To me, in my version of English (;)) shift in this way = small move, small task, but not entirely welcome (shift has parallels with schlep ie. hard-work/laborious), done informally/ad hoc task.nakatago wrote:And "shifting." I don't know about you guys but to me, shifting is small change or movement in a physical. Shift that chair to the right, you nudge it a bit to the right. The tectonic plates shifted; in a geographical scale, a movement of a meter is a shift.
You go to a Tampines store and you see a sign "We shifted to Jurong oredi."
'He made me shift the pile of boxes of A4 to the Xerox room'.
If it was done by the photocopier guy, or the paper delivery guy, or as part of an established routine then it would be 'move' instead.
-- Agree with the ref to shifting of tectonic plates = small probably insignificant move.