A young caller from Austin, Texas, wonders: Why do we say things like go to the store or go to the park, but leave out the word the when we say go home? In this case, the word home functions as an adverb. The same is true for phrases such as go upstairs, go left, go North, and similar expressions. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Go Home vs. Go To the Home”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Alex calling from Austin, Texas.
Hi, Alex. Welcome to the show.
Hi, Alex.
Thanks. I’m here with my son, and he had a—I’m usually pretty good at answering his language questions, but he had a stumper for me.
So I’m going to pass the phone to him so he can ask this question.
Okay, great.
Why is it go to school, go to the park, but you say go home?
How old are you?
I’m 11.
Okay, and you’re curious why we say go home, but we say go to the store or go to the park or go to a movie, huh?
With go home, something is missing.
Usually, you’ve probably noticed that the word home functions as a noun, and a noun is a person or a place or a thing.
And a home is a thing, right?
Right.
Usually, you have a pattern of go to the store or go to the park, but instead of saying go to the home, you say go home.
And that’s because it’s a special case of home functioning not as a noun, but as an adverb.
It’s something that gives the location or direction.
And there are other examples of this in English, if you think about it.
Go left.
Perfect.
Yes, that’s a great one.
Go left, go right, go downtown, go north, go south.
There are special cases where the verb is modified by an adverb.
And it doesn’t act on a noun.
And that’s one of those cases.
So what other nouns do we have that can become adverbs in those conditions, Martha?
You said a few, like downtown, outside, upstairs, underground, overseas.
Yeah, there are a lot of them.
Yeah, a lot of them.
So what you’re learning here, Sagan, I guess, is that words don’t always stay a single part of speech.
They can put on different clothes and take on different roles like actors on a stage.
They behave differently in different circumstances.
I see.
Well, thanks.
Thanks for explaining that.
Take care now.
Thank you for asking the question.
Welcome.
Bye.
All right.
We welcome calls from younger listeners.
So if you have one in your household and they have a good question about language, we’d love to hear it.
