I am at the department store
I am intrigued with the idea of "inside" and "outside" that had appeared when asking about "at" and "in" in one of my threads.
What about: I am at the department store?. Are you inside or outside?.
27 Answers
Hi Nila
You asked:
What about: I am at the department store?. Are you inside or outside?.
I think that when you use the word "at" that it is non-specific in regards to inside/outside as the meaning can be taken to mean "on, in, near," or "by." I think that you would need to use more specific language if you wanted to clarify the ambiguity. For example:
I am on the side walk at (near/by) the department store
I am standing in the checkout line at (in) the department store
I am sitting out in my car at (near/by) the department store
I am at (on) the department store, and I am looking down at you from the roof
Without the additional clarifying information it is really not possible to know with certainty whether the person is actually inside or outside (in, on, near or by)
For example if my wife were out running errands and one of those errands was to pick up some things at the store, if I called her and asked "had she had been to the store yet," she might answer that "she was at the store right now." There is really no way to know without a bit more information if she meant that "she had just pulled up in the parking lot outside of the store" or if "she had just walked into the store" or even if they "had been in the store shopping for a while." I may assume one or the other, but with out additional clarifying information, I would not know for sure.
Does this make sense to you?
What happens if I say to a friend?. We will meet at the department store.
Is it supposed that you are going to meet outside (perhaps at the door)?
To answer this question, you would probably say specifically to your friend that you would meet at a particular place in the department store, especially since they are so large. For instance: I will meet you at Macy's outside by the fountain. or I will meet you at Macy's in the shoe section.
Well, then if I say to a friend:
I bought this in the department store.
I bought this at the department store.
Both of them are correct. What do you think?
Well, then if I say to a friend: I bought this in the department store. I bought this at the department store. Both of them are correct. What do you think?
If you are using a proper name for "Department Store", at is always correct. You could use "in" if you were specifying a specific department of the department store (used as clarification): Where did you get that? I got it in the makeup department at Macy's.
If you are using the words department store, you can use in but it is signifying something specific: that you bought it while being in a department store rather than some other kind of store. But "at" would also be appropriate for that comparison.
Bottom line: you can use "in" but it sounds odd.
If there was a parking lot below ground, you could say I'll meet you under the store (in the parking lot).
At is ambiguous since it is referring to a location as a spot without a boundary. So you could be inside or outside. It would depend on the context to indicate where you are and often it wouldn't be clear without additional details.
If your mom asks where you are and you say "At the store." you could be in the store, in the parking lot, or just walking out of the store.
If you were calling for a taxi, the taxi is going to assume that you are going to meet them outside the store since it is difficult to drive inside to pick you up. However, you might have to also specify at which entrance you are.
But if you are meeting someone, saying you are at the store is not specific enough for them to find you (neither is "in" for that matter). You would have to give more details: I am in the women's clothing area. I am at/in the deli picking out turkey. I am at the checkout counter.
I use at or in interchangeably. I use inside for if I am physically located within the walls of the dept store, and outside if I am physically located out of the dept store, even if I am technically indoors still, such as at a mall.
I think it would depend whether you were inside or outside the store.
If you were, for example, calling a taxi to collect you outside of the store, you would be "at" the store.
If you were calling your mother to ask if she wanted some of the special offers you had just seen while you were shopping, you would be "in" the store.
At least, that's how I would use them.
I think I have found a definition of "at". It is very similar to the one that put Izanoni but the examples are a bit different. This is the definition:
It is a preposition used to refer to anything and everything and to describe the general position when it is not necessary or possible to use "in" or "on", or any more precise preposition. It is like a combination of "in", "near" and "beside".
Examples:
There was a man standing at the bus stop.
At home, at the sea, at the seaside, at the beach, at the river, at the lake, at her mother's house, ...
Also, "at" is used to talk about position in points inside the town: at a hotel, at a bridge, at a bus stop, and so on.
At the end, I came to a conclusion. A department store and a hairdresser's can be considered under different points of view. First, they are points inside the city. En principle, you can use "at" with them, but that depends on the context. They admit "in" too.
Do you agree?. What about: I was swimming in the sea?
The cat is in the hairdresser's.
To me, in and at seem to have something to do with distance as well (in some cases). The above statement means that perhaps you are just outside the hairdresser's and your cat is inside. You could perhaps point at the cat through the window from where you stand.
The cat is at the hairdresser's
Regardless of why the cat is there, you would say this if you were, say, at your house and your cat was at the hairdresser's.
Bill is at the office
Bill's wife would say this because she is at home.
Bill is in the office
Bill's secretary would say this because she is in the same building as Bill.
Just as a by-the-way, I find other language's prepositions very confusing (specifically I am referring to German, French and Spanish). They seem to be highly nuanced in every language.
My high school French teacher was an American, but she had married an actual Frenchman, who was the French professor at our University here. As advanced in English as he was, he said, speaking of electrical cords, "plug it out" for "unplug it." His logic was that since one says "plug it in" then the opposite would be to "plug it out."
There barely is any logic so far as I can see...more like collections of subtle associations that change with context...and they can overlap a bit, too. And, here, I am referring to the prepositions of English as well.
There are several points of view. Izanoni thinks that "I bought this in Macy's" is correct too.
I think that you may have misunderstood what I meant earlier.
I don't think that it would be wrong to say this if you were trying to emphasize that you were actually "in" Macy's when you bought the item, but I think that "at" would be better for the following reason.
You are not trying to say where you were located when you bought the item so much as you are trying to say who you bought it from. So to convey this you would need to use either "at" or "from." Remember that I said that "at" was a much less specific preposition and depending on the context can take on different shades of meaning. In this context, using "at" would be more interchangeable with "from" because it implies who sold you the item or who you bought it from and not as much where the item was located when you purchased it. Of course if you bought it from Macy's then you were likely "in" Macy's when you bought the item (and it will probably be inferred by the listener that this is so), but the primary message that you are conveying does not have to do so much with location as it does with "from where" or "from whom" did you buy the item.
All that being said, for this sentence, the following two would be the two sentences that would be more interchangeable:
1). I bought this at Macy's
2). I bought this from Macy's
Believe me, I understand your confusion in regards to the subtleties of various prepositions. Prepositions have been the most challenging part of learning Spanish for me because of how many shades of meaning each preposition can carry. In the case of the preposition "at," there are at least 15 different usages listed in the dictionary all with varying shades of meaning depending on context, so I definitely understand how this can be challenging.
I don't think "I bought this in Macy's." is incorrect, But I would rarely use it. I Might say it maybe, if I just came out of Macy's and walked up to my friend who had just come out of another store, and I pulled out a new pair of pants from the shopping bag and then said to her "I bought this in Macy's (just now), what do you think of it?"
Now that I think about it, I might use in instead of at in many situations if it is something I had just done or came from. I take that back, I'm not sure, you're confusing me now! 
Hehe, you are getting down to nitty gritty details at this point. You must be an advanced english student. I wouldn't worry about it too much, both are used but I use at more often. Just use what feels good and natural to use or what you hear most often. Either way, you will be understood.
Well, then if I say to a friend:
I bought this in the department store.
I bought this at the department store.
Both of them are correct. What do you think
Yes both would be correct.
I bought this in the department store.
It is correct to say, but not something I'd personally say. Because it is too vague as to which dept store I was referring to. I'd go with the at in that situation.
