Would you like to know what this post was supposed to be about? This post was supposed to do a bit of an outline on when to use spacing in your words versus when you should leave them together. I spent a little while brainstorming what kind of words I wanted to use as examples and I was all prepared to write them up and discuss if there was some hard and fast rule of when to use them together versus spaced out.
Instead, I found myself down this rabbit hole of word definitions.
Let me explain.
The words that my brain goblin really likes to second guess are things like into/in to, onto/on to, altogether/all together, ahold/a hold, setup/set up, onboard/on board, and nevermind/never mind.
So first. Things like in and on are usually prepositions. For those that need a reminder, a preposition is the part of a sentence that will explain where in relation to another thing the subject is. For example, Mary is on the bed. Mary is the subject, and ‘on’ dictates where she is in relation to the bed. If we change the preposition to ‘in’, that adjusts our understanding of where Mary is. In the first example, she exists on the bed as a whole. Once it is changed to ‘in’, this implies that she is likely under the covers as she is now inside the bed as a whole. Unless there was an unfortunate murder, it is safe to say that ‘in’ the bed would only be comfortable if you were in amongst the blanket parts.
Okay sweet. Now how about in to vs into? Well, into is also a preposition. Usually. If we stick with the example from the last paragraph, Mary can get into bed, just as she is in bed. This is just the difference between whether it is an action that you are talking about, or whether it is the location you are talking about. Can you bring the groceries into the house? Otherwise, if you want to know where the groceries are, they are in the car, because no one’s brought them inside yet.
I have two rules of thumb here because there are always exceptions to the rules of how you use these words and using the two of them together is ALMOST foolproof. (Except for English deciding that to shapeshift, or to undergo metamorphosis is to change into something else. That’s a rant for another day.)
Rule ONE: Is the space, concept, object, or state something you can abstractly or concretely put your subject in or access? Shock, kitchen, desk drawer, meditation. She went into shock. She went into the kitchen. She went into the desk drawer. She went into meditation.
Rule TWO: Can you put a comma between ‘in’ and ‘to’ and it still makes sense as proper English and doesn’t change the meaning? Shock, kitchen, desk drawer, meditation. She went in, to shock. To shock what? Not a sentence. She went in, to the kitchen. She went inside the house. She stood like a sim, aimless at the kitchen border, not entering, just staring. Okay, I’m sure someone somewhere used that as a real sentence, but hopefully, you’re picking up what I’m putting down? She went in, to the desk drawer. Again, she goes there and just stands, staring at the drawer. Maybe she doesn’t have a key. She went in, to meditation. This isn’t conjugated properly so is not a sentence.
Happily, everything I’ve said above applies to ‘onto’ vs ‘on to’ with the adjustment of instead of the subject being abstractly or concretely being able to be in or access, the subject can be placed abstractly or concretely on top of something.
This sadly does not carry over to altogether, all together, ahold, a hold, setup, set up, onboard, on board, nevermind, and never mind!
Before anyone says anything about these all being conjugated words versus prepositions, no. Up and on are prepositions.
So let’s take all together and altogether. Different words. Because sometimes language be like that. Altogether is an adverb. If you can replace it with ‘wholly’ or ‘completely’, you are using the right form. All together is an adverb, modified by a determiner. If you remove “all” and the sentence still more or less makes sense, then you’ve got it. If it no longer makes sense, perhaps you should be using ‘altogether’.
Example! Mary was altogether fed up with John’s behaviour. Mary was all together fed up with John’s behaviour. Mary was ‘completely’ fed up with John’s behaviour sounds okay, but Mary was together fed up with John’s behaviour doesn’t make much sense. The correct usage is then ‘Mary was altogether fed up with John’s behaviour.’
Example again! The group was excited to be altogether again. The group was excited to be all together again. The group was excited to be ‘completely’ again does not make sense, but the group was excited to be together again makes sense. The correct usage is then ‘The group was excited to be all together again.’
Are you still with me? This is turning out to be a long one. In an effort not to waste your time with filler and fluff, I’m heading right into talking about ‘setup and set up’.
Setup is the noun. Person place or thing. Set up is the verb. Action, occurrence, or state of being. You can be set up because you are the subject and the thing is happening to you. You can’t be setup. You are not a computer, and you do not need all your settings adjusted to function. A smart toaster that is voice-activated can be set up (placed upright on a surface) and requires setup (programming to toast your toast and recognize your voice). If you yourself are not this toaster, you can’t be both.
Now for another relatively straightforward one with a bonus hyphenated occurrence! Onboard has the corporate definition of training people and amalgamating them into a company’s structure and ideologies. On-board reflects the location of something within a vessel that travels over land, through the sea, or in the air. On board is the term for being present in the vessel whether it is moving or stationary at the time. If you are thinking you don’t see that much difference between the last two, the third example is when it is used as a preposition, and the second is when it is used as an adjective. I don’t have a trick for this one. I looked for a few days to see if the internet had anything better to say but came up empty. I’d love to hear from you if you have something that works for you!
I will start the next section with a little filler and fluff. This choice might have been made because there’s no point in pretending I’m perfect and just know all this stuff. Guess what I learned while I was researching my little trouble phrasings?
That I should not be using ‘nevermind’. Like, ever. Why? Because it currently belongs specifically to the turn of phrase ‘no nevermind’. Haven’t heard of it? No. Me neither. Apparently, if something is bothering you, someone may tell you to pay it ‘no nevermind’. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions on this one. I personally don’t know how I feel about it.
The last combo I had on my little list was ‘a hold’ vs ‘ahold’. I debated leaving it out because it’s a slippery slope between accepting ‘ahold’ as a word, and accepting ‘alot’ as a word which I am absolutely against.
In fact, please see exactly how I feel in the timeless Hyperbole and a Half blog.
http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/04/alot-is-better-than-you-at-everything.html
Ahold is an informal word that has been recognized by dictionaries. You can use it in the context of grabbing ahold of something or getting ahold of someone. What I want you to notice is that in both cases, the ‘ahold’ is followed by an ‘of’. This is it. This is the whole trick. If the phrasing is ‘This television show has a hold on me’, you can’t replace ‘a hold’ with ‘ahold’, there is no ‘of’! Since ‘ahold’ is informal anyway, if you are ever unsure, err on the side of ‘a hold’!
So there you have it. Something that was supposed to take me a few hours this weekend to type up and get ready for you ended up taking much longer and now has me questioning everything English does. I hope you found this interesting or useful, and I would love to hear about the words that sometimes give you trouble, or if you have any tricks to share about the above!
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