[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Why not just use English grammar as it should be & say the program is
"free" rather than "for free"?
Royce G.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Ross Johnson"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <users@openoffice.org>
Sent: Wednesday, June 28, 2006 10:52 AM
Subject: Re: [users] Re: your ad doesn't deliever take this one instead
Pete Holsberg wrote:
mike scott typed the following on 6/27/2006 4:47 AM:
On 27 Jun 2006 at 7:27, Mr. Vega wrote:
hi, i've designed an ad for you, because i like
openoffice.org and i want others to try it :) take a look
http://img8.picsplace.to/img8/17/testgif.gif and i'll attach
the other JPEG picture in my msg
If there's to be /anything/ at all, please let it be in
correct English. "for free" may be alluringly alliterative,
but it is not idiomatic English.
You may find
<http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=19990108>
informative! :-P
That explains why "for free" always sounds uncomfortably uneducated.
But, at the same time, the correct alternatives "free of charge" or
"free of cost" sound more than a little old fashioned these days.
I suspect that avoiding the word "free" altogether would be a good
thing.
Ross
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I agree with Chad -- let's lighten up a bit. There's nothing gratingly
wrong about "for free". I checked the link provided above, and in part,
here is what this grammatician (sp?) had to say about it:
" In defense of *for free*, we can make several points. First, it is a
very common phrase. Second, it is an established idiom; it doesn't give
anyone difficulty, and the meaning can't be confused for anything else.
Third, whatever redundancy it may have is purely syntactical, and is
less "threatening" than a redundancy that is based on the meanings (for
example, the oft-attacked *free gift*). Finally, there are various
constructions in which *for free* avoids ambiguity. Take the sentence:
"By working on the commune, he was able to live for free." This makes it
clear that the subject didn't have to pay for his life expenses; if it
had been "...live free," an entirely different interpretation would be
possible. (One can always rewrite the sentence, but that's not the point
here.)"
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