Using the FANBOYS "for" in a series

Question

I have a sentence that is constructed the same as this one:

She bought food for a black cat, a white horse, a red dog, and a green frog.

However, I feel the comma does not give enough pause for what I want to convey. Instead of a series for which the comma is used, I would like more separation between each item when the list is read aloud. That is, each item is more important on its own than in the series.

So I wrote this instead:

She bought food for a black cat, for a white horse, for a red dog, and for a green frog.

I use for (from the conjunction mnemonic FANBOYS) in addition to the comma to create the pause I want. Is this so incorrect? Should I just stick with the commas, or is there a better way to represent a longer pause?

Answer 1

Your replacement sentence is perfectly grammatical, but quite formal. It sounds like you're using repetition as a rhetorical device, rather than something somebody would say naturally.

But to be honest, your initial sentence comes across as a little unnatural too. Why mention the colours of the animals? Why is this woman buying food for a cat, rather than the cat or her cat? If you recast the initial sentence in a more natural way, the ambiguity disappears:

She bought food for her cat, horse, dog and frog.

Does that help?