Hand in hand

Hand in hand

This is an easy one. There are two ways to use “hand in hand,” and neither way is very difficult.

“Hand in hand” is an expression we use when two things are closely connected or work together in harmony . Let’s take a look at the two ways to use this expression.

Things that “go hand in hand”

First, you can use “hand in hand” to show that two things are naturally connected or happen together. Here’s an example. Some people say “success” and “hard work” are naturally connected. You’ll be successful if you work hard; when you’re successful, you’ll probably continue to work hard. It’s a nice lesson that doesn’t always work that way in the real world —but let’s go with it.

If you want to say that “success” and “hard work” go together, that they are naturally connected, you can say, “Success and hard work go hand in hand.” Picture the idea of “success” and the idea of “hard work” holding hands! They go together . Success and hard work go hand in hand.

The other way you can say it is, “Success goes hand in hand with hard work.” That means the same thing. So the two ways to say it are, “one thing and another thing go hand in hand” or “one thing goes hand in hand with another thing.”

Can you think of two other things that go hand in hand? How about this one: “ Innovation and creativity go hand in hand.” Or this one? “ Trust goes hand in hand with good communication.” I like that one. To have trust , you must have good communication. If you have good communication, you can build trust . Trust goes hand in hand with good communication.

One quick note on this one, we don’t use “hand in hand” with two words that mean almost the same thing. For example, “Practice and hard work go hand in hand.” That’s not right. “Practice” and “hard work” are not precisely the same thing, but they’re closely related , so it would not be correct to use “hand in hand” with these two words.

Working ‘hand in hand’ toward a goal

Okay. Next, you can also use “hand in hand” to describe people or groups working closely together to achieve something . In the previous case, we used the word “go;” in this case, we’ll use the word “work.”

For example, “The two companies worked hand in hand to develop the new product .” This means they worked closely together. Can you think of an example of two companies working closely together to do something?

Think back to the very first vaccines against COVID-19. BioNTech is a smaller pharmaceutical company from Germany. This is a simplification , but BioNTech had the formula and intellectual property to develop a vaccine. But to actually bring it to market quickly, they needed the power of a big drugmaker . So BioNTech partnered with Pfizer. Pfizer helped with testing , logistics , manufacturing , and distribution . They partnered together; they worked hand in hand.

They worked closely together. BioNTech had the formula and the IP. Pfizer had the scale to bring it to market. They worked hand in hand to produce the vaccine. Just like in the previous example, you can say “they worked hand in hand” or “one worked hand in hand with the other.” Even before making the COVID vaccine, BioNTech was working hand in hand with Pfizer to produce a similar vaccine against influenza . Like that.

When you use “hand in hand” with “work,” you can sometimes put an objective or a goal after the phrase. What were they working together to do? For example, “The teams worked hand in hand to finish the project on time.”

Or here’s one. NASA, America’s space agency, cancelled its Space Shuttle program that took astronauts to the International Space Station. So it gave contracts to Boeing and SpaceX to build spacecraft and then send American astronauts up there.

So NASA and SpaceX worked hand in hand to develop a new program to send astronauts to space. NASA didn’t just let SpaceX do everything. There were detailed requirements , specification , testing, all kinds of stuff . Lots of communication; lots of working closely together. So we can say, NASA worked hand in hand with SpaceX to send astronauts to space.