could you please explain to my children (using precise english grammar rule references) why it is wrong to use the expession "for why" (eg I will tell you for why). This has started to appear all over television and eminates from the US but causes the hair on the back of my neck to stand up every tme I hear it.
Comments
Do they also say I will tell you to how do it? I will tell you to where go? I will tell you at when he arrives?
I don't know what precise rule you want to reference, but "why" in that construction stands for "the reason," or, more informally, "how come."
If you substitute that back into the sentence, you'd never say "I will tell you for the reason" or "I will tell you for how come." It just makes no sense.
Excellent!
Cheers, CB
I'm missing something. Are you saying that "I'll tell you for why" is a common constrution you hear?
It's certainly not a new construction. "For why" appears in several places throughout the works of Shakespeare; "tell for why" in The Fifteen Comforts of Matrimony: Responses From Women (1706); and "I'll tell you for why" in Mark Twain's A Tramp Abroad (1880) to mention but a few.
CJ
Interesting ... I'd have guessed that it was an Americanism (at least in its modern incarnation), possibly for no good reason. Perhaps the British just automatically blame the Americans for anything that they feel is ungrammatical!
CJ