Put your hands "in" or "into" your pockets?

Question

Which of the following sentences is correct, and why?

"Put your hands in your pockets."
"Put your hands into your pockets."

Are these sentences intended to be, for example, instructions to a child on a cold day, or requests made by a master of ceremonies at a fundraiser? Would it make any difference? — JavaLatte, Mar 17 '16 at 21:35

score 21 · Accepted Answer · edited Mar 13 '16 at 04:11

21

As per this Cambridge Dictionaries page,

We use in to talk about where something is in relation to a larger area around it:
A: Where’s Jane?
B: She’s in the garden.
I’ve left my keys in the car.
We use into to talk about the movement of something, usually with a verb that expresses movement (e.g. go, come). It shows where something is or was going:
A: Where’s Jane?
B: She’s gone into the house.
Helen came into the room.
Compare:

She’s gone for a walk in the garden. (She is in the garden walking.) She walked into the garden. (She entered the garden.)

With some verbs (e.g. put, fall, jump, dive) we can use either in or into with no difference in meaning:

Can you put the milk in/into the fridge? Her keys fell in/into the canal.

However, even with a verb like put, some additional context can favor the use of one preposition over the other:

I put my hands in/into my pockets to keep them warm.
Slowly, he put his hand into his pocket and snuck out a folding knife.

In the second example, we're placing emphasis on the movement of the hand, so into appears to be more appropriate than just in.

edited Mar 13 '16 at 04:11

Færd

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answered Mar 11 '16 at 08:22

diaochan07

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I think this is the better answer. – minseong Mar 11 '16 at 11:50
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Yes, the "in your pockets" stresses the end result. The hands end up in your pocket. The "into your pocket" stress the action itself of the hands going into the pocket. – chadbag Mar 11 '16 at 16:58
@chadbag - That's true, but "in your pocket(s)" is still very common, even with the verb put. Interesting Ngram. (Not an argument from me, just trying to help provide a complete picture.) – J.R. Mar 11 '16 at 20:50
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"I put my hands into my pockets to keep them warm. -- Slowly, he put his hand in his pocket and snuck out a folding knife." I think it is more of an element of style/personality rather than intended nuanced meaning. – zoplonix Mar 11 '16 at 22:31
@chadbag but you can't say "her hands were warm into her pockets." – phoog Mar 11 '16 at 22:52
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Anecdotally, "put your hands into your pockets" sounds odd to me. Googling "into your pockets" and "hands into your pockets" brings up this page as the first result, which seems to back this up somewhat. – Kyle Strand Mar 11 '16 at 22:58
@phoog There is no action to be stressed, so no, that does not make sense. – chadbag Mar 12 '16 at 00:30
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@KyleS - I searched for put your hands in your pockets and put your hands into your pockets on Google books. Both queries returned roughly the same number of hits and provided several dozen examples. I think the "into stresses the motion" argument may be true, but the nuance is so slight that more people don't really think much about it one way or the other until asked to analyze a question like this one. Compare: Never put your hands into your pockets, and jingling of keys and coins is a great distraction. vs. Do not put your hands in your pockets, keep them free to gesture. – J.R. Mar 12 '16 at 09:59
@J.R. But your ngram shows that "in" is consistently more common than "into". – Kyle Strand Mar 12 '16 at 16:57
@KyleStrand - Ngrams are tricky in that they only allow a string of five words max, and "put your hands in(to) your pockets" is a six-word string. So the Ngram I originally showed says nothing about pockets – those hands could be being put in the sink, in your lap, in your mittens, in the air, etc. – J.R. Mar 12 '16 at 20:41
The is similar to The dog jumped on/onto the bed. There is a different preposition used, but the usage of onto does not necessarily single out the motion of the dog any more or less than on does not (although, of course, on the bed can also mean where the jumping occurred rather than where it ended). – Alan Carmack Mar 14 '16 at 03:32
Compare He walked in the house at 6pm and asked where dinner was. By context, in is 'equivalent to' into here and tells us no less than into would, as far as motion is concerned, at least to this native speaker of American English. – Alan Carmack Mar 14 '16 at 03:36

score 16 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 11 '16 at 08:33

16

Which of these sentences is correct?

"Put your hands in your pockets."
"Put your hands into your pockets."

Answer: Both sentences are acceptable and correct.

Why?

Because prepositions are flexible words with multiple meanings. Also, there are many cases where more than one preposition will work just fine.

Check out the Ngram. You'll see that both phrases are in use.

Here's another example:

He pulled a coin from his pocket.
He pulled a coin out of his pocket.

Both are acceptable, both mean the same thing, and both are in use.

answered Mar 11 '16 at 08:33

J.R.

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+1, but not the slightest nuance of meaning between the two? I put my hands in my pockets to keep them warm. -- Slowly, he put his hand into his pocket and snuck out a folding knife. – Færd Mar 11 '16 at 10:35
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@Fard - You should flesh that out into an answer, and explain how some additional context might make one preposition more appropriate than the other. (My answer is mostly points out that, without that additional context, either one could be regarded as correct.) – J.R. Mar 11 '16 at 12:41
@Fard Did you seriously sneak a snuck into that sentence? – Cascabel_StandWithUkraine_ Mar 11 '16 at 16:27
J.R. I proposed an edit to the other existing answer instead. @Gandalf Why? You prefer sneaked? – Færd Mar 11 '16 at 20:16
@Fard A lot of teachers consider it to be non-standard at this point in time. There's a lot of disagreement about the usage. – Cascabel_StandWithUkraine_ Mar 11 '16 at 21:13
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@Gandalf Well, I went by Oxford Dictionaries and Merriam-Webster Dictionary. I guess it can pass as informal American, at least. – Færd Mar 11 '16 at 21:41
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@Gandalf and Fard. I speak American English and didn't flinch the use of snuck. To me sneaked sounds weird. – Alan Carmack Mar 14 '16 at 03:44

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered May 19 '17 at 10:45

He jumped into the river. He jumped in the river. The first one is correct because the stress is on the movement and on the change of position from outside to inside, as we cannot say that he is swimming into the river, we will use ' in' instead. So the sentence " He put hands into his pockets" will be markedly correct.

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Mar 18 '16 at 12:52

The word "in" can mean:

"inside" (unchanging position)
"into" (changing position from outside to inside)

Put your hands in your pockets = Put your hands into your pockets

Your hands are now in your pockets = Your hands are now inside your pockets

So both of your sentences are correct and mean the same thing, but using "in" here is more common.

Put your hands "in" or "into" your pockets?

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