Timeline for Why is "for" used in "for example/instance"?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
14 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 14, 2018 at 22:29 | answer | added | clickbait | timeline score: 0 | |
| Jun 5, 2017 at 9:54 | vote | accept | luchonacho | ||
| Jun 5, 2017 at 6:57 | comment | added | aparente001 | @Mari-LouA - Yes. I enjoy editing questions to make them look as nice as possible. I probably overdo it.... | |
| Jun 5, 2017 at 6:54 | answer | added | Ben Kovitz | timeline score: 3 | |
| Jun 5, 2017 at 6:53 | comment | added | Mari-Lou A | @aparente001 No, examples don't have to be veritable, but it helps if they are realistic and believable. I was also subtly pointing out that the term book should be plural, which I see you picked up on or maybe not, but at least the example sentence is now grammatical. | |
| Jun 5, 2017 at 5:17 | history | edited | aparente001 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
fixed typo
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| Jun 5, 2017 at 5:17 | comment | added | aparente001 | @Mari-LouA - Well, not all the material in constructed examples has to be taken from actual reality. (Or, they might be short books.) | |
| Jun 4, 2017 at 17:55 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/StackEnglish/status/871425164264837120 | ||
| Jun 4, 2017 at 16:22 | comment | added | Mari-Lou A | You also tell tall stories, fourteen books in seven days that's two books a day, every day for one week? Wow... :) | |
| Jun 4, 2017 at 14:56 | answer | added | Arm the good guys in America | timeline score: 5 | |
| Jun 4, 2017 at 13:12 | comment | added | John Lawler | There is no meaning of for in for example; it's a fixed phrase, descended from another fixed phrase (for the sake of example), which in turn is descended from a Latin fixed phrase (exemplī grātiā), which doesn't have a for. Instead grātiā, 'thanks, sake, grace' appears in the Ablative case (that's the long ā at the end of grātiā,) and that has the same use as the for in English, just like the possessive case of exemplī has the same use as of in of example. So there's no point in looking up prepositions in the dictionary. Mostly they don't mean anything. | |
| Jun 4, 2017 at 11:48 | comment | added | Yosef Baskin | You may be overlooking definition 1: In support of, or in favour of (a person or policy). Definition 7: Representing (the thing mentioned). 'For example' introduces a thing that represents a sample of the general category mentioned. | |
| Jun 4, 2017 at 11:08 | answer | added | user66974 | timeline score: 2 | |
| Jun 4, 2017 at 11:02 | history | asked | luchonacho | CC BY-SA 3.0 |