The idea of of the expression “to walk a mile in someone’s shows” is that if you experience life as someone else does for a while, you’ll be more likely to understand them.
In other words, to treat people well it’s important to understand their point of view.
But what is a point of view, and how can you use this phrase in your own conversations? Let’s find out.
How do you use “point of view” in a sentence?
To use “point of view” in a sentence, place it after a possessive pronoun (his, her, their, your) or a possessive noun like “the man’s.” The phrase should also be followed by a verb, usually “is” or “was.”
The meaning of “point of view”
The phrase “point of view” is essentially a synonym for the word “opinion.”
Much like an opinion, a point of view is something that somebody believes about the world.
People might have a point of view about politics or religion, for instance.
And of course, just like an opinion, someone’s point of view on a topic can change over time as they grow and change as a person.
Alternatively, you might overhear someone asking a friend to consider something from their “point of view” to mean something like “think about how I might feel.”
The grammar behind “point of view”
Grammatically speaking, “point of view” is a noun phrase. That means it’s a series of words that are built around a noun.
The main component of the phrase is the noun “point.” What kind of point? It’s a point “of view.”
When we consider the meaning of the phrase, that makes sense: a point of view is a point (or place) where you can get a different view of something.
Just like walking to the top of a mountain will change your view of the landscape, mentally considering something from a different “point of view” can change your understanding of a situation.
When using “point of view” in a sentence, you will almost always place it following a possessive pronoun like his, her, your, or my or a possessive noun that stands in for the pronoun.
Of course, as we see with the phrase “someone else’s,” possessive grammar can be confusing. But in this case, you just need to remember that the “point of view” needs to belong to somebody.
Likewise, the most common things to come after “point of view” are being verbs like “is” or “was.”
Again, you’re typically expressing what the person’s point of view is, so this makes sense.
Other verbs, especially ones like “changed” that describe the state of the point of view, can also follow the phrase.
If you get stuck, just remember that this phrase means more or less the same thing as “opinion.”
That means you can swap out the phrase for the word and go from there.
Here, “point of view” is preceded by a possessive noun (“the teacher’s”) and followed by the word “was.” As noted, you could swap the phrase out for the word “opinion.”
Senator: “I don’t need to explain my point of view to you people.”
In this very stand-offish example, the senator declines to explain his feelings about ants by pointing out that it’s just his opinion, and he doesn’t need to talk more about it.
Our final example shows how opinions and points of view can change over time. This example also includes a plural form. Remember that “point” is the noun, and what gets pluralized!
Hey fellow Linguaholics! It’s me, Marcel. I am the proud owner of linguaholic.com. Languages have always been my passion and I have studied Linguistics, Computational Linguistics and Sinology at the University of Zurich. It is my utmost pleasure to share with all of you guys what I know about languages and linguistics in general.