Put his hands to or on

[Talab1234]

I have always thought the correct usage is “put his hands on” not to. Is this correct?

“Sirius Black may not have put his hands to the Potters, but he's the reason they're dead.” - from Harry Potter

 

[Barque]

It's unusual. But Rowling did try and use unusual speech patterns in those books. I wouldn't use it in regular speech.

- from Harry Potter

You need to either specify the name of the book (none of them is called just Harry Potter) or say "from one of the Harry Potter books".


Edited to add a correction:

I have always thought the correct usage is “put his hands on” and not "to".

Or you could use a comma instead of "and".

 

[emsr2d2]

You must quote the full source and name of the author. Contrary to Barque's advice, it is not sufficient to say "one of the Harry Potter books".

Please provide the exact name of the book and credit the author.