Is the word into a preposition

Main Into vs. in to Takeaways:

• Both into and in to are correct, but they are not interchangeable. They mean different things.
• Into is one word and is a preposition. It helps illustrate physical movement (The river leads into the ocean), or a metaphorical transformation (With one kiss, she turned the frog into a prince).
• Into goes directly in front of a destination space in a sentence.
• Conversely, in and to are two distinct words. Even though they aren’t related, they sometimes end up next to each other in a sentence.

Like anytime vs. any time and to vs. too, into vs. in to is a huge source of confusion in English grammar. They look almost identical, but these two are not the same. Let’s look at the difference between them and show you when to use into or in to in a sentence.

What is the Difference Between Into and In To?

The difference betweeninto and in to comes down to the parts of speech. On one hand, use the preposition into to show that one thing physically moved inside another, or one thing figuratively transformed into another. On the other hand, in to is a two word phrase usually comprised of the adverb in followed by the preposition to. This won’t work in every situation, but use this quick trick to check yourself: if you can replace the word with “in order to,” you should probably opt for in to vs. into.

Here is an example that illustrates why into and into are not interchangeable. Moreover, this example also shows how the above trick is a good guide but doesn’t work 100% of the time. So, be sure to think critically about the sentence’s meaning.

The meaning of the last two examples changes dramatically depending on whether you choose into or in to.

For example, the incorrect sentence means that the student transformed his paper into his teacher!

Since we really mean to say that the student submitted his work to his teacher for grading, the correct sentence uses the phrase in to (the adverbial phrase turn in + the prepositional phrase to the teacher).

Is It Into or In To?

Into and in to are both correct, but they mean very different things. The difference between these two comes down to the parts of speech. For example, into is a preposition. It lets us know that something is moving from one direction to another (He walked into the room). Conversely, in to is a phrase made up of the adverbin and the preposition to. These two words aren’t related. Instead, they just happen to sit next to each other in the sentence (He walked in to listen to the lecture).

On on hand, the preposition into indicates literal or metaphorical action:

• An object moves into a space.
• A person moves from adolescence into adulthood.
• A season moves from winter into spring.

On the other hand, the word in can be a preposition, an adverb, an adjective or a noun depending on the circumstances:

• Preposition:An object sits in a room.
• Adverb: A person is in crisis.
• Noun: Summer is in full bloom.

The word to can be a preposition, but it can also be an adverb — or part of an infinitive. “To” sometimes winds up next to “in” in a sentence.

Here, to is part of the prepositional phraseto the store.

In this example, to is part of the adverbial phrase “come to,” meaning to regain consciousness or to wake up.

In English, “to” always goes before an infinitive verb. This is part of the way we show that a verb is in its infinitive form and not conjugated.

When Should You Use Into or In To?

Many confuse the single word “into“ with the two-word phrase “in to.” Use the preposition intoto indicate movement, whether literal or figurative. This word shows readers that something is inside something else, or where an object is in relation to another (She poured the teaintoher mug). Next,in and to are two separate words that sometimes end up next to each other in a sentence. Therefore, you usually use in to when an adverbial phrase ends with in and a prepositional phrase or infinitive begins with to (She walked in to get some tea).

Here are examples of when to use Into vs. In To in a sentence:

How Do We Use Into in a Sentence?

In a sentence, place into right in front of the destination space: intothe car; intothe house; intothe lake. Use the word into to indicate movement from one location to another. Into is a preposition, and prepositions always indicate where things are in relation to other things.

Here are examples of when to use into in a sentence:

Are you Into or In To?

Both “are you into” and “are you in to” are correct, but have different meanings. Therefore, the correct phrase depends on what you want to say. For example, if you want to ask if someone is interested in a topic or enjoys doing a certain activity, you would use the one-word preposition into (Are you into playing sports?). However, if you want to ask the reason for someone’s visit, you would probably use the two-word phrasein to (Are you in to see the doctor?).

Is it Look Into or In To?

The correct idiom is “look into.” This means to try to discover, or uncover, the facts about a situation, like a problem or a crime. The word “into” in the phrase “look into” is a preposition, which denotes a movement toward something or a certain location. If you’re investigating something, you need to “move toward/closer” to the evidence or object of your interest to find the truth.

