Do you think the conversation below sounds natural?
John: I’ve got all the details about the project in an email.
Jake: Send it across (to me)
Can we use across in this context? Also, can over be used in its place?
Wow, that was a helpful post from treblerfromuk. NOT.
Daemon, you pretty much have to use over instead of across. Across won’t work in that context.
Hi Daemon99,
The choice of ‘across’ or ‘over’ depends very much where the two protagonists are in relation to one another. On the face of it I would suggest both are all right. Perhaps ‘across’ might apply if they are both in the same building and ‘over’ might suggest different locations. But this is hairsplitting, I think.
Alan
Perhaps this is another difference between Br.E and Am.E, but to me, as a Yank:
‘Send it across’ to me sounds completely unnatural. Perhaps if it was a paper report, and the two people were within hearing distance of each other, with a peon to do the ferrying, then maybe.
In the instance of an email, I can accept nothing except ‘over’ (regardless of proximity between speakers).
I stand firmly by my assertion there’s nothing to do with an email except send it ‘over’ ( i.e. over the internet).
Let me rectify that. I guess you could conceivably print out the contents of the email, then if they were sitting across the aisle from each other send it across via a third person.
Methinks I’m smelling another Briticism vs. Americanism here…
Not even in another person’s variety of English?
Methinks so too. :lol:
I would tend towards “over” too; if I said “across”, I would have a sense of “conscious oddity” (perhaps involving that very useful peon from your earlier post). So I don’t think it can be a BrE/AmE difference.
MrP
And yet:
1 SEND OVER 16
2 SEND ACROSS 1
The BNC.
Seems the first one is more popular.
The Cambridge Dictionary does seem to support the idea that “send it across” (in reference to sending an email) would generally be an unusual usage rather than a common one:
But does the same dictionary suggest that “over” is usual in sending e-mail?
Yes, for something such as email, I’d say so.
.
On reflection, I would say “Send them over” here (i.e. the “details”).
MrP
Erm, didn’t you just defend my position? :? Thanks, though. 
(“Your honor, permission to treat myself as a hostile witness?”
“Granted.”)
What can I say, ya’ll have had the language longer than we have, so I have to make a conscious effort to give ya’ll the benefit of the doubt, despite our attempts to perfect it. :roll: Good relations, and all that.
I agree, peons are a must, you can never have enough. I try to buy them whenever they’re on sale.
I can’t find a reference to e-mail here:
To sum up the positions so far:
Skrej’s preference: over
Alan’s preference: both over and across are fine
Molly’s initial opinion: both over and across are fine
Molly’s current opinion: maybe over is better?
Amy’s preference: over
MrP’s preference: over
If I have misinterpreted anyone, just let me know and I will be happy to assemble a revised summarized version of the opinions and preferences stated in this thread. :lol:
.
You’ve totally neglected the role of peons. Epic fail.
I’m disappointed.
How’s this, skrej? :lol:
Skrej’s preference: over
Alan’s preference: both over and across are fine
Molly’s initial opinion: both over and across are fine
Molly’s current opinion: maybe over is better?
Amy’s preference: over
MrP’s preference: over (unless some kind of “conscious oddity” is involved)
[color=white].
.
[size=84](Technically, I don’t think MrP actually stated what he thought the preference of the of the peon from M’s earlier post might be.)[/size]
.
I’m not sure we should encourage peons to have preferences.
MrP
Not exactly. I still think both are fine in BrEng and NigEng. And not “better”, but maybe “over” is more common.
And why is Alan’s a preference and mine an opinion?