Question e-mailed by Stephen Monsanto (August 14, 2013):In one of your commentaries, you apparently have no problem with: “... to walk for long distances...” To me that sounds too pedantic. Why not just say: “...to walk long distances...”?
My reply to Stephen:You are referring to this actual prepositional phrase from a BBC correspondent’s documentary as quoted by Forum member Mwita Chacha last July 10, 2013: “In (the) recent past, patients have had
to walk for very long distances to seek medical services.” (
“Have + had + infinitive”) I don’t think the usage of “to walk for long distances” (with the preposition “for”) instead of “to walk long distances” (without the preposition “for,” which is your preferred usage) is pedantic at all, and I must say that I absolutely have no problem with it.
Those two phrase constructions actually mean two different things.
The BBC correspondent’s usage, “to walk for long distances,” refers to the capability or abstract notion of walking long distances, as in “Lean and long-legged, she is constitutionally built
to walk for long distances.” The distances referred to here are conceptual, not actual, and for that reason, using that phrase without the “for” won’t yield the same sense: “Lean and long-legged, she is constitutionally built
to walk long distances.” This construction isn’t grammatically wrong, of course, but its meaning is different.
In contrast, when the phrase “to walk long distances” (without the “for”) is used, the intended sense is that of measured distances covered by real-life walking, as in “They were made
to walk long distances by their brutal captors, sometimes by as much as 30 kilometers a day.” Personally, although it won’t be grammatically wrong, I’d be extremely hesitant to use the phrase “to walk for long distances” in that particular construction, for the resulting sentence would look and sound dysfunctional indeed: “They were made
to walk for long distances by their brutal captors, sometimes by as much as 30 kilometers a day.”
It therefore isn’t pedantry at all to use the phrase “to walk for long distances” instead of “to walk for distances” in that sentence you are objecting to; it’s just a purposive effort to be semantically precise—nothing more.
