meaning - "Before" vs. "in front of"


Especially in speeches I often hear a sentence like



I stand here before you...



However during my English classes in school (I'm German) we were told that before should only be used if you're referring to the passage of time (before we arrived at the party we left our home). When referring to a location in front of should be the choice of words (Peter is standing in front of me, so I'm standing behind him).


So, what's the answer to my confusion?



Answer



What you were taught is the usual way, so it's a case of being taught a heuristic rule which is 99% correct but doesn't actually apply to all cases. This is a more formal usage of "before", but there are lots of other examples of "before" for places and locations, e.g. "Two Years Before the Mast".


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