FumbleFingers

58,478 reputation

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bio	website	english.stackexchange.com/…
	location	United Kingdom
	age	59
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I did my degree in English/French Language/Linguistics back in the '70s, but I only got a middling grade, and I've worked in software development ever since, so I'm really only an expert on English language in the same way any articulate native speaker is.

To save the trouble of repeatedly doing it on individual posts, I'll just say here that I don't come to EL&U looking for arguments. If I come across as contentious that will nearly always be inadvertent carelessness on my part.

Anyway - if you have been, thanks for reading.

	58,478 reputation	bio	website	english.stackexchange.com/…	visits	member for	2 years, 5 months
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9h	comment	What does “20 weeks pregnant” mean? @StoneyB: IANAL, as you know. Nor are you. WTF is ELU doing engaging with this question?
10h	comment	usage of “Made for” @Lynn: What can I say? Originally you "never heard this expression". Now you've "heard the usage", but apparently with this arbitrary constraint that it's only used of inanimate subjects. I've just checked the context of my fine ambassador link, and I find that the author (Thomas San Roman) says I, like plenty of other people in the USA, have been hit fairly hard with the economic downturns of society.
21h	comment	usage of “Made for” @Lynn: You're obviously not familiar with the usage under consideration. The way you parse it implies someone else (God, perhaps) didn't make him in such a way that he could be a lawyer. But I use the form myself, and I don't parse it that way. I simply see you would make for a fine ambassador as a slightly distanced/hypothetical version of the same sentiment expressed without the word for.
1d	comment	usage of “Made for” @ Irene: if she'd been a wolf, she'd have made for a great Alpha bitch. Saul would have made for a much better story. Etc., etc. It's just more likely with inanimate subjects, not restricted to them.
1d	awarded	Popular Question
1d	comment	What is there in the English corpus beside nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, etc? @ Lincoln: There are many different categorisation systems for "parts of speech". It would be Not Constructive to ask for a definitive list here. But as MετάEd says, it's simply Off Topic to ask why you get those results from NGram - we can't say why they coded the database and query facilities like that. Most part of speech list results suggest 8 categories - somewhat different to the 10 NGrams uses (but at least the first one included interjections! :)
1d	answered	Is it grammatically correct to say: Your understanding is correct?
1d	revised	what does “off-the-shelf” mean? added 8 characters in body; edited title
1d	answered	“Common to” OR “Common in”
1d	comment	usage of “Made for” ...related is the oft-repeated "hard cases make for bad law", where there's no doubt in my mind the "for" is important - it conveys that although the hard cases don't directly create/become bad law, they can certainly be at least a major factor.
1d	comment	usage of “Made for” @Colin Fine: Many instances of (something) would have made for a (something else) are for the sense under discussion. In some cases you could say including "for" implies that the first "something" was only one part of whatever would be needed to result in a "something else" (i.e. - make for* = contribute towards*), but often there's no such implication. If you don't recognise the form, maybe it's not particularly BrE, but it's definitely used by many speakers in at least some contexts.
2d	awarded	Nice Answer
2d	awarded	Famous Question
May 22	comment	What does “English as second language” mean? possible duplicate of Meaning of "native speaker of English"
May 22	comment	What is the meaning of the line “Upon a homely object Love can wink” in this context @User58220: It still means "plain, ugly" in many if not most usages.
May 22	comment	Word for the longest time in spent in a group In the UK Parliament the MP with the longest unbroken record of service is the Father of the House, regardless of chronological age.
May 21	comment	usage of “Made for” But OP is asking about made for, not made. I'm quite familiar with the usage - maybe it's a BrE thing.
May 21	comment	What is the meaning of the line “Upon a homely object Love can wink” in this context I've always heard that love is blind, but I think it's Off Topic Lit Crit anyway.
May 21	revised	Make/take a photograph? added 89 characters in body
May 21	comment	Make/take a photograph? @Lucas: Notes can be made or taken; shits are nearly always taken, but if someone *made* a shit you'd probably understand it to mean the same thing. It all depends on the noun though - when you take tea and make tea you're doing different things.