Put sth in/into

[Dr. Jamshid Ibrahim]

Usually into refers to movement: jump into the river. However, with put things seem to be different. We can say put it in your pocket (not into your pocket) The two might be interchangeable: You have obviously put a lot of work (time and effort) in/into making the house nice . Any ideas?

[riverkid]

Usually into refers to movement: jump into the river. However, with put things seem to be different. We can say put it in your pocket (not into your pocket) The two might be interchangeable: You have obviously put a lot of work (time and effort) in/into making the house nice . Any ideas?

We can say,

"put it into your pocket",

Dr Jamshid Ibrahim. In this case, using 'into' makes it sound more serious, like you don't want "it" to be lost or seen by others.

Results 1 - 10 of about 1,260,000 English pages for "put it into".

Results 1 - 10 of about 5,430,000 English pages for "put it in".

Perhaps, that's why a Google search reveals many more instances of 'in' used with 'put'.

[Humble]

Hi,
One of grammar books says in is preferable with such verbs as put, throw, drop, jump, look.

[Dr. Jamshid Ibrahim]

Thanks Riverkid. Maybe the problem lies in put itself. As a verb of high frequency you are more likely to say put in than put into. I wonder whether people are really conscious of the difference in meaning you mentioned "more serious you don't want it to get lost. But of course I agree it implies more emphasis. This confusion maybe partly because put in has more than one meaning.

[Dr. Jamshid Ibrahim]

Hi,
One of grammar books says in is preferable with such verbs as put, throw, drop, jump, look.

Yes, maybe but jump for example doesn't behave that way. Can you say: jump in the river?
Look into means examine different from look in

[riverkid]

Thanks Riverkid. Maybe the problem lies in put itself. As a verb of high frequency you are more likely to say put in than put into. I wonder whether people are really conscious of the difference in meaning you mentioned "more serious you don't want it to get lost. But of course I agree it implies more emphasis. This confusion maybe partly because put in has more than one meaning.

I agree that put has many uses and meanings so it's hard to state what's used for every case. Humble mentioned that one grammar book states that 'in' is "preferable". This is highly misleading and often means that the writer/s of such a book haven't looked deep enough into why we actually use one or the other.

Native speakers of any language are rarely conscious of the rules of their language. It's not at all important that people be conscious of the rules because unconsciously we know them.

Prescriptive grammar is a good example of how unimportant it actually is to know rules consciously. Many people can "follow" the most inane rules consciously but these "rules" are not followed by people using language naturally.

We can and do say,

He jumped in the river.

Results 1 - 10 of about 13,300 English pages for "jumped in the river"

Results 1 - 10 of about 44,700 English pages for "jumped into the river".

I don't believe that this is simply a random choice but I'm not at all certain at this point just what causes ENLs to choose one over the other.

One instance; when "Go jump in the river" is used with a meaning similar to "F**k off" or "Leave me alone" or "Get outta here", an 'into' would sound funny.

[Humble]

I've heard Go jump in the lake in this meaning.