I would
like to know the difference in use between in front of, before
and across.
Is it correct to say: he was sitting before me or do we have
to say he was sitting in front of me? If it's incorrect to
say: he was sitting in front of me, why do we say: the
criminal was brought before the judge?
Roger
Woodham replies:
Before
/ in front of (prepositions)
Before is not normally used to refer to place. We normally
use in front of to specify place the opposite of which is
behind. Compare the following:
Sam was sitting in front of my girlfriends in the
cinema but behind my sister.
I was waiting patiently in the queue. In front of me
there were about two hundred people and behind me a further
three hundred.
Before is normally used as a preposition to indicate time.
Its opposite of which is after:
Your brother arrived at the church shortly after three,
but I distinctly remember saying to everyone: "You must be
in your seats at or before three o' clock".
Excuse me, I was here before you. I should therefore
be in front of you in the queue.
However, before is used to refer to place when it
indicates position in a list or when it means in the presence
of somebody important:
K comes before L in the alphabet, but after
J.
He had behaved so badly in school that he was brought before
the headmistress.
I was accused of dangerous driving but rather than pay the
fine, I elected to appear before the local magistrates.
Note that in these last two examples before means facing
and not one behind the other.
Before
(conjunction or adverb)
Before is often used as a conjunction linking two
clauses or as an adverb of time, meaning at some time
before now.
Give me a ring to let me know you are on your way before
you leave the house.
Make sure you get to the church before the bride arrives.
Before she married Maurice, she went out with Austin
for a couple of years.
He was certain we had met before, but I was equally
sure we hadn't, for I had never been there before.
Within two minutes of it starting, I realized that I'd seen
this film before.
Across
(preposition)
In American English, across from as in across the road
from me or across the table from me is expressed in British
English by the prepositions opposite or facing:
She sat facing me across the table. (She sat across
the table from me.)
They live directly opposite us in the green house.
(They live across the road from us in the green house.)
In British English, across means from one side to the
other, expressing movement, or on the other side of an imaginary
line, expressing position:
My older sister lives just across the road, but Jenny,
my baby sister, lives right across the city, 60 minutes
by Tube or two hours in the car.
Rather than walk twenty miles to the nearest bridge, we decided
to swim across the fast-flowing river, unaware of the dangerous
currents.
Across
or through?
Note the difference in use between across and through.
Across suggests flat or open space, whereas through
suggests a space which is closed with things on all sides:
Although it was dark, I was not afraid of walking home through
the forest.
The ice was quite thick and he experienced no difficulty
in skating right across the lake.
We cycled across Bodmin moor and through a number
of small villages.
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