Moving right along: Into vs. In to

Let’s get, ahem, into the difference between these two sets of words.

Into means movement, as in We headed into the restaurant.

In to, however, means nothing; the two words actually appear coincidentally together in a sentence, as sometimes they are part of other, adjacent constructs. For example, in might be part of a verbal phrase, such as drive in, while to is part of an infinitive verb like to pick up, and hence the sentence I’ll have to drive in to pick up some ice cream for the cake.

The easy way to remember the difference is to ask if in and to modify other words in the sentence. If they do, then use in to. Otherwise, into is the right call.

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My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past decade, I’ve helped more than 300 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the 7 Minutes a Day… writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.