"to" or "for"?

Question

I read a book and found this a bit confusing expression. "I sped off for my parents' house."Why the preposition "for" is used here? Would I be wrong to use "to" instead?Thank you in advance.

Mister Micawber · Accepted Answer

IMGWhy the preposition "for" is used here?

It is used when a goal or direction is mentioned.

IMGWould I be wrong to use "to" instead?

No.

Anonymous · Answer

Its a bit more 'old fashioned' to say it this way, but it's correct. Actually, as the verb 'to go' is not used here, it's better to use 'for' in this case anyway (ie I sped off to go to my parents house)!

The background to it is (that I understand) that they are explaining why it is happening, comes from a older grammatical form: "For what [reason] did you leave this place?" I left for my parent's house.

In modern day English, it's acceptable to use 'to' in your example, but super picky people will insist that you use 'for'.

For more help check contact info in my profile pls:) I'll be offline for a while.

IMG · Answer

Hm... Interesting. What if I want to say "I drove for my house" or "I went for my house"? Can we use "for" in these sentences?

GPY · Answer

Check My English 247The background to it is (that I understand) that they are explaining why it is happening, comes from a older grammatical form: "For what [reason] did you leave this place?" I left for my parent's house.

I think that "for" indicates direction or target, as MM said, not reason. An example of "for" indicating reason would be "I left for it was getting late" (old-fashioned).

Check My English 247In modern day English, it's acceptable to use 'to' in your example, but super picky people will insist that you use 'for'.

I can't see even a super picky reason why "to" could be criticised.

Anonymous · Answer

After I walked away from my computer and had a rethink I wanted to edit my original answer but actually others have provided better answers in the mean time! Please ignore my original answer (edited below), I'm partially back-peddling on this one! Sorry, I shouldn't have tried to hastily answer this with my limited time - and now it's costing me even more time!

haha:)

Check My English 247Its a bit more 'old fashioned' to say it this way, but it's correct. ~~Actually, as the verb 'to go' is not used here, it's better to use 'for' in this case anyway (ie I sped off to go to my parents house)!~~The background to it is (that I understand) that they are explaining why it is happening, comes from a older grammatical form: "For what [reason] did you leave this place?" I left for my parent's house.~~In modern day English,~~ it's acceptable to use ~~'to'~~ both in your example, ~~but super picky people will insist that you use 'for'.~~ For more help check contact info in my profile pls:) I'll be offline for a while.

Fivejedjon · Answer

Check My English 247I'm partially back-peddling on this one!

backpedalling/back-pedalling (BrE), backpedaling/back-pedaling (AmE)

Anonymous · Answer

Ahem...

Thanks for correcting.
Further proof that I shouldn't try to do things in a hurry!

Anonymous · Answer

Please be informed that with immediate effect, as a best practice our company is encouraging all clients to confirm directly with the back office staff at 03-xxxxxxxxxx, when making payments for their purchases of shares. Is this statement is acceptable?

"to" or "for"?

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