"Beside" usage. The 1st post.

Good day, mates. And thank you for your interest.

We are about to start our 2-post journey to learn more about "beside" and "besides" to find out the difference between them.

For today our task is to unleash our knowledge about the word "beside".

In advance, next time we will know more about a word that looks almost the same, but has nothing "the same" with the previous one except the spelling. It will be "besides" (with the 's' letter)

"Beside"

• "Beside" is a preposition of location.
• "Beside" means "at the side of", "next to", and "compared to".
• "Beside" is more common in writing than it is in speech.
• The opposite of "beside" is "opposite" (quite funny, innit?)

Be careful! There are some guys like: "close to", "near", "by", and 'nearby'. They and the previous "beside", "next to", "at the side of" do not mean exactly the same. I am going to write an article about the difference between all of them later.

e.g.

• hey, there are no free sits here. May I sit beside you? Sure, sit down, please. (next to them)
• my office is located beside the bank. A coffee shop is across the street. (at the side of the bank, next to the bank)
• at a business meeting members of delegations from the UK, the USA and Australia were beside each other. (at the one side, next to each other) Delegations from Russia and Germany sat opposite them. (in front of, opposite, not next to them)
• these expenses seem miserable beside the potential benefits of the project. (it's nothing to compare to the potential benefits)

Alright, mates. We got our journey started.

See you here at the same place next time when the post about "besides" comes out.

Who wants it can make some examples with the preposition "beside" in the comments section below.