Going Over vs. Going Over To

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, guys. This is Jeffrey from Cardiff-by-the-Sea, California. How are you?

Hi, Jeffrey. Welcome.

Hey, how are you doing?

Good. It’s good to be here. Thanks for having me.

Yeah, sure.

I’m having some marital difficulties.

Oh.

And I’ve been trying to figure out what to do, and I have a co-worker named Alicia who says, I’ve got two great marriage counselors for you. Their names are Martha and Grant.

And you need to talk to these people because they can solve any of your marital difficulties.

Right. Tell my wife that.

What kind of insurance do you have?

So it concerns the way that I say a certain phrase.

And my wife disagrees with the way I say it, and she is holding it against me and is threatening legal action.

She says, when I go to visit my friend, let’s say my friend Alicia, I say I’m going over Alicia’s house.

And she, of course, chimes right in and says, are you going to fly there on a broom? Are you on your broomstick?

You should be saying, I’m going over to Alicia’s house.

Now, of course, I learned in school that going over to is probably the correct usage.

But I was wondering if I’m just crazy, if I’m a grammatical slob, or if other people in parts of the country say, go over someone’s house, rather than say, go over to someone’s house.

And can this marriage be saved?

Well, I don’t know.

Is she seriously?

Let’s ask the experts.

I mean, she’s not going to really divorce you.

No, she’s not going to.

Does it really bother her, though?

It does.

It does really bother her.

Every time I say it, she goes, oh, are you a witch? Are you Harry Potter? Are you going to get on your broom and fly over their house?

And how do you feel about what she says?

Oh, it doesn’t matter to me.

You know, I always say, okay, I’m going over to Alicia’s house. Is that better?

And she says, yes, that’s much better.

So this is interesting, Jeff, because I’m going to throw some jargon at you. Here it is. Locative preposition deletion.

Okay.

Or locative prepositional deletion is kind of common in English.

This is where we take out the prepositions that talk about direction or destination.

And it’s not that tied to very many dialects of English, but it pops up so frequently because prepositions are these little mushy parts of English that we can often do without and do.

It’s not that common.

There are parts of Michigan where people do this and are known to do it.

And the Northeast, too.

Yeah, some parts of the Northeast.

It’s on the record. It happens.

I don’t know. Where are you from, anyway?

Are you from Cardiff-by-the-Sea?

Well, no, I’m not.

I actually just moved here very recently.

Oh, from where?

My wife and I, well, see, I grew up outside of Boston, outside of Worcester, in a little town called Paxton.

Okay.

And then when I was pretty young, probably 11 or 12, I moved to Ohio, northeast Cleveland.

And that’s where I met my wife.

We’ve been together for 13, going on 14 years now.

And so this has been an issue for 13 going on 14 years now.

The point here is that locative prepositional deletion happens in cases of minimal confusion.

That is where people are unlikely to be confused if you leave the preposition out.

Now, your wife is making a choice to pretend to be confused in order to make a joke at your expense.

And that’s, I can’t, you know, I can’t fix her sense of humor.

It’s kind of one of those funny once things, maybe giggle the second time and the third time you just roll your eyes.

But the thing is, so there is minimal confusion here.

She knows that you can’t fly.

You don’t have a Nimbus 2000, right?

No jet pack.

You’re not actually going over the house, like looking down into the chimney or anything.

So she chooses to misunderstand.

And the thing is, there is a little bit of evidence here that you may have picked something up in Boston in your idiolect.

You may have picked this naturally from your environment because it’s not uncommon anywhere in the English-speaking world to hear this.

It’s not that common, but it’s on the record.

We have records of it.

People do it.

It’s in the dialect handbooks.

They say, oh, it happens, and then they move on.

So it’s not just me being sloppy.

No, no, I don’t think so.

I mean, are you sloppy?

She’d be regional, maybe.

The thing is, the speech that you have with us right now sounds fine.

You don’t sound like a sloppy speaker.

So this is advice we could give to everybody.

Liven up your marriage with some locative prepositional deletion.

And I have a feeling that that’s what she does to keep things spiced up a little bit.

You know, it’s been 14 years.

I have a feeling that we’re going to stay together for quite a long time.

You should add prepositions that they don’t belong to.

I love to you.

I love to you.

I love on you.

Well, I think it sounds like you have a very healthy relationship and a rosy future.

Well, thank you.

I appreciate that.

And thanks for all your help with that.

I’ll make sure to let her know that I’m right and she’s wrong.

Thanks, Jeff.

Now wait a minute.

Okay, thanks, Jeff.

Have a great day, guys.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

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