Does “over” mean “away” here? Can we say “…three towns away.”?

It more means "you have to pass 3 towns to get there." It's more an idiom.

Yes, and "he lives three towns away" is correct too. However, as an American, I only expect to use "over" instead of "away".

Yea, both sound equally correct and understandable to me. I don't really know why other people say "over" and not "away" but it might just be different from place to place.

Not really. Three towns over means like three towns past their location. So away technically works but no one says it like that

“over” is usually meant as if, in this example, you were envisioning literally passing three towns to get to that place. i usually hear it said when the object of measurement isn’t an actual unit like miles or kilometers, but things like towns, blocks, doors (in a building) “away” in place of it could be slightly awkward but probably wouldn’t seem weird to me if i heard it. “over” used for actual units of measurement, however, would sound weird example: “He lives three towns away,” sounds fine, but “He lives three miles over” doesn’t.

"Over" has a very specific connotation here. When you're counting "(number) (things) over", you're counting the possible destinations. When you're counting "(number) (things) away", you're counting the spaces between them. * "Mr. Johnson's class is three rooms over" means that the class is in the third room in a sequence from here. The destination is a room. * "The ocean is three miles away" means that the ocean is at the end of a three-mile stretch from here. The destination is *not* a mile. To put it in a diagram, this is three (circles) over: (here)----(1)----(2)----(destination) and this is three -lines- away: (here)--1--(X)--2--(X)--3--(destination)

It's shortened from "over yonder" which colloquially is defined as the vague direction the person speaking gestures towards with their hand.

From here

You could. I probably would. You could even say *three towns from here.*

I have to respectfully disagree with some of the comments here. I'm a native English speaker from America, and personally, I'd say "three towns away" rather than "three towns over". That sounds the most comfortable to me. Actually...I'd just say "he lives in a nursing home an hour away" or whatever, I'm not going to count the towns lol. America is large and people say things in different ways. I'm a millennial from the West side. Maybe that's just how we say things. Or maybe it's just me. In any case, "over" and "away" are both equally correct here.

Yes, they're interchangable, I don't know why the fuck reddit forgot how to speak english recently.

I wouldn't say it's particularly common use, but over is more common than away as someone from England. I'm more likely to mention the town he lives in, and if asked how far away that is, give a rough estimate in miles. Three towns over/away is a very vague description, it could be in any direction from your location, and as a result the distance could vary drastically.

"away" implies you are trying to travel there. It is about distance. "Over" just lets you know the location. It is about WHERE not how far. Also "over" is more folksy and familiar. "away" is a little colder.

In UK context I have very rarely heard over in this context. Though I know what it means through US media. We would use away, or perhaps up or down if the towns were in a line on one road.

British would be more likely to say away, American would be more likely to say over

Yes, they are pretty interchangeable

I think both are fine. Away might suggest a greater degree of directionality.

If you said "away", people would understand you, but it doesn't have the exact same connotation as "over", because "over" signifies a sequence of objects next to one another. "Away" would usually imply a unit of measurement; as for example "three miles away". But towns are not necessarily equal in size to one another, which makes the expression "three towns away" a little eccentric, but completely understandable. I can't speak for different regions, however. I have lived in Michigan, Wisconsin, Rhode Island and Virginia, and people in Michigan, Wisconsin and Rhode Island would all prefer "Three towns over" to "three towns away". But I don't think people in Rhode Island or Michigan would ever use either expression because they would find it unrefined. Unsure about Virginia.

I suppose you could say away. I can’t see any reason to when the normal phrasing is over.