Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[Teo]

1. I'm over here.

2. We drove over to Grandma's after lunch.

3. You mean you came all the way over from Brazil for the conference?

4. The fax machine is over in the corner.

If we omit the word 'over' in the above sentences, will there be any difference in meaning?
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Thank you very much for your reply.

[myprofe]

[2006]

The first sentence can be different without "over".

"I'm over here" tells you (exactly) where I am.
"I'm here" can mean "I'm over here" but can also mean I have arrived.

[myprofe]

[2006]

No problem. Speaking too soon is an ever present trap. In fact, when I first read your answer I agreed with it but later the difference came to mind.

[redset]

Adding over usually implies some distance - like if you say 'the printer's there' you could mean that it's somewhere close to you, but by saying 'the printer's over there' you're implying it's further away. Actually in British English you can often use over in place of across ('he lives over the road'), so it has a similar sense of having to cross something (distance, an ocean etc.) to get there.

[ad-miral]

wow a good place to learn english
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If I say "I love you" to someone, then I also have to say "I also love everyone else inside you, I love the whole world because of you, I also love myself inside you." -- Erich Fromm, the Art of Love

[2006]

In North American English, "over there" doesn't imply distance. 'Way over there' implies distance'. On the other hand, 'just over there' means that it's not far away.

To my knowledge, "He lives over the road." is not said in North America. 'He lives across the road.' is said.

It's too bad that English learners have to put up with these differences.

[redset]

[2006]

No, if the book was on my desk I would not point at it and say "It's over there.", but to my mind, "there" is the word implying distance. I would say "It's over here (on my desk)."

Let me give another example. If one person was sitting on a bench and taking up the place of two people, I could ask him to "please move over a little" so that I could sit there too. (no real distance involved)
If he said, "I'm sorry, I'm not feeling well; I might have to lie down soon.", I could say "No problem, I can go and sit over there." (implying distance)

Maybe our disagreement just shows that there are regional and even personal differences in the way words are perceived.

[redset]

Heh well, if you're asking someone to 'move over' you're asking them to move out of the way by a suitable distance, whereas just asking them to 'move' is more ambiguous (are they just meant to twitch or something). Also, in this situation you're using over in the sense of across ('move across the bench'), or along if you like.

As far as here and there go, I still think you'd say 'there' when the object is some distance from you (say not quite within reach). To get a little more complicated, I was thinking about the Japanese system which basically uses three words: koko meaning 'here' (close to me), soko meaning 'there' (not close to me but close to you), and asoko meaning 'there' (not close to either of us, at a distance). We use here and there in similar ways - if the other person is nearby we might refer to an object as 'there', but if they are at a significant distance from us and the object we might use 'here' since the object is relatively close. I think asoko is analogous to 'over there' since we use it when referring at objects distant from ourselves, but also distant from the other person.

Luckily we don't actually need to think about all this when we speak! It's interesting to pull apart these ingrained concepts though...