I am the prime target of/for the school bully.

[99bottles]

I am the prime target of/for the school bully.


'Target of' or 'target for'? Is there a difference? I have found examples for both and I'm confused.

 

[Tarheel]

I am the prime target of/for the school bully.


'Target of' or 'target for'? Is there a difference? I have found examples of both, and I'm confused.

I would only use "of" there.

 

[99bottles]

I would only use "of" there.

Thanks. Since you are at it, can you also tell me the difference between 'target of' and 'target for'?

Is 'of' used when talking about a specific person and 'for' when talking more generally?

 

[Tarheel]

I have never encountered "target for". Also, I don't see why you would ever need to use it.

 

[tedmc]

Both are used though "of" is more common.

 

[Rover_KE]

That Ngram will include examples like 'Doubling last month's profits is our target for November'.

 

[Tdol]

If we search for of/for school bully, the results overwhelmingly favour of.

 

[jutfrank]

Both are used though "of" is more common.

You can't simply compare usage like this, unfortunately.

Different prepositions have different meanings, and Google Ngram viewer doesn't understand meaning.

This is what I think 99 bottles probably wants to say: I'm the prime target of the school bully.

Very generally speaking, one of the main uses of the preposition for is to express a sense of purpose. When I say This coffee is for you, I mean to say that you are the intended recipient of the coffee. If I were to say I'm a target for the bully, it would mean that I'm the intended target for the purposes of bullying.

Is 'of' used when talking about a specific person and 'for' when talking more generally?

No.

 

[emsr2d2]

The use of "of" makes sense when you consider it as a possessive. If you change the sentence to "I am the school bully's prime target", it's clearly a possessive so "prime target of the school bully" is the clear way to reword it.