In the above example, the speaker is claiming that the pole is not properly attached to its base. But, his/her statement also suggests that you can prove it yourself if you look into it (look closer to the pole).

Recap: Into vs. In To

First, never use “in to” and “into” interchangeably. This is a mistake.

In fact, into is actually one word. And, it’s a preposition. As a result, it defines what an object is inside, or within. To use into correctly in a sentence, put it right in front of the destination space.

However, in and to are two completely different words, even though they sometimes wind up next to each other.

Confident you know when to use into vs. in to? Test your skills below!

Quick Into vs. In To Quiz

Read More: Than Vs. Then: How To Tell The Difference Once And For All

For those interested in a little info about this site: it’s a side project that I developed while working on Describing Words and Related Words. Both of those projects are based around words, but have much grander goals. I had an idea for a website that simply explains the word types of the words that you search for — just like a dictionary, but focussed on the part of speech of the words. And since I already had a lot of the infrastructure in place from the other two sites, I figured it wouldn’t be too much more work to get this up and running.

The dictionary is based on the amazing Wiktionary project by wikimedia. I initially started with WordNet, but then realised that it was missing many types of words/lemma (determiners, pronouns, abbreviations, and many more). This caused me to investigate the 1913 edition of Websters Dictionary — which is now in the public domain. However, after a day’s work wrangling it into a database I realised that there were far too many errors (especially with the part-of-speech tagging) for it to be viable for Word Type.

Finally, I went back to Wiktionary — which I already knew about, but had been avoiding because it’s not properly structured for parsing. That’s when I stumbled across the UBY project — an amazing project which needs more recognition. The researchers have parsed the whole of Wiktionary and other sources, and compiled everything into a single unified resource. I simply extracted the Wiktionary entries and threw them into this interface! So it took a little more work than expected, but I’m happy I kept at it after the first couple of blunders.

Special thanks to the contributors of the open-source code that was used in this project: the UBY project (mentioned above), @mongodb and express.js.

Currently, this is based on a version of wiktionary which is a few years old. I plan to update it to a newer version soon and that update should bring in a bunch of new word senses for many words (or more accurately, lemma).

Into, or “in to”? Onto, or “on to”?

Into and onto are prepositions, words that describe relative position. They are part of prepositional phrases, such as “She settled herself into her seat” or “He climbed onto the roof.” These words are forward looking, in that, as their grammatical name implies, they are positioned before the object.

“In to” and “on to,” on the other hand, are combinations of an adverb (in or on) and the preposition to. Unlike the single-word forms, they look both backward (in and on refer to a preceding verb) and forward (to pertains to the following object).

Of the distinctions between each pair, that distinguishing into from “in to” is more straightforward. If you wish to write that you went somewhere to let a representative of a company know you are disappointed with a product or service, you can express that idea using either form. But if you write, “I walked into the office to lodge a complaint,” the sentence focuses on the prepositional phrase “into the office.” If you write, “I walked in to lodge a complaint,” the emphasis is the phrase describing the action: “I walked in.”

Onto and “on to” can be more confusing, but think of the problem this way: “She drove onto the highway” means, “She drove so that she was on the highway.” Conversely, “She drove on to the highway” means, “She headed for the highway.” The two-word form is also appropriate for figurative meanings, where no physical movement or placement exists — for example, “I think you’re really on to something.”

Fortunately, there are a couple of ways to test whether onto or “on to” is correct — temporarily insert the word up after the verb, or, just for the test, replace the word or the phrase with the word on:

The “Up” Test
When you wish to write that you used a ladder, could you write, “I climbed up onto the ladder”? Yes, you could, so onto is correct. When you want to express that you clutched something, could you write, “I held up on my hat”? No, the sentence does not make sense, so the two-word form (“I held on to my hat”) is the right one in this case.

The “On” Test
When you wish to write that you scaled a boulder, could you write, “I climbed on a boulder”? Yes, you could, so onto is correct. When you want to express that you bequeathed something, would you write, “I passed it on him”? No, that doesn’t make sense, so the two-word form (“I passed it on to him”) is correct here.

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