{"id":1003,"date":"2015-08-15T07:29:32","date_gmt":"2015-08-15T07:29:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/writing-geeks.com\/?p=1003"},"modified":"2015-08-15T07:30:52","modified_gmt":"2015-08-15T07:30:52","slug":"into-or-onto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/writinggeeks.in\/blog\/into-or-onto\/","title":{"rendered":"Into or Onto"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Into or Onto”
\nAnd their Two-Word Forms
\n<\/span><\/h2>\n

Into, or \u201cin to\u201d? Onto, or \u201con to\u201d?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Into<\/strong> and onto<\/strong> are prepositions, words that describe relative position. They are part of prepositional phrases, such as \u201cShe settled herself into her seat\u201d or \u201cHe climbed onto the roof.\u201d These words are forward looking, in that, as their grammatical name implies, they are positioned before the object.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn to\u201d<\/strong> and \u201con to,\u201d<\/strong> on the other hand, are combinations of an adverb (in<\/em> or on<\/em>) and the preposition to<\/em>. Unlike the single-word forms, they look both backward (in<\/em> and on<\/em> refer to a preceding verb) and forward (to<\/em> pertains to the following object).<\/p>\n

Of the distinctions between each pair, that distinguishing into<\/strong> from \u201cin to\u201d<\/strong> 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, \u201cI walked into the office to lodge a complaint,\u201d the sentence focuses on the prepositional phrase \u201cinto the office.\u201d If you write, \u201cI walked in to lodge a complaint,\u201d the emphasis is the phrase describing the action: \u201cI walked in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Onto<\/strong> and \u201con to\u201d<\/strong> can be more confusing, but think of the problem this way: \u201cShe drove onto the highway\u201d means, \u201cShe drove so that she was on the highway.\u201d Conversely, \u201cShe drove on to the highway\u201d means, \u201cShe headed for the highway.\u201d The two-word form is also appropriate for figurative meanings, where no physical movement or placement exists \u2014 for example, \u201cI think you\u2019re really on to something.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fortunately, there are a couple of ways to test whether onto<\/em> or \u201con to\u201d is correct \u2014 temporarily insert the word up<\/strong> after the verb, or, just for the test, replace the word or the phrase with the word on<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

The \u201cUp\u201d Test<\/strong><\/span>
\nWhen you wish to write that you used a ladder, could you write, \u201cI climbed up onto the ladder\u201d? Yes, you could, so onto is correct. When you want to express that you clutched something, could you write, \u201cI held up on my hat\u201d? No, the sentence does not make sense, so the two-word form (\u201cI held on to my hat\u201d) is the right one in this case.<\/p>\n

The \u201cOn\u201d Test<\/strong><\/span>
\nWhen you wish to write that you scaled a boulder, could you write, \u201cI climbed on a boulder\u201d? Yes, you could, so onto<\/em> is correct. When you want to express that you bequeathed something, would you write, \u201cI passed it on him\u201d? No, that doesn\u2019t make sense, so the two-word form (\u201cI passed it on to him\u201d) is correct here.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Into or Onto” And their Two-Word Forms Into, or \u201cin to\u201d? Onto, or \u201con to\u201d? Into and onto are prepositions, words that describe relative position. They are part of prepositional phrases, such as \u201cShe settled herself into her seat\u201d or \u201cHe climbed onto the roof.\u201d These words are forward looking, in that, as their grammatical […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1004,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1003","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-grammar"},"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/writinggeeks.in\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/into-or-onto.jpg?fit=800%2C521&ssl=1","author_info":{"display_name":"Writing Geeks","author_link":"https:\/\/writinggeeks.in\/blog\/author\/writinggeeks\/"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/writinggeeks.in\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/into-or-onto.jpg?fit=800%2C521&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6uhmH-gb","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/writinggeeks.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/writinggeeks.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/writinggeeks.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writinggeeks.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writinggeeks.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1003"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/writinggeeks.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1003\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1006,"href":"https:\/\/writinggeeks.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1003\/revisions\/1006"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writinggeeks.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/writinggeeks.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writinggeeks.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writinggeeks.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}