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I found two examples of this kind in Harry Potter so far and in both cases, the speaker is Mr. Weasley and the listener is Harry. Does it add some nuance? Is it his habit of saying?

  1. (In a lift of the Ministry of Magic building. They reach their story.)

    ”This is us, Harry,” said Mr. Weasley, and they followed the witch out of the lift into a corridor lined with doors. “My office is on the other side of the floor.” (Harry Potter 5 [US Version]: p.130-131) [Bold font is mine]

  2. (They are looking for the camp site they booked in advance.)

    ”Always the same,” said Mr. Weasley, smiling. “We can’t resist showing off when we get together. Ah, here we are, look, this is us.” They had reached the very edge of the wood at the top of the field, (Harry Potter 4 [US Version]: p.79) [Bold font is mine]

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4 Answers

up vote 7 down vote accepted

It's commonly used when in a queue-like situation to show that it's our turn. In a lift, for example, when you arrive at your floor, it would be acceptable to say 'this is us'. In the second example, I would be more likely to say 'this is ours', but it's similar. The sites are allocated, so there's sort of a queue, but it's a stretch.

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up vote 3 down vote

You will commonly hear someone (in both North America and the UK) say "this is me" when either riding a bus with someone else or walking together. It means something like "this is my stop" or "this is where my path diverges from yours" or "we've reached my destination, so I'm stopping now". It's an idiom, which means it doesn't have to make sense. I hadn't heard "this is us" before, but to me it's just an obvious pluralization of "this is me."

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2  
I think "This is me/us" is normally used when there are others around for whom "this" is not relevant. For instance, in a car with only me and the driver, it might sound a little odd if he suddenly said "This is us" to indicate we'd arrived. Unless immediately prior to that we'd been noting alternatives that weren't "us" (as in, driving along a motorway and discussing at each exit whether we should get off there). If there were no "part-route co-travellers" or "previously-eliminated alternatives", I'd probably expect "Here we are". – FumbleFingers Aug 31 '11 at 14:52
I agree, I would expect this to be used to explain why I am stopping here, or getting off here, and leaving my conversational partner behind or being left behind. It does feel a little odd being addressed to someone you are bringing with you. Nonetheless, I can tell what it means. – Kate Gregory Aug 31 '11 at 16:09
Actually, I wouldn't think it was at all odd in OP's first context (a lift) because I assume they're watching the "current floor number" ticking over. Mr Weasley is in effect saying "This is the floor for us", because Harry wouldn't otherwise know that. And it's okay in the second, because none of them know until Mr Weasley realises (but they were looking). – FumbleFingers Aug 31 '11 at 16:48
@FumbleFingers Thanks. It helped me a lot. – user7493 Sep 1 '11 at 6:25
There's also the excellent Mark Knopfler/Emmylou Harris track This Is Us on 2006 album All The Roadrunning, where it means This is who we are and what we've done – FumbleFingers Sep 1 '11 at 12:17
up vote 2 down vote

The sentence could be two things:

  1. An ellipsis, in which the word "for" has been neglected This is for us (When getting off the lift onto the story where they intended to go).

  2. It could be a corruption of "This is our destination", (usually shorten to "This is ours" )

But in both cases, it meant that this was the place they intended to go to.

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up vote 1 down vote

In the lift Mr. Weasely by us probably meant not himself and Harry, but the department he worked in. With that in mind his usage of us makes perfect sense.

I don't remember what exactly goes after your second example in the book, but probably there was some kind of sign, marking their campsite, and that makes us quite acceptable here. Compare it to looking on a photo with you and your friends on it. I can't believe this is us. We look so much younger here.

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Absolutely. In neither case did the speaker indicate possession; rather, in both cases (or at least, in the second instance it appears that this is intended -- the passage is indeterminate as stands), the speaker was indicating that "this group of people is us", "us" being the group to which the speaker intended to introduce Harry. – Kyle Pearson Aug 31 '11 at 10:07

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