Where Are You At?

Grammar Girl here, and today I’m going to tell you where it’s at!

'Where It's At'

Just kidding. I used the phrase “Where it’s at” in an episode a few years ago, and a listener called me on it. How embarrassing, given that I always give the same advice about phrases like “Where it’s at” or “Where are you at?,” whether it’s in a radio interview, in a podcast episode, or in a book, I always say that because phrases like “Where are you at?” and “Where are you?” mean the same thing, you should omit the “at.” I’m standing by that advice, but today we’re going to talk about why this redundant phrasing exists.

First, I want to make one exception to my advice about “where” and “at” when it comes to the phrase “where it’s at.” By now, this particular phrase, meaning that something is really cool, is an established idiom of American English. If you take out the “at” and say something like, “Ballroom dancing is where it is,” that’s nothing but a tautology: It’s located where it’s located. But if you say “Ballroom dancing is where it’s at,” that’s something else entirely, and in a not-so-serious context, it’s acceptable. Having said that, I hereby retract my apology for using the idiom “where it’s at.”

Now let’s talk about a more typical case of “where” used with “at”: The question “Where are you at?,” which means the same thing as “Where are you?” To understand how this “at” got into the picture, we need to look at the history of “where” and its relatives in English.

Where: Location

In present-day English, the word “where” can be used in several ways. Of course, you can use it to ask about a place where something is or something happens, as in “Where are you?” or “Where do you live?” I’ll call this the “where” of location. This is the “where” that’s always redundant when you add an “at” to it.

Where: Origin

You can also use “where” to ask about an origin, in questions like, “Where are you from?” The preposition “from” isn’t redundant, because “Where are you from?” does not mean the same thing as “Where are you?” I’ll call this the “where” of origin.

Where: Destination

Furthermore, you can use “where” to ask about a...

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