Of or for/help

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Of or for/help
Message from a_limon posted on 12-05-2012 at 19:38:50 (D | E | F)
Hello

I have a doubt if "for" and "of" could be interchangeable in some sentences.
I mean the cases when they could be used we could use 'of' instead of 'for' without disordering changing the meaning of the sentence.

- The proposal for(of) reducing the working week....
Thanks in advance.

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Edited by lucile83 on 12-05-2012 20:24

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Re: Of or for/help from gerondif, posted on 12-05-2012 at 23:40:38 (D | E)
Hello,
the meaning seems to be different between of and for.

1) Imagine a politician who proposed last week a very concrete plan to reduce the working week. You can say:
His proposal of reducing the working week was welcome by his supporters but severely criticized by his opponents.
"reducing the working week" is something that exists, that could be written down in a political program.

2) This politician made several proposals for reducing the working week /(in order)to reduce the working week (would seem more common to me)/ aimed at reducing the working week.
Here, it is more an aim, a project that will be attained in the future.

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Re: Of or for/help from notrepere, posted on 13-05-2012 at 01:30:48 (D | E)
Hello

His proposal of reducing the working week was welcome by his supporters but severely criticized by his opponents.
Let's take this sentence as an example. In this case, we know that a proposal has been put forth but we don't know what the details are.
If you were to say:
His proposal for reducing...
We assume that there is a specific proposal.

This is confirmed by asking the sentence as a question:
Can you tell me what your proposal for reducing the work(ing) week is?
In this case, the word "of" would not work at all.

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Re: Of or for/help from a_limon, posted on 13-05-2012 at 11:46:53 (D | E)
OK! I've understood what you mean. Thanks.

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