split infinitives goes back to Renaissance times, and frequently the 18th century scholar Robert Lowth is cited as the originator of the prescriptive rule, such a rule is not to be found in Lowth's writing, and is not known to appear in any text before the 19th century. Possibly the earliest comment against split infinitives was by the American John Comly in 1803. An adverb should not be placed between the verb of the infinitive mood and the preposition to, which governs it; as Patiently to wait—not To patiently wait. Another early prohibition came from an anonymous American in 1834: The practice of separating the prefix of the infinitive mode from the verb, by the intervention of an adverb, is not unfrequent among uneducated persons … I am not conscious, that any rule has been