available to buy

Status
Not open for further replies.

navi tasan

Key Member
Joined
Nov 19, 2002
Member Type
Academic
Native Language
Persian
Home Country
Iran
Current Location
United States
Which are correct:

1) These books are available to buy at all our stores.

2) These books are available for buying at all our stores.
3) These books are available for purchase at all our stores.
 

GoesStation

No Longer With Us (RIP)
Joined
Dec 22, 2015
Member Type
Interested in Language
Native Language
American English
Home Country
United States
Current Location
United States
Number 3 is natural. Number 1 is OK. Number 2 is unnatural.
 

Tdol

No Longer With Us (RIP)
Staff member
Joined
Nov 13, 2002
Native Language
British English
Home Country
UK
Current Location
Japan
These books are on sale at all our stores would work better for me.
 

Raymott

VIP Member
Joined
Jun 29, 2008
Member Type
Academic
Native Language
English
Home Country
Australia
Current Location
Australia
"These books are for sale at all our stores" works better for me.
"On sale" implies that they've been discounted where I come from.
 

Matthew Wai

VIP Member
Joined
Nov 29, 2013
Member Type
Native Language
Chinese
Home Country
China
Current Location
China
I think 'to buy/for buying/for purchase' can be omitted because a store would not offer them free of charge.
 

Weaver67

Member
Joined
Dec 14, 2011
Member Type
Interested in Language
Native Language
Russian
Home Country
Russian Federation
Current Location
Russian Federation
Not a teacher

If it can be agreed that e-books are still books despite them being in a digital form, then we can say for sure that some stores do offer books free of charge (e.g. Amazon.com).
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Tdol

No Longer With Us (RIP)
Staff member
Joined
Nov 13, 2002
Native Language
British English
Home Country
UK
Current Location
Japan
"On sale" implies that they've been discounted where I come from.

It's ambiguous round my way. For sale works, but I would still default to on sale despite the potential ambiguity.
 

Matthew Wai

VIP Member
Joined
Nov 29, 2013
Member Type
Native Language
Chinese
Home Country
China
Current Location
China
If it can be agreed that e-books are still books despite them being in a digital form, then we can say for sure that some stores do offer books free of charge (e.g. Amazon.com).
I think 'all our stores' suggests physical ones instead of online ones.
 

emsr2d2

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Jul 28, 2009
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
British English
Home Country
UK
Current Location
UK
1 is perfectly acceptable in BrE.

Where is this book available to buy?
It's available to buy in all our stores.

It would be more natural to omit "to buy" in both the question and the response.

If the book in question is available both for purchase and for free, the dialogue could read:

Where is this book available?
It's available to buy in bookshops or for free online.
 

Weaver67

Member
Joined
Dec 14, 2011
Member Type
Interested in Language
Native Language
Russian
Home Country
Russian Federation
Current Location
Russian Federation
I think 'all our stores' suggests physical ones instead of online ones.
To me, it doesn't.
In my opinion, with no specific context present, 'all our stores' could suggest nothing about what kind of stores they are; it is still too general. One could easily imagine, for instance, that these words could be produced by a stakeholder whose enterprise owns several online shops.

That said, I do agree that 'to buy/for purchase' looks like a redundancy here (but, with all due respect, not with the reasoning that 'a store would not offer them free of charge' -- that seems to be an overgeneralisation).

Not a teacher.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top