Into or in to?

A delegate on one of our courses suggested a subject for the blog. ‘Can “into” and “in to”,’ she wondered, ‘always be used interchangeably?’ In a word, no.

Here’s why.

Into

‘Into’ is a preposition. A preposition essentially indicates the relationships (usually within space or time) between two parts of a sentence. Others include ‘on’, ‘above’, ‘behind’, ‘through’, and so on. And, in case you were wondering, ‘in’ is also a preposition, which helps explain the confusion. But bear with me.

‘Into’ generally suggests entry, movement in the direction of or up against. This can be a real, physical movement or a more symbolic or metaphorical movement: entering a state of being or form, or getting ‘inside’ an idea or concept.

I hurried into the bank.

She walked into a lamppost.

He went into shock.

I looked into the accusations of incompetence.

She went into the entertainment industry.

As with all prepositions, ‘into’ is followed by its object (the thing being moved into). Here, these are ‘the bank’, ‘a lamppost’, ‘shock’, ‘the accusations of incompetence’ and ‘the entertainment industry’.

Adding the preposition to its object, you get a prepositional phrase – this just means all the bits works together to give you the full information about the verb in the first part of the sentence. In these examples, the hurrying, walking, looking etc. The hurrying was done into the bank. You couldn’t just say ‘I hurried into.’

In to

‘In to’ is a phrase where the two words work separately.   So:

I hurried into the bank

but

I hurried in to withdraw all my money.

Now ‘in’ modifies ‘hurried’, while ‘to’ is used to show purpose or intention (to withdraw money), rather than direction (literal or otherwise). And you could just say ‘I hurried in.’

To decide which to use, it may help to think about what the ‘to’ part of the sentence is doing, and to which part the ‘in’ belongs. The differences may just become obvious if you just try both ways out.

He felt so guilty for stealing the paperclips, he eventually turned himself in to his manager. (Yes, ‘to turn [yourself] in’ is a phrase meaning to surrender yourself to the authorities, so two words is correct here.)

He felt so guilty for stealing the paperclips, he eventually turned himself into his manager. (Probably not what was meant here, but a good trick if you can do it.)

Image credit: AlexanderStein at Pixabay

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Author: Catie Holdridge

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Catie joined Emphasis with an English literature and creative writing degree and a keen interest in what makes language work. Having researched, written, commissioned and edited dozens of articles for the Emphasis blog, she now knows more about the intricacies of effective professional writing than she ever thought possible.

She produced and co-wrote our online training programme, The Complete Business Writer, and these days oversees all the Emphasis marketing efforts. And she keeps office repartee at a suitably literary level.