Where You At?

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Debbie Frail.

Hi, Debbie. Where are you calling us from?

Marquette, Michigan.

Welcome to the show, Debbie. What’s on your mind?

Well, I’m wondering why I get in trouble for my daughters for saying, where are you at?

And you want to know why you get in trouble?

Oh, yeah. They always are correcting me, and I still do it. But they tell me it’s redundant.

It’s the way everybody talks. I mean, I understand what they’re saying, but it’s the way we say it.

So I want to know where you’re at.

So you’re saying where are you at or where are you at or both?

Both.

I noticed, though, they say something that I think is redundant.

Do you want to come with?

They missed something there.

Let’s focus on where you’re at for a second.

So where are you at?

So what’s happening?

You’re on the phone with them and trying to figure out whether or not they’re going to make it to your lunch date or something like that?

Yeah, how old are they?

21, 24, 18.

Okay.

And so, yes, so there’ll be noise in the background, and I’ll say, well, where are you at?

Right.

Mm—

Right.

There’s a lot to say on this.

I do want to agree with you on one part of this.

Lots of people say this.

This is incredibly colloquial.

It’s widespread across the United States.

It’s far more common in some parts of the country than others, such as the South and the Great Lakes region, but it exists everywhere.

Another thing to say about this, we are divided on this, whether or not some people will permit the words to come out of their mouths in that order and whether or not they won’t.

There was a survey done in 2003, and they asked people, would you say where are you at to mean where are you?

And 34% said yes, 36% said no, and the rest said I can use it in certain contexts about asking for progress, like progress towards a destination or progress towards a goal.

But they wouldn’t use it to mean where are you at this particular moment, like where physically in the world do you stand or where do you exist?

And so that kind of shows you right there like a three-way division of people who won’t use it, who will use it, and people who make kind of this fine distinction on when they won’t use it.

So that said, just know that there’s no one perfect answer for this, at least in terms of common idiomatic American English.

I think the problem that people have with this sometimes is that it ends in a preposition.

Do your daughters ever bring that up?

They always do.

Yeah, and that’s an old bugaboo that’s a fake rule that should never exist in English and should never be taught.

The other complaint that people have is when you say, where are you at?

You’re leaving out the verb.

Right. But her daughter’s complaint is that it’s excessive, that it’s a pleonasm, that you don’t need the at there.

Well, you do.

Where are you?

So here’s the thing about the at.

Here’s the thing.

It is actually doing a job.

The at can actually make the question more specific.

For example, if I call you on the phone and I say, where are you?

You might say, I’m on the train.

But if I say, where are you at?

You’re like, I’m in Houston.

I’m on the train in Houston.

You might get more specific.

Does that make sense?

I never thought about that. Is that the way you use it?

No, both ways, really, I do.

And I’m thinking sometimes it’s for a location.

I want them to pinpoint a location for me.

But I would say something, let’s just say this.

The hammer, I’m looking in the garage for the hammer.

They say, well, where’s the hammer at?

I think you’re falling in this nice case here where sometimes when you say, where are you at, you actually are seeking clarity.

And adding the at does give a more specific question that solicits more specific answers.

And this is something that linguists have studied.

And it’s well chronicled and there’s a very clear division when we look at when we analyze conversation and text.

We do see that that’s actually happening.

However, there are other cases where that at is redundant and you do not need it.

But to separate them out as a speaker may be difficult to do.

So you’re defaulting to including the at and that’s just your mode of speech.

I would say that if you were trying to speak formal English in a court or to an elected official or to the head of your church or something,

Maybe saying where you’re at would be taken as too informal, and you need to think about saying where are you.

Well, isn’t that interesting?

Because I notice when I’m in a formal setting like that, I don’t use it.

Oh.

My brain just goes there not to use it.

Is that right?

Yeah, it is.

I’ve noticed that myself.

So you’re already understanding the circumstances when it’s okay and when it’s not okay.

That said, this is messy.

I would say your daughters shouldn’t correct you.

That’s my opinion on this.

And I think if it bothers you that they do correct you, you can either ask them to stop or you can just stop saying where you’re at.

Thank you.

All right.

Take care.

And you know what?

If they want to push back, we welcome their call, too.

Yeah.

Hi to your daughters.

Oh, I’m sure they will.

Okay.

So they are, and I’m glad they do.

All right.

Take care now.

Well, you know where we are.

Bye.

Bye.

Yes.

Thank you.

I guess the summary is to simply say that it’s uneducated speech does not come close to approaching the complexity of that particular sentence.

That’s a good way to put it.

There is a lot more to be said, and that at does do a job in some cases.

I’ve never thought about that, honestly.

Most people don’t have the linguistic background to determine whether or not it’s doing a job, so maybe it’s best to avoid saying, where are you at?

But it does sometimes do a job.

Do you have a family dispute about a word or phrase?

Call us about it, 877-929-9673, or send it an email to words@waywordradio.org.