MM1 Words meaning ‘opposite to’: Suppose the barn is here (Gesture with hands) and the shed is here, you could say, “The shed is ________ the barn.”
MM2 Suppose a little girl accidentally gets her dress on wrong so that the back part is turned around, you could say, “Look, you’ve got your dress on ________.”
MM3 When someone does something the wrong way round you might tell him: “This is the front, you’ve got the whole thing turned ________.”
MM4 Words for a short distance past—for example, the mail box, a short distance past the pine tree, you could say: “The mail box is just ________ the pine tree.”
MM5 When you’re pointing out a house that’s not far away: “The house is over ________.” (Gesture.) [Early QRs: When somebody is pointing out a house that’s not far away: (Gesture.)]
MM6 Other words meaning ‘very close’ or ‘only a short distance away’: “The house is ________ the park.”
MM7 If there’s a house on each side of the school (Set up an object and use both hands) you’d say, “The school is ________ the houses.”
MM8 A bad housekeeper sweeps the dirt either under the rug or ________ the door:
MM9 If you are standing in line, and a man named John is in the position before you, you might say, “We stood in line and John was ________ me.”
MM10 The opposite of ‘behind’: “Is the car behind the house?” “No, I left it ________.”
MM11 When you’re trying to find something—you don’t know where it is—you might say, “I must have left it ________.”
MM12a Other ways of saying ‘in all directions’—for example, you might say, “He shot into a flock of birds and they went ________.”
MM12b Other ways of saying ‘in all directions’—for example, you might say, “When she was out on the dance floor, she broke her beads and they went ________.”
MM13 The table was nice and straight until he came along and knocked it ________.
MM14 If a drugstore is on one corner of a square and a gas station is on the far corner you might say, “The drugstore is ________ the gas station.”
MM15 If a carpenter nails a board crossing another board at an angle, you might say, “He nailed the board on ________.”
MM16 If you’re walking with somebody to the other corner of a square, and you want to save steps, you might say, “It’ll be shorter if we ________.”
MM17 If two things are next to each other, you might say, “He put the two boxes on the table (Gesture with hands) ________.”
MM18 “Going from the kitchen to the back steps, he walked ________ the door.” (Pointing gesture) [Early QRs: Other ways of saying ‘out’—“He walked ________ the door (through!)”]
MM19 “He took the letter ________ his pocket.” (Gesture.)
MM20 “So that she could sit down, he took his coat ________ the chair.” (Gesture.)
MM21 Other ways of saying ‘off’: “Get ________ my land.” [Asked in early Questionnaires only]
MM22 If you are talking to a friend who lives in another place and you want to inquire about his neighborhood, you might ask, “How are things ________?”
MM23 Do you use ‘uptown’ and ‘downtown’ around here? What do they mean?
MM24 Other expressions meaning ‘a short distance’: “The river is just a ________ from the house.”
MM25 Expressions meaning a long distance: “Texas is a ________ (from here).”
DARE Data Summary by Dictionary of American Regional English (DARE) is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.