I’ve seen this used somewhat uncommonly in literature and in posts on social media. It tends to happen, from my experience, when someone is trying to explain something in-depth or as a addendum to a point trying to be made. For example, and to create a circular reference:
I have a question about the usage of the word for, “For I’ve seen this used somewhat uncommonly in literature and in posts on social media.” Is there a term or any significance and/or difference for using the word “for” in the quoted sentence of the second paragraph of this question versus not using it in the first paragraph?
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You’ve completely lost me with this one… What is the question?
>I have a question about the usage of the word for, “For I’ve seen this used somewhat uncommonly in literature and in posts on social media.” Is there a term or any significance and/or difference for using the word “for” in the quoted sentence of the second paragraph of this question versus not using it in the first paragraph?
In the quoted sentence, the word “for” is used as a synonym of “because”.
“For” can be used to mean “because” here but it’s not common usage and kind of archaic.
Putting “for” at the front signals that what follows has caused something else to happen. It’s usually short for “therefore”, so it is grammatically incorrect the way you used it. It needs an argument before.
>”I am questioning this word’s usage. For I’ve seen this used somewhat uncommonly in literature and in posts on social media.”
“Because” is more flexible, because you can put the statement after as well:
>”Because I’ve seen this used somewhat uncommonly in literature and in posts on social media, I’ve created a post about it.”
So it signals that there’s a train of thought.
Are you a native English speaker?
I’m having a very hard time understanding what you’re trying to ask/say here especially with your inconsistent punctuation…
For those of you who might be confused; he’s asking a question about a word.
I’ve seen it used at the beginning of a sentence to avoid ending on a preposition – “what did you do that for?” ends on a preposition, but “for what purpose did you do that?” does not.
Ending a sentence on a proposition is considered by many to be improper English and reordering the sentence does carry the sound of being educated (or maybe just pretentious) and is an arbitrary rule that doesn’t really have a solid basis anyways, but it’s still respected by many.
It also has a bit of archaic use as a “because,” as someone else brought up, but usually in a clause instead of its own sentence – “Bring me a glass of warm milk, for the night draws late and I wish to retire.” I’ve never seen it at the beginning of a sentence that way, but maybe you have!
It’s also valid just as a proposition in regular sentence structure, but I don’t think that’s what you’re talking about – “for all the other insomniacs I wish a blessing of sweet dreams and peaceful sleep” is just a sightly poetic sounding reordering of the sentence “I wish a blessing of sweet dreams and peaceful sleep for all the other insomniacs.”
_EDIT – I missed an “I” in an example, whoopsies._
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