Hi dear colleagues

 

  Hope everybody�s doing GREAT. You know I�d like to know the specific difference between the prepositions "opposite" and "across from". I mean can they be used interchangeably or in some contexts there would be a difference in meaning. I was also wondering to know if we could use across from when two people are sitting or standing opposite each other.

 

Thanks a lot in advance!

 

 

 

Hi!

I am pretty confident somebody will disagree with me, but from what I can gather, "opposite" is mostly used by British English speakers, and "across from" is more frequently used by American English speakers. For Irish, Canadian, Indian, Australian or other native English speakers, I really would not like to hazard a guess. Irvine Welsh, the renowned Scottish writer, often uses "across from," and I know Americans that use opposite so, this would be quite a generalisation. 

For people standing in front of each other, if they are separated by something (a road, a table, etc.) I would have thought the same usage would apply. 

They are basically the same. I use both forms.

 

There is a good explanation here between British and American English:

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/learnit/learnitv222.shtml