posted
All too often I find a situation where (I swear) either "of" or "for" seem to fit, but I can't tell which fits better. So much so that it seems awkward, if anything.
posted
There's no single, hard and fast rule of thumb for when to use which word. Application choice commonly serves from practice and habit. Of and for are prepositions and function words. The purpose of prepositions is to introduce preposition clauses. The most common English prepositions being of, for, to, in, on, and from. Function words have little, if any, lexical meaning. Their main purpose is to distinguish grammatical relationships of words in sentence syntax. Style manuals, grammars, and dictionaries of usage are mostly mum on which to use when. Webster's 11th Collegiate has a dozen or so explicit uses of either, as will any comprehensive dictionary.
[This message has been edited by extrinsic (edited February 17, 2009).]
Queen of England / fight for England Pint of beer / recipe for beer Made of stone / mining for stone in favour of proposition 42 / voting for proposition 42
"I pray of you" = "I beg you" "I pray for you" = "I request divine intervention on your behalf"
I don't understand the problem. Examples of where the choice is difficult?
posted
Thanks for the replies. In all of those cases it is pretty clear, maybe when I'm revising again later I'll see the sentences that stood out to me as ambiguous.
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posted
Those two examples could go either way, depending on context not provided.
In the "of" example; "as a function word to indicate the object of an action denoted or implied by the preceding noun." Satisfaction being the preceding noun, climbing being the denoted action.
In the "for" example; "used as a function word to indicate an intended goal." Climbing a mountain being the intended goal.
The former is less awkward, at least in isolation without additional context. The latter, with additional appropriate context or by recasting could be seamless to read, though. ie, . . . reward for climbing a mountain,
However, from might be an alternative, better function word; . . . satisfaction from climbing a mountain,
Cites from Webster's 11th Collegiate.
[This message has been edited by extrinsic (edited February 18, 2009).]
posted
you know what guys, artistic liberty. you have to make a decision based on what you want the reader to get from it.
to use the mountain example, you could use those as a sort of... state of mind. "of" denotes that you get the actual satisfaction of climbing a mountain, without actually doing it. "for" suggests that you plan on climbing a mountain soon, and want to be satisfied before hand so if you fail your not unhappy. "from" probably says that you are going to, but your satisfaction comes from the actual activity, not finishing it.
posted
usinf "for" in the mountain example confuses me it doesn't make sense to my mind. Maybe I've got some weird altered perception of the word "for" but how could you get satisfaction "for" something you get it "from" something. You sue "of" it sounds as if climbing a mountain is satisfying to you like maybe you've done it before or something. Anyways perhaps I don't know what I'm talking about, but that's my two and a half cents. Unless you say "For her, I would do anything" but that a different example entuirely. "For satisfaction, I would climb a mountain" "For climbing a mountain I would be satisfied" that begins to make sense to me.
Posts: 61 | Registered: Nov 2007
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For. I think from would work just as well. He didn't get the dollar to give to the chores, in this case he is getting the dollar because he did his chores. But for still works, I think.
posted
In the mountain example, "of" makes much more sense to me. "For" seems awkward. I'm not entirely sure why.
To venture a guess, it might be that "got a dollar for doing his chores" it makes sense because the reward is coming from an external source. Someone is actually giving the dollar. In the case of the mountain, is anyone actually giving you satisfaction? Not really, satisfaction is part of the climbing, and not due to an external entity. That's what comes to mind, though it could very well be BS.
posted
You also have to take into account that english is a language where a number of the rules are mental and taken fro granted. What's the difference between "I" and "Me"? or "is" "am" and "are" ? when you think about the definition they actually mean exactly the same but no experienced english speaker would ever say "Me did it" we would say "I did it" nor would we say "you am well?" "I are well" "They is well" I fully expect a number of other people to find these statements odd, I however do not becuase I've removed my preconceptions and focused purely on definiton. Foreihners often have difficulty with these types of words when they have not had practice with english.
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