The Devil Finds Work For Idle Minds to Do

Witness for example the writing of Mein Kampf or the invasion of Iraq.

In my case, I start pondering. For example today I am pondering: At what point does "over there" become "over here"?

If you're talking to a colleague by telephone in a building across town, you might ask "How's things over there?". Clearly, "over there" means some substantial distance. Yet if you're carpentering away on a piece of work you might ask someone to "hand me that saw over there", clearly designating an area within a few feet.

Conversely, if you invite the colleague we mentioned earlier to your office party, you might say "are you going to come over here?", indicating that over here includes the entire building you're sitting in, and likely a portion of its environs.

Yet if you and said colleague are sitting in the same room, you might ask them to "pass that report over here", which indicates that the term covers only the few metres of space most immediately adjacent to your person and ending somewhere around the edge of your desk.

Sometimes I ask the SO, friends, and total strangers questions like this. This often helps clarify these questions, sometimes it just confuses them:

"Don't make me come over there."

Now which "over there" are we talking about? Personally, I think they're referring to over here.