Object of the preposition

[engee30]

I feel that the idea behind 'Ask a Teacher' is for learners to be assisted. If you wish to set up points simply to see how I react, then I would suggest that Private Messages are the way to do this.

No worries - I did that on this particular occasion, and won't be doing so at any other time in the future.

Incidentally, I never thought that corpora used and cited by a non-native is less valuable than that used and cited by a native, which I believe is a shame.

[sattlesey]

Hmmm. Well, this certainly got interesting. Thanks all for your responses. I carried a double major of elementary ed. and English but went into elementary ed. and haven't used my English in many years. I was sure that using "for" in this instance, was on the cusp of proper syntax and as I said, was probably awkward at best. Thanks again.

[Bamako2]

Engee should delete his wrong answer.

Rover

That is presumptuous and not the least bit diplomatic. Should he also be bound and gagged, in your opinion, and removed without a trace off the face of the earth just because he so much as dare stand by what is not to your taste?

Soothing Dave and Raymott are right.

Are you an arbitrator? They agree with me, which means they are unquestionably right. Amusing attitude. Honestly, this is most ridiculous, unrefined, and uncultured.

Incidentally, I never thought that corpora used and cited by a non-native is less valuable than that used and cited by a native, which I believe is a shame

Futile practice, Eng. Why do you want to convince them?

School is closed for Friday, January 21, 2011.

It is a well-formed sentence, in my opinion. Statistics speak about frequency in usage. Does infrequent necessarily mean ill-formed? I doubt it.

11. for:
during the continuance of: for a long time.

dictionary.reference.com

[5jj]

Incidentally, I never thought that corpora used and cited by a non-native is less valuable than that used and cited by a native,

As far as I know, nobody in this forum has suggested this. I certainly haven't.

Since the BNC and similar corpora are based on the English language and its everyday use, how can one be sure that what s/he can find on the datebase is wrong or right?

We can't be sure.
Corpora show only what people actually say and write.
My own view is that the greater the number of citations for any structure, the more justified I feel in believing that it is acceptable, - even if I do not personally like or use the construction. However, even here, caution is needed; a large number of citations for ain't, for example, would not convince most people that it was generally acceptable in many situations.

I do realize that natives seem to always be right, or are they not, sometimes?

Some non-native speakers have a better understanding of the workings of English grammar than some native speakers. Some non-natives speak an English that is technically more 'correct' than some natives. Ironically, it is just that 'purity' that shows that they are not native speakers.

In general, however, reasonably educated native speakers of any language are better able to say what can and cannot be said in any given situation than a non-native speaker.

If I heard a German use a construction that my study of German grammar told me was 'incorrect', I would be in no hurry to correct the speaker. I might ask him/her if the usage was normal, and I might check with other educated speakers and with other books on grammar. My own experience of writers on English grammar inventing 'rules' would make me very hesitant to think that I knew more about another language than a native speaker.