The Cambridge Guide to Australian English Usage - Noel's ESL ...

inflammable or inflammatory
Alongside simple infinitives such as those italicised, perfect infinitives can be formed
with have, and passive infinitives with be:
I wouldn’t have gone
I’d like to have gone (perfect)
you will be asked
you have to be asked (passive)
As the examples show, infinitives are not necessarily expressed with to in front,
and historically to is not part of the English infinitive. Yet the idea that it was
indissolubly attached underlies all the anxiety about split infinitives. (See under
that heading.)
Infinitives also combine with certain adjectives in English:
eager to please easy to undo ready to go sure to fly
They also combine with certain kinds of nouns, especially abstract nouns which
embody verbal ideas:
decision to leave desire to come invitation to abscond
Other common combinations are with indefinite or general nouns:
moment to catch someone to love something to remember
time to reflect way to go
Yet another role of the infinitive is to serve instead of a verbal noun as subject or
complement of a clause:
To err is human.
All they wanted was to rest.
Beyond all these uses, infinitives can be used to formulate a purpose in a nonfinite
clause:
We walked fast to beat the rain.
The teachers brought bags to collect the bottles.
In more formal styles, the to is sometimes expanded into in order to or so as to,
but most of the time the infinitive with to says it all. See further under nonfinite
clauses.
inflammable or inflammatory These both have to do with lighting fires,
but the fire lit by something inflammatory is purely figurative, as by inflammatory
speech, whereas what’s generated by an inflammable liquid is dangerously physical.
The possible ambiguity with inflammable has prompted official moves to replace
it in public notices. See flammable.
inflectional extras Should it be aged 16 or age 16? Barbed wire or barbwire?
Fine-toothed comb or fine-tooth comb? The short answer is that British English
uses the forms inflected with -ed, while American English does without the -ed
in these and numerous others. For Australians it’s a matter of taste and regional
preference.
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