"In order for" vs. "for" [closed]

Question

Sometimes when writing I instinctively use "in order for" instead of "for" under the impression that this will make the sentence more readable, even though "for" would have been equally grammatical. For example:

As Quine said, there is a potentially infinite number of things that must be true in order for that statement to be considered true.

Am I correct in assuming that it is better to use "in order for" instead of just "for" in this situation? Or am I wrong and it's actually worse to use "in order for" here? Or perhaps it doesn't matter at all and both options are equally good? I am not a native English speaker and a professor of mine who also isn't just corrected this sentence removing the "in order for" and leaving only "for", but I was not convinced that it's better with only "for". I'm curious about what native speakers or language specialists would have to say.

Answer 1

As Quine said, there is a potentially infinite number of things that must be true (in order) for that statement to be considered true.

The simple answer is that the PP "in order" is semantically optional. Personally, I can't see any real stylistic preference one way or the other, though some speakers may consider its inclusion to be slightly more formal.

Syntactically, the subordinate infinitival clause can function as purpose adjunct itself, rather than be governed by the PP, so that's not a deciding factor either.

Note that, despite what some dictionaries say, "in order for" is not a constituent. "In order" is a preposition phrase and "for" is a subordinator introducing the to-infinitival clause for that statement to be considered true, which is a separate constituent. The infinitival clause functions as complement of the prep "in order" or, if the latter is not present, as direct complement of "true".

Note also that the clause subordinator "for" only occurs with to-infinitival clauses that contain a subject, as your example does.

Answer 2

If we concede that "In order for" and "In order to" are analogous, then some reference writers are not so charitable:

In "The Careful Writer" by Theodore M. Bernstein under "In Order To":

"A wasteful locution. In the vast majority of instances in order may be deleted with no loss."