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I am currently studying English and as such enjoy reading English books from time to time; for instance I have recently been reading the fifth book of A Song of Ice and Fire since the French version was not to be released anytime soon.

As I read it I often came across a grammatical form I had never encountered previously, this form being the usage of "for" to introduce propositions as per this example:

"We must learn english, for it is one of the most widely-spoken language."

My question if the following: is this form correct (I do think it is), and if it is then is it still used today? I really like this usage of the "for" preposition but still, I'd like to be sure it can be used before actually using it (in class or elsewhere).

Thanks!

EDIT: Upon further searches, now knowing that "for" is in that case a conjunction, I found out that this form is perfectly correct - though it is more of a literary form.

xou816
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  • The for in that sentence is a conjunction. See this dictionary entry for more information. – Matt E. Эллен Oct 28 '13 at 13:13
  • Oops, my bad. Then it seems it can be used, according to your link? Thanks for you comment! – xou816 Oct 28 '13 at 13:18
  • As Matt says, this can be found in any dictionary, but as a courtesy I am closing this as a duplicate instead. – RegDwigнt Oct 28 '13 at 13:21
  • I apologize, I had made searches prior to posting but it proved somewhat hard to find something relevant to my question (and not all dictionnaries give this precise usage of for). Thanks for your input! – xou816 Oct 28 '13 at 13:26
  • I don't see any relation between the essence of this question and the purported 'original post' or the dictionary reference. This can very well have its own answer. Voting to reopen. – Kris Oct 28 '13 at 13:30
  • What rather helped me was Matt's comment, since the dictionnary page mentioned that for used as a conjunction was a literary usage; later by googling "for as a conjunction" (I did not know it was one before) I again found out it is not a common usage (and that it is only found in books). – xou816 Oct 28 '13 at 13:35

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