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1- Get this bag down the back. (There is a bag hanging in front of you and you are sitting on the front seat of the car)

2- Get this bag down to the back.

I saw the first sentence in a movie. I don't understand why we don't use "to"? Is the sentence one missing out the "to" ?

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  • Neither of those phases are correct, were you watching the movie with subtitles? – Karen927 May 30 '19 at 22:25
  • Yes but I am sure the character says the sentence one. – Talha Özden May 30 '19 at 22:28
  • What movie was it? Sounds like a loss in translation. If I understand what you are saying, the bag needs to be moved to the back seat of the car? If so, you'd say "Put that bag in the back" or "Put that bag on the back seat". – Karen927 May 30 '19 at 22:33
  • Mad Max: Fury Road. There are lot of sentences like that "We need someone down the back" . They are on a huge truck and the truck has a huge space. I think by saying "the back" , they are not mean the back seat. – Talha Özden May 30 '19 at 22:42
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Per your comments, it would be "we need someone down in the back" or "we need someone in the back" or "we need someone down back." Contrast that with "we need someone up in the front."

If one is in the process of moving toward the back that is when you would use "to the back".

Example: I moved to the back of the bus when more people got on.

Also, "on the back of" refers to the opposite side of something.

Example: I saw his picture on the back of the book.

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  • Thanks, that phrase made me wonder and I searched for it. I found a sentence : "Stop laughing down the back" (theguardian.com/sport/blog/2015/apr/01/…) – Talha Özden May 30 '19 at 23:14
  • Thanks for providing the context ("OK, stop laughing down the back."). That must be an Australian slang as it does not exist in American English in the context of the article you provided. You can use "down the back", just not in that context (e.g. "The water ran off the roof and down the back of the house."). – Karen927 May 30 '19 at 23:24
  • Hi, I asked the same question on another website. Someone said: Down is the preposition and gave this examples: "You've spilt something down the front of your shirt/down your front." "I'd rather sit down the end of the carriage." "Move up the front of the bus, please." 'The magician hid the umbrella down the back of his coat/down his back." – Talha Özden May 31 '19 at 10:17
  • Okay, now I understand what you're getting at. Back to your original question, "to" is used with "down" when referring to a direction ("We went down to the beach.") or length ("His hair is down to his shoulders."). It is also used idiomatically to express reduction in size in terms of competition ("There were originally 10 people competing, now it's down to 2.") and incremental detail ("She planned everything down to the last detail", "He drank all his coffee down to the last drop."). – Karen927 May 31 '19 at 18:14

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