Error on our behalf

Hello Guest

If I say "it's an error on our part", I mean "it's our error".

If I say "it's an error on our behalf", I mean "someone else
has made an error while representing us".

The second construction should in theory be very rarely heard,
but in fact native speakers often confuse the two (and their
variants).

MrP

Thank you that makes sense but raises another question in my mind.

Which would I use if I am explaining an error made by colleague within the company I work for? They are in a sense representing the company but are also a part of it?

I find this very confusing!

Once again, thank you for your help

Hello Guest

You would say 'it was an error on our part', i.e. 'that was our error'.

'It was an error on our behalf', if taken literally, would mean 'someone
else [i.e. a 3rd party who is not part of 'us'] has made an error
while representing us'. Or 'an error was made by someone who
was acting on our behalf'.

But in practice, this phrase would never

"on our behalf" means "acting for us". The normal way of thinking of it is that whatever is done "on our behalf" is done for our benefit. What is done would have to be an act done purposely with the intent of representing or helping someone else.

I can't imagine how it would make sense for someone to make an error for us, i.e., acting for us.

The following are all anomalo

It would indeed have to be a strange and perhaps deliberately
anomalous situation:

"Arnold and Joan sent the 'wrong products' to the customer on the
manager's behalf. We never heard from the customer again,
thank ***."

"Phillip made a fool of himself on my behalf" [to distract the other guests' attention]

"Matt told everyone the 'secret' on behalf of

'On/in behalf of' implies 'done for someone'. 'On the part of' implies 'done by someone'.

'On the part of' requires one party & a noun or noun-phrase:

'It was [a something] on X's part.'

'On behalf of' requires two parties & a verb or verb-phrase:

'X [did something] on Y's behalf.'

Thus:

'That was a gross exaggeration on the ambassador's

Well, Mr. P, you are certainly very clever at contextualizing the example sentences!!!
I'm still smiling! Thanks.

Okay, how about some kind of plural construction. I wrote the following in an e-mail recently, but I wasn't sure of its grammatical correctness:

"Thanks again for your wonderful efforts on all of our behalf."

This does have someone else ("you") acting for a third party's ("our") benefit, but the third party is actually a group. Since it sounds very awkward, "on all of our beha

Hi John,

It appears to be a regular plural, `behalfs`, but I agree that it would be the better part of valour to use the idiomatic `on behalf of`.