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I'm completely confused when it comes to the combinations with over / down / out:

Thank you for coming over / - coming down / - coming out.

Come over here / - down here / - out here.

Over there / Down there / Out there.

How do I decide which one and when to use?

qwaz
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  • Partially covered at Do I travel "up" or "down" to London from north of the city? // 'Up my street and down the lane' // “Come over” and etymology of other idioms – Edwin Ashworth Jan 21 '15 at 12:21
  • It's not about over | down | out but about the collocation with coming and the idiomatic meaning/ usage of the three respective phrases coming over | coming down | coming out -- one needs to learn these (endless number of) collocational usages and idiomatic phrases gradually in the course of building up one's familiarity with the language. http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/come-down (more ...) – Kris Jan 21 '15 at 12:22
  • Compare: come over "to visit someone in the place where they are, especially their house: Why don't you come over for dinner? come over to: * Come over to my place and we'll discuss it.* One could as well say "Come down to my place," but it's not so much of an invitation. – Kris Jan 21 '15 at 12:26
  • I still do not understand when and which to use. If it is about coming, then what do I use with bring, like bring it over | bring it down here | bring it out here. I do not understand the concept. – qwaz Jan 21 '15 at 12:26
  • @EdwinAshworth No, it's not related to that post. – Kris Jan 21 '15 at 12:29
  • Folks, if you don't get the hang of the question, please do not close vote. Thanks. – Kris Jan 21 '15 at 12:54
  • Folks, if you can't see that one idiosyncratic locative usage of down is related to another . . . And that 'come' isn't mandated by OP's question/s. – Edwin Ashworth Jan 21 '15 at 14:15

2 Answers2

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They're all perfectly good, and in some contexts, two or even all three of them will fit: it all depends on the spatial (or sometimes notional) arrangement of the situation.

Come over means "come from somewhere else to here". Sometimes it is literal: from the other side of the road, or of a fence. But sometimes it is more abstract, meaning something like "from your notional space to mine". This might mean neighbourhood (from your town to here), or property (from your house) but it might be much more vague, "the place you happen to be in right now, to the place I happen to be in". In the latter case there is often (but not always) a slightly antagonistic sense to it, implying that you have not only a physical position but a "position" from which you are arguing. A common idiom is "come over" meaning "come to my house for some social reason".

Come down means, "come from a higher place to here". Literally it might be used to mean "come down the stairs" or "come down from your balcony". But it is often used in one particular metaphorical sense of "come to this meeting place" such as a club, a mall, a bar. "Thanks for coming down" is often used at the start of a meeting.

Come out means "come from inside to here", and is nearly always used literally*; but what constitues "inside" may vary - out of a house, out of a crowd, out of a park.

The idiomatic use of spatial prepositions and adverbs is one of the hardest parts in learning a language.

(*) There is also a very specific idiomatic meaning of come out as "Announce publicly something about oneself that has been kept secret, especially homosexuality".

Colin Fine
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  • Agree, absolutely. Not sure how far that would help a non-native speaker of English unfamiliar with the idiom, though. – Kris Jan 21 '15 at 12:52
  • See also: my comment at Oldbag. – Kris Jan 21 '15 at 12:53
  • This as well as @Oldbag's answer have cleared up things for me significantly. – qwaz Jan 21 '15 at 12:58
  • People in Edinburgh and Glasgow use the phrase go/come through to mean to travel from one of those cities to the other (just go through without an object, I mean). I've never heard this from anybody else, but I have heard Glaswegians use the same idiom referring to other pairs of cities, eg Manchester and Leeds; they were not necessarily understood. – Colin Fine Jan 21 '15 at 13:21
  • Yes, and to elaborate that a little, the spatial expression you use, since it depends on where you and the listener are situated with respect to each other, conveys information about your spatial relation to who you are talking to. Then, since spatial relations are often used metaphorically for social or class relations, the choice of words can also convey information about this. You might say "come over" to suggest that you think of your listener as being a social equal. The jargon word for all this is "deixis". – Greg Lee Jan 21 '15 at 14:54
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Thank you for coming over. - Usually said to someone who lives in close proximity to you, when they are visiting your home.

Thank you for coming down. - When someone has to physically descend, (from the audience to the stage, from a higher floor/level to a lower one) or, when they have traveled north to south,("In January, we leave NY and go down to Florida.") or when they have traveled from a (perceived or actual) higher elevation to a lower one. ("Thanks for coming down to the beach.")

Thank you for coming up. - (See above: [the opposite]) "They went up to Alaska." "He went up to the lake, in the mountains."

Thank you for coming out. - When people join you at a place that is not your home, or, when someone travels east or west (or, west to east) a long distance: (To someone in NY:) "Are you coming out to Colorado this year?" or, if someone has simply joined you outdoors.

Oldbag
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  • It's not that simple, really. The problem is that many of these phrases could be used interchangeably in a given situation, with different connotations. Think about that. – Kris Jan 21 '15 at 12:53
  • @Kris -It's too early in the morning to think about it any further - also I didn't want to keep writing "usually" - but feel free to add all the interchangeable examples in the comments. – Oldbag Jan 21 '15 at 12:58