Learn English – The meaning of the phrase ‘send over to someone’

"Over" in this context means that you will be talking or taking some similar action during the time when you are eating or drinking something, or (much more rarely) doing some other activity.

If you used "with" in this case it would change the meaning. Consider these sentences.

Bob and Willard fell in love over dinner

means that they fell in love while they were eating their dinner. If you say:

Bob and Willard fell in love with dinner

it means they really, really like their dinner. Using this construction, even where it is less ambiguous, to mean "while eating dinner" is not very idiomatic. You can have wine with dinner; you have a discussion over dinner or during dinner.

You can restate this in other ways, however.

Let's work out the details over a couple of beers

can be restated as:

Let's work out the details while we drink a couple of beers

but this sounds a bit awkward and stilted. My guess is that that's why the shorter "over" idiom came to be--it avoids the ambiguity of "with" but is simpler than constructions like "while we eat" or "to accompany" or suchlike.

As a mnemonic--and a plausible origin--think of two people sitting at a table drinking tea. The tea is in cups on the table; the discussion passes over it, above the table. The discussion is literally happening "over" the tea.

For the meaning of "wanting to know someone's thoughts about something" the only good sentence is (6).

Let's look at the ungrammatical ones

(1) I asked him on an opinion.

(3) I asked him of an opinion.

(7) I asked him over an opinion.

Each of these sentences is ungrammatical. The prepositions used don't work in context.

(5) I asked him an opinion.

This is also unacceptable. In this construction, the sentence has the meaning of I asked an opinion to him. Now, you can't ask an opinion, it doesn't make sense. "An opinion" becomes the direct object...and opinion doesn't make sense as the object of "ask".

Now let's look at some of the correct, but odd sentences.

(2) I asked him about an opinion

This is a correct sentence, but it doesn't quite mean what you think. In this sentence, it's assumed you already know the opinion, and you are looking for more information surrounding it—for example, the reasons for it.

(4) I asked an opinion of him.

This is an acceptable sentence, but again, the meaning is slightly different than what you give. It doesn't mean so much that you required him to give his opinion, but rather that you expected him to.