Timeline for "The books arrived TO you" or "The books arrived AT you"?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
19 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Mar 31, 2021 at 21:46 | comment | added | James Martin | Middle-aged British speaker here - another report that "will arrive with you" is standard and unremarkable UK English. A google search for <"will arrive with you" uk> produces pages and pages of examples (I believe that search even works from a US geolocation). It's not particularly informal or careless - most of the examples there are companies telling customers when to expect a delivery. You might also use it to tell a hotel or a host when to expect you ("we will arrive with you around 6pm on Sunday") - useful to discover that this would sound strange to North American ears! | |
| Mar 31, 2021 at 14:08 | comment | added | user8356 | Both of the examples sound completely wrong to a native American English ear. "The books reached you" or "The books arrived at your house" are OK. | |
| Mar 31, 2021 at 12:38 | comment | added | Colin Fine | @alephzero, the nineteen examples I found in the iWeb corpus are neither informal nor careless. On the contrary, they are somewhat formal: they have the air of official notifications. | |
| Mar 31, 2021 at 10:32 | comment | added | Graham | @alephzero As complete beginners, no. For more advanced students though, they should be capable of using more informal sentence construction, and this is a fairly common example. For a similar example, I would expect an advanced student to know the word "yeah" and to use it in informal contexts; or in French, I'd expect their trainers to be "godasses" and not "chaussures" in an informal context. | |
| Mar 31, 2021 at 7:47 | comment | added | Michael Homer | I think this is OED sense 22b of “with", “at the house of”, and despite the needlessly aggressive comments above it’s a perfectly standard usage, albeit quite formal-sounding to my ear. If you want to use “arrive <preposition> you”, that’s the preposition you want (but you probably don’t want to if you’re asking the question). | |
| Mar 31, 2021 at 3:59 | comment | added | alephzero | @ColinFine The fact that some people say something (either informally or carelessly), and other people can figure out what they probably meant, doesn't mean English Language Learners should be taught to say it. | |
| Mar 30, 2021 at 21:03 | comment | added | Colin Fine | Surely I am a native English speaker, and I am far from tone-deaf. The iWeb corpus has 20 instances of "should arrive with you", and by inspection precisely one of these has the meaning people are insisting is the only possible one ("your pets should arrive with you on the same flight and be checked baggage"). The other 19 are all of the form "[the documents/your order] should arrive with you [at/within some time]". Half a dozen of them have wording which suggest they are of British origin: I wonder if this is another BrE/AmE difference. | |
| Mar 30, 2021 at 19:53 | comment | added | FeliniusRex - gone | @ColinFine I'm afraid saying that this phrase could possibly mean something else isn't helpful; your answer states definitively that it is being used to meant sent to. So, how can you justify this answer? Is it region or country-specific? I've not heard of it in the SE US. | |
| Mar 30, 2021 at 18:32 | comment | added | Colin Fine | For all the people pontificating about "what it means": I beg you to consider whether it might not be possible for a phrase to have more than one meaning. Certainly it can mean that you and the books arrive together. Certainly it is not a common way of saying that the books reach you. But, as @PrimeMover mover confirms, with suitable context, it can mean that. | |
| Mar 30, 2021 at 15:23 | comment | added | Tristan | "arrive with you" doesn't mean the books arrive where you are though, it means the you and the books have arrive together | |
| Mar 30, 2021 at 11:16 | comment | added | Criticizing Israel not allowed | or "You will receive the books on Wednesday" | |
| Mar 30, 2021 at 11:00 | comment | added | psmears | I agree that "arrive with you" is a bit awkward but not unheard of. Personally I'd be more likely to say "... the books will be with you on Wednesday." | |
| Mar 30, 2021 at 8:12 | comment | added | Prime Mover | @EthanBolker and others: while it does seem to be ambiguous and imprecise, the "with you" construction as indicated by Colin Fine is not uncommon. I've seen quite a few occurrences of it in the wild. | |
| Mar 30, 2021 at 7:43 | comment | added | Stilez | I'm with Ethan - arrive with you is not usual English unless they actually arrive with you, because you are bringing them. We can expand the phrase as "The books are arriving/will arrive with you" - and with in this sentence doesn't normally just mean "at the same time", it means actually with you. Carried by you,in your bags, or similar. But never, ever, is it arrive "to" you. | |
| Mar 30, 2021 at 0:33 | comment | added | Edwin Buck | "The books arrive at your location" is better in keeping the meaning of the sentence the same, if you must use the word "arrive". "The books arrive with you" means you and the books are together (with) and you will both arrive at the same time. | |
| Mar 29, 2021 at 22:26 | comment | added | Peter | @ColinFine To me "it arrives with you" does not mean you are the recipient; it means you arrive simultaneously with it. | |
| Mar 29, 2021 at 21:48 | comment | added | Colin Fine | @EthanBolker: it could indeed mean that. But as an adjunct, its relationship to the head is vague. I find "I've sent the book and it should arrive with you on Wednesday" clear and unremarkable. | |
| Mar 29, 2021 at 20:43 | comment | added | Ethan Bolker | +1 for "neither". I disagree about "arrive with you". That suggests that you arrive carrying the books, or that by chance they are delivered just as you arrive. | |
| Mar 29, 2021 at 20:21 | history | answered | Colin Fine | CC BY-SA 4.0 |