Don't do it! Conjugate negative imperatives, that is...

One thing that struck me as strange for a long time was how the infinitive (full -re ending, like parlare, capire, volere) kept popping up from time to time in a seemingly imperative manner.

Well, truth be told it still seems to happen occasionally in a manner I can't explain, but I managed to finally solve the bulk of the mystery by one day stumbling on the fact that you use the infinitive for the negative imperative! (*for the informal "tu", which is the most common...)

OK OK, so many of you might say "of course! That's what it says in the book...". That might be true, but somehow I missed that page. Others of you might be saying, "Huh? What the heck are you talking about?", so I'll break it down a bit.

An imperative is a command, when you tell someone to do something, such as "Bring me the book!" or "Close the door!" or "Shut up!". These are considered positive imperatives, and are conjugated according to a certain scheme... "Portami il libro!", "Chiudi la porta!", "Stai zitto!".

A negative imperative, naturally, is the opposite- when you tell someone to NOT do something. "Don't go to work", "Don't leave me", "Don't worry". All of these are formed simply with the infinitive... "Non andare al lavoro", "Non mi lasciare", "Non ti preoccupare".

To the untrained eye, those can seem a bit strange... "Don't to-go to work"? "Don't to worry yourself"? But lucky you, you're no longer untrained!