Have finally been driven to joining Gransnet by intense hatred of the term 'for free'. I caught sight of it at the bottom of the page when reading the the chester draws thread and saw red.
In the context of getting something without payment 'for' needs to be followed by a quantity. 'Free' is not a quantity, it is just a contraction of the phrase 'free of charge'. I know 'for free' sounds charmingly alliterative but it is just plain WRONG. It's 'for nothing', if you really insist on using 'for', or just 'free'.
Am I the only person left who knows this?
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