Mea Culpa: A singular preposition

Susanna Richards chases the goblins from last week’s Independent

Some phrasal verbs and assorted syntactic nuisances torment a team of sub-editors (Getty)

Mild conflict [What other kind would we entertain? Ed] arose within the editorial department last week over our use of the word “onto”. It has long been contentious as it is so often got wrong: this week alone we have misused it a number of times, as we have probably done with its alter ego, the phrase “on to”.

Some of us believe that the latter is the only correct form in any circumstances, but I disagree. Of course, we should use it where the single-word version would be incorrect. In an article about the Afghan pilot who has just been granted asylum in Britain, for example, we quoted someone as saying: “It’s what he and his family deserve; now onto the rest who served alongside us.” In this case the “on” part implies “onward”, so it shouldn’t have been combined with the “to”.

A similar issue arises in relation to some phrasal verbs, such as “move on”, wherein the verb is combined with a preposition in a way that changes its meaning. These are phrases in their own right, and thus the “on” ought not to be joined to the “to” that follows. The phrasal verb, though, is also the grammatical goblin that puts paid to the idea of using the two-word form in every instance. In certain contexts, to do so can introduce ambiguity.