Pointed at/to/toward
A car pulled up to the barricades and Mike and Phil got out.
Mike: Are the media here yet?
Phil pointed toward a news van parked further down the barricade line.
Mike: Of course they are.
Hi, I have a few questions to the emboldened sentence:
1) Do you prefer "pointed at", "pointed to", or "pointed toward"?
I had discarded "pointed to", but then I did a search on Google Books Ngram viewer that showed that "pointed to a car" was way more common than "pointed at a car" and "pointed toward a car", which surprised me.
2) Is "further down" what I want?
3) What makes more sense "down the... barricade/barricades/barricade line/barricade's line"?
Top answer
My interpretation is that the police barricade has been set up. So that context is clear that a news team has arrived in a van parked on the other side of the barricade. In the dialog, the reference was the news van, so I would say, "at" is more accurate and common.
- My interpretation is that the police barricade has been set up.
- So that context is clear that a news team has arrived in a van parked on the other side of the barricade.
- In the dialog, the reference was the news van, so I would say, "at" is more accurate and common.
- However, "to" is also semantically fine.
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My interpretation is that the police barricade has been set up. So that context is clear that a news team has arrived in a van parked on the other side of the barricade. In the dialog, the reference was the news van, so I would say, "at" is more accurate and common. However, "to" is also semantically fine.
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