“About” and “For” with Adjectives

10 thoughts on ““About” and “For” with Adjectives”

1. Hi,

   Could you please include a post on verb, acting as Gerund/Participle.

   Regards,
   Ranjeet

2. I was wondering if you could help clear up the meaning of the word factoid in everyday use? I was interrupted in a meeting after supposedly using the word incorrectly. So after a debate, we looked it up and were both correct. My interpretation followed the 2nd meaning of the definition according to Merriam-Webster and my colleague’s interpretation followed the 1st. But to me, they couldn’t seem to be more polar opposites?
   Main Entry: fac•toid
   Pronunciation: \ˈfak-ˌtȯid\
   Function: noun
   Date: 1973
   1 : an invented fact believed to be true because of its appearance in print
   2 : a briefly stated and usually trivial fact

3. Good reference list. Thanks!

4. What circumstances determine when you use “for” or “about”?

5. Hm…I never thought about it. Always did it by sound. What is the rule that is followed in knowing which to choose. Reckon I might as well know why I’m right.

6. I’m with Lawrence Miller–I just know (from years of reading middling-to-good writers) which prepositions can be used with which adjectives. I think. . .

   Ranjeet Singh, while you are waiting for Maeve to do that, you might take a look at The English Club: . Although it is designed for those to whom English is a foreign language, I actually find it quite a useful place to go ferrret out the explanation behind usages I employ instinctively. They seem to have a fair bit to say about gerunds and participles, and the differences between them. . .

7. Here’s right back at you, Kathryn. I went to and found it is a good source.

8. Lawrence–glad you liked it. I finally found, on that site, an explanation of the third conditional (and, for that matter, I found out that it was CALLED the third conditional), the failure to use which is one of my all time pet peeves with modern users of English. I’ll have to take a look at what it has to say about adjecctives & prepositions. . .

9. I’d never heard that term, either, but I don’t know what you mean about failure to use it; I’ve never noticed that. Except that many Americans say “if I would have (done such-and-such)” instead of “if I had …”, which makes no sense…

10. Peter–agreed, most Americans can do the third conditional when it involves woulda-shoulda-coulda constructions. But they have abandoned it altogether when the auxiliary verb is might. When was the last time you heard someone say (or you read a recently written sentence that said) “If I had known that, I might have acted differently?” Virtually all modern American speakers and writers would render that thought “If I had known that, I may have acted differently.” Wrong, wrong, wrong.