There is a difference between ONTO and ON TO.

Those of you who read this blog regularly have seen the two entries about IN and INTO. Today's newspaper carries a grammar glitch with ON TO and ONTO, which involves a similar point. Here is the sentence I read with my morning tea:

He believed in hard work and wanted to pass that belief onto his children, his son recalled.

It sounds as if this good man wanted to put his belief in a bowl, stand on a stool, and pour it down ONTO the heads of his children, which is probably not what the reporter meant. Instead, the man wanted to pass his belief in hard work ON (into the future) and to do that by giving it TO his children. In this sentence, ON and TO should be separate because their meanings are separate. The sentence should read as follows:

He believed in hard work and wanted to pass that belief on to his children, his son recalled.

For more information on this preposition concept, click (in the index at the right) on the entry for INTO/IN TO.

Be careful not to tangle up your prepositional phrases!

If you create a sentence that contains several prepositional phrases, it is important to arrange them in a clear and logical order. If you don't, the reader will end up wondering what goes with what.



Here is a good example from a recent article in a Birmingham newspaper:



Jimmerson, the film's writer and director, has interviewed immigrants, academics, politicians and others for her documentary at the U. S.-Mexico border and across Alabama.



I've highlighted the prepositional phrases in this sentence in different colors so you can spot them easily. The problem is that the focus of the sentence is supposed to be on WHERE the interviews took place, NOT on where the documentary was filmed. By inserting "for her documentary" between the interviewees and their locations, the reporter has thoroughly confused the sentence.



It would be much clearer written as follows:



For her documentary, film writer and director Jimmerson has interviewed immigrants, academics, politicans and others at the U. S.-Mexico border and across Alabama.



Another solution would be to drop the phrase "for her documentary" completely from this sentence because the reporter makes it clear in the previous sentence (The 58-year-old spoke over coffee in Birmingham, where she came recently to tape the last interview for her documentary.") that the interviews are for her documentary.



Happy Prepositional Phrase Placing, Everyone!

Be Picky About Prepositions!

My favorite produce market sent out an e-mail this morning about its holiday weekend schedule. The e-mail contained the following sentence:

We will be open normal business hours now until Friday the 3rd but will be closed Saturday July 4th and re-open Monday July 6th at 8am.

The preposition "until" means "up to a certain point in time." As used in this sentence, it suggests that normal business hours are only in effect UNTIL Friday, but I suspect the market plans to conduct normal business hours on Friday and then close on Saturday.

Therefore, the better choice would be to say:

We will be open normal business hours now through Friday, July 3, but will be closed Saturday, July 4, and reopen Monday, July 6 at 8 a.m.

If you look closely, you will see that I tweaked a couple other things in this sentence:

1) It is not necessary to write "rd" or "th" after a day, even though you say the ending out loud.

2) "a.m." should be written with periods so it does not look like the word "am."

3) The word "reopen" is usually written without the hyphen.

Now I'm being picky!

Once you've smoothed out your grammar, I do hope you will get outdoors and take advantage of the wonderful farmers' markets and produce stands available this time of year. Around here, it's time for Chilton County peaches as well as local blueberries and other summer goodies.

I'd like to welcome any new blog followers from the ALDOT office in Mobile. I did a workshop there last week and thoroughly enjoyed working with them.

Incorrect use of INTO creates impossible magic situations.

• 
  
  ABRACADABRA! Criminal custodian turns herself into police!
  
  Be careful when using the word INTO. It should not be used in places where IN and TO should be separate. Look closely at this sentence, which appeared in The Birmingham News this week:
  
  XXXXX XXXXXX, a 28-year-old custodian at Bluff Park Elementary at the time of the burglary, turned herself into police Friday after being charged with theft....
  
  What the custodian actually did, I am sure, was to turn herself in to the police. In this case, IN is an adverb that describes the turning. TO is a preposition at the beginning of the prepositional phrase "to the police." It is not correct to substitute the word INTO in this instance.
  
  Here are some other examples:
  
  Abigail turned her co-worker in to the bank examiner. (NOT: Abigail turned her co-worker into the bank examiner. Do you think the co-worker wanted to be transformed into a bank examiner??)

John stepped in to fill his father's unexpired term as mayor.

Peter turned himself in to the authorities after the theft became public. (Peter might have wanted to turn himself into the authorities who would then not charge him!)