Your Quick Guide to Into vs. In To

Your Quick Guide to Into vs. In To Among the commonly confused word pairings, into and in to are right there at the top. Do you turn in to the driveway or into the driveway? Do you log in to your computer or log into your computer? And does it even matter which way its written since it sounds the same both ways?First, a reviewAs with many of these commonly confused words, the answer to the riddle of which to use often lies in revisiting grammar rules that many of us simply forgot after middle school. For this particular commonly confused pairing, we need to take a look at what makes a preposition and how it functions in a sentence.PrepositionsYou might remember the grade-school textbook graphics of prepositions as positioning words, meaning they were used to show spatial relationships between objects. A cat might be in a window, on a windowsill, under a ledge, stretched around a pole, on a fence, or by a door.Prepositions also show temporal (time-based) relationships. For example, this morning, I had coffee before I s tarted writing, but after my alarm went off. During my lunch break, I read the news until it was time to write again.From that quick review of prepositions youll understand that into is a preposition and is used to show positioning- or more specifically, the literal placement of an object within another object. When you write a letter, you place it into an envelope, and then put the envelope into a mailbox. However, when you were driving along on the street and turned in to the post office parking lot to mail it, it became a situation where into as a preposition didnt fit. Think of into as something being placed literally inside something else.Now, heres the exception to the ruleIt wouldnt be English grammar if there werent some exceptions somewhere to the rules of into being a preposition. Into showing transformation is one such exception. For example, a caterpillar turns into a butterfly. Fairy Godmother transformed Cinderellas rags into a beautiful ball gown.When in and to end up togetherObviously, in and to are also prepositions and can also be used as adverbs. It would follow that there are instances when the two words will be together in a sentence, such as I dropped in to make sure youre okay. In this sentence, to is part of the infinitive phrase to make, so it would be incorrect to combine it with in typographically- even if the ear cant hear the difference.Here are some more examples of in and to being separated in the sentence:Sarah turned her car in to the parking lot. (Note that since Sarah cannot literally be inside of the parking lot and she cannot transform her car into a parking lot, in and to separated make logical sense.)Can you tune in to the radio program next Wednesday at 9 pm?Log in to the admin portal of the website to change your password.A final noteAs with any commonly confused pair of words, taking a moment to consider the grammar rules behind the mystery is the easiest way to make sure youre using each correctly when you write. Some times, all it takes is a quick review of grammar rules you learned in elementary and middle school to choose the best word and once youve done this- the choice is clear.