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I was recently asked a question by my friend on the difference between:

  1. I am going to the library downtown.
  2. I'm going to the library in downtown.

At first, the second sentence didn't give me much sense, but I just read the sentence a couple of times, and the meaning it gave me somehow is that the first one is saying that the library is located in the downtown area (not a specific place), and the second one is saying it's located in a specific place called downtown (like maybe a mall called downtown - FYI there is a mall called downtown in my country that's why I thought of that).

So what do you think? What is the difference?

Yahya Fati
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  • There seems to be a lot of regional variation in how people use words like "downtown", "town", etc, lots of idioms, so this is a complex issue. This question is about "to downtown" but is relevant: https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/113452/is-downtown-an-adverb-of-place – Stuart F Oct 30 '21 at 11:51
  • I've googled "library in downtown" (without opening links); there's only 1 distinct example in the first 20 of a non-attributive (as opposed to say 'library in downtown LA') example. But the usage is out there. – Edwin Ashworth Oct 30 '21 at 13:10
  • We don't normally say: in downtown. We would say: in the downtown area. – Lambie Oct 30 '21 at 18:09
  • @Lambie I'd say lots of we's dont. But some we's apparently do use this. – Edwin Ashworth Oct 31 '21 at 15:18
  • @EdwinAshworth I guess it pays to be sarcastic, and just because some hits on the Internet appear does not show its common usage. You yourself said downtown LA. – Lambie Oct 31 '21 at 15:25
  • It's the patronising 'we' that I'd consider out of place on ELU. There are quite a lot of examples using standalone 'in downtown' on the internet, for instance here. It seems to be growing in acceptability. – Edwin Ashworth Oct 31 '21 at 15:45

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