Don’t know if you’re coming or going?

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‘I don’t know if I’m coming or going!’


Go means ‘move from one place to another.’ We go to work, we go to bed, and we go on holiday. Come means, basically, ‘move towards the speaker.’

Besides, both go and come – and other verbs of movement – often combine with words like in, out, up, or down, to refer to different directions. When you enter a room, you may be coming in o going in, depending on the speaker’s point of view. In other words, depending on where the speaker is.
He’s going into the head teacher’s office.

The choice between go in and come in, come up and come down, will depend on the context, and the speaker’s position is key.
Come may also mean ‘move with the speaker or in the direction of the listener’.
 
That’s why we say ‘Coming!’ when somebody is waiting for us, to let them know that we’re on our way – when the doorbell rings, for instance.

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