Passive Voice, Past Tense

[claytonfabianmarinho]

Teacher,

In the case: "We were told not to eat the tomatoes". Can we use "to not eat" rather than "not to eat"?

[learnamericanenglish]

@claytonfabianmarinho -- The reason you shouldn't do that is because it splits the infinitive. Many Americans do this, but it's better not to.

"We were told not to eat the tomatoes." The infinitive is "to eat." If you put "not" between "to" and "eat," you split (divide) the infinitive.

[Mentalii11]

I didn't know this tense, really interesting :)

And, I've a little question. For example, in the sentence "She was given a new job at work", the question would be "Was she given a new job at work?", wouldn't it?

[thekikker1996]

pretty nice explained;) I have to learn this for english by my next test on monday;) ( I'm from the Netherlands)

[learnamericanenglish]

You're welcome. I'm very glad it helped you with your report. Paul

[RogueBryce]

I'm from the U.S. and used this video to write my Biology lab report in the correct tense. Thank you a lot!