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Ahb Posted 16 years ago
Grammar

Available to ??

Is "available to" common? (e.g. It is available only to teachers.)

I mean whether the preposition "to" is right here or not?

As I couldn't find an example of this in any dictionary..
  

Top answer

Hello, ahb-- and welcome to English Forums! Yes, 'available to' is very common and quite correct. Here are some examples from the Corpus of Contemporary Am English: the most potent of the literal metaphors available to this nonmetaphorical age it reacts by producing more fruit and flower spurs per square inch available to it The skybox is available to customers by special request flooding increases the total habitat available to fish thereby making them available to researchers for the first time

— Mister Micawber

  • Hello, ahb-- and welcome to English Forums!
  • Yes, 'available to' is very common and quite correct.
  • Here are some examples from the Corpus of Contemporary Am English: the most potent of the literal metaphors available to this nonmetaphorical age it reacts by producing more fruit and flower spurs per square inch available to it The skybox is available to customers by special request flooding increases the total habitat available to fish thereby making them available to researchers for the first time
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9 Answers
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Hello, ahb-- and welcome to English Forums!

Yes, 'available to' is very common and quite correct. Here are some examples from the Corpus of Contemporary Am English:

the most potent of the literal metaphors available to this nonmetaphorical age
it reacts by producing more fruit and flower spurs per square inch available to
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Thanks a lot. I found them. Can you explain the Corpus of Contemporary American English? Has it gathered (or has tried to gather) all contexts available?

By the way, what are the comparisons and contrasts of available to and available for ?
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Can you explain the Corpus of Contemporary American English? Has it gathered (or has tried to gather) all contexts available?-- Feel free to reseach [url=http://corpus.byu.edu/] THESE CORPORA[/url] personally.

By the way, what are the comparisons and contrasts of available to and available for?-- To a per
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So it means in the sentence "Digestive enzyme supplements are also available ... dogs." we have no definite choice between to and for, they can be used interchangeably.

So your advice is to take it easy. Right?
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Ah. No. I guess 'to' must refer to humans, who can make a choice. Only 'for' works with dogs here.
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Mister MicawberAh. No. I guess 'to' must refer to humans, who can make a choice. Only 'for' works with dogs here.

Who can make a choice? Humans or the writer/speaker talking about a human/humans in choosing between 'to' and 'for' ?

Credit was available for doctors who wanted to buy space in a medical building.
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What I meant to say is that non-humans cannot make choices and so therefore, (X) 'available to dogs' does not work-- I realized that only 'for dogs' works in that situation. For humans, I believe that both prepositions are OK: Credit was available for/to doctors'.

Does that help?
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Mister MicawberDoes that help?
Yes, of course. Thanks a lot.

By the way, have you ever seen this note in any dictionary? Or is it a breast-to-breast note? (is this expression right?)
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I don't know 'breast-to-breast'. The point just occurred to me in the course of this thread.
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