English Language & Usage Stack Exchange

I’m sorry that I haven’t given you one particular word as you requested but I have given some examples by which you can effectively (and nicely) state that something is not free of charge without having to use a statement like ‘The product is not free of charge’. There is nothing wrong with changing your choice of words slightly to convey the same sentiment. If we become too fixated on using a particular phrase it can detract from what we finally say.

But I want to point out a couple of things that surprised me when I looked into possible differences between “free of” and “free from.”

But unless it refers to the “freedom” to vote, I don’t know what the significance of reaching 21 would have been at the time. If you’re referring to a product, it’s probably more common simply to use a phrase such as “which must be paid for”. Otherwise, it is common to use a phrase such as “admission charge applies”, “subject to payment” etc. However the use of free is widely accepted to mean at no monetary cost.

Is the phrase “for free” correct?

• This particular speaker wanted to place emphasis on the fact that they personally were one of the people you could contact for information.
• Although the 1947 instance of the expression cited in my original answer appears in The Billboard, I interpreted it as an attempt at faux hick talk by the reporter.
• If the bill goes thru, it is said, permission might be granted to have elected official’s remarks extended into disks and mailed back home for free airings.One radio man said that it might also provide a way for locals with poor programing to get public service for free.

“No, this time I’m going to be paid—but good! With room and board included,” answered Arden, and described the new job. In these days of high overhead of running a private business a “free” engineering service probably would be worth just about that much to the city. The old saying, “Nothing comes for free” could never be so readily applied. YOU can vote NO and save your money because you know that you can tell management about the things you want and they will do their best to give these things free. If times get a little better in the future additional benefits will be added—again for free. Because free by itself can function as an adverb in the sense “at no cost,” some critics reject the phrase for free.

The suffrages of the idle, indolent and ignorant would be as valuable, and in many cases counteract those of industrious, active, and learned. And to-day, “free white and twenty-one,” that slang phrase, is no longer broad enough to include the voters in this country. However, the original example (a naked myself used as an emphatic me) is considered by many (and I personally agree) to be poor style. So I’d generally suggest avoiding it unless you really do need the emphasis for some reason.

You must log in to answer this question.

• As the above commentator suggests, one can never say “in the Saturday afternoon” — but i think you already know that.
• The next great change which is proposed for the Virginia state constitution, is to have universal suffrage.
• But in the United States the days when using “for free” marked you as a probable resident of Goat’s Whiskers, Kentucky, are long gone.
• But The Billboard is also the source of four of the eleven matches from 1943–1944, including the earliest one, and none of those instances show any sign of working in an unfamiliar dialect.

Although the phrase became something of a Hollywood cliché in the 1930’s, it was around long before that and didn’t die out until the civil rights movement of the 1960’s. Does anyone have information about when and how that idiom first came into use? In particular, I am confused about the use of free forex strategies the word “free” along with “white”, because no white people were slaves in the U.S. I understand the phrase “I’m free, white, and twenty-one” was used in several films of the 1930’s (see clips here), generally to mean “I can do what I want and no one can stop me” and that the phrase was common in that era, at least in the some parts of the U.S. It’s not correct to use a reflexive pronoun unless the recipient of the action is the person doing that action. If you are seeking price-related antonyms, try expensive, pricy, costly.

I believe the puzzle comes from the common but mistaken belief that prepositions must have noun-phrase object complements. Since for is a preposition and free is an adjective, the reasoning goes, there must be something wrong. The fact is that even the most conservative of dictionaries, grammars, and usage books allow for constructions like although citizens disapprove of the Brigade’s tactics, they yet view them as necessary or it came out from under the bed. That is, they tacitly accept prepositions with non-object complements while claiming that all prepositions must be transitive. Connect and share knowledge within a single location that is structured and easy to search.

On Saturday afternoon or in the Saturday afternoon?

Well, Jonathan, how about it NOT being correct simply because many people use it? Big-time performers, or the movie studios to which they are under contract, donate their services. Those who can’t afford to work for free are paid small salaries by USO-Camp Shows, Inc., which also meets personal expenses of the entertainers, from a share of the National War Fund collected annually by voluntary home-front subscriptions to support various wartime relief and welfare activities. Transportation, quarters and rations for the touring troupes are provided by the Army and Navy.

Does the sign “Take Free” make sense?

A phrase such as for nothing, at no cost, or a similar substitute will often work better. The phrase is correct; you should not use it where you are supposed to only use a formal sentence, but that doesn’t make a phrase not correct. Many people use the expression (at least informally), so it seems futile to take issue with it – though more “careful” advertising copywriters do still tend to avoid it. Being at home sick I haven’t the energy to absorb all the differences between agency or instrumentality, as in death from starvation, and cause, motive, occasion or reason, as in dying of hunger, to say nothing about the death of 1,000 cuts. The phrase “free of charge” (blue line) has always been vastly more common than “free from charge” (red line), as this Ngram graph shows.

While here, Mr. Riddle ascertained that the transfer agencies of other western banks were conducted in some instances free of charge. This demonstrates that “free of” is most comfortable for me when used to indicate that something no longer is beset by an entity that had been pervasively enmeshed in its very existence, as a dictator controls every facet of a people’s lives, as the lumps in mashed potatoes influence every bite of the food. The idiomatic way to say this in American English is “on Saturday afternoon”. There was a time, sadly, when not being free, white, and 21 was a significant legal disability.

If the bill goes thru, it is said, permission might be granted to have elected official’s remarks extended into disks and mailed back home for free airings.One radio man said that it might also provide a way for locals with poor programing to get public service for free. On the other hand, he said, it might also prove a plague to stations tight on time who don’t want to handle Congressional effusions. Only as recently as New Year’s Eve, it is said, the band booked itself to play for the annual party of the Northeast Shrine Club, an engagement that always went to local musicians. What burned up the union is that the club charged $10 per couple for the affair, and the coast guard supplied the music for free.

Search results for the period 2001–2008 alone yield hundreds of matches in all sorts of edited publications, including books from university presses. There is no denying that, seventy years ago, “for free” was not in widespread use in edited publications—and that it conveyed an informal and perhaps even unsavory tone. Such pasts are not irrelevant when you are trying to pitch your language at a certain level—and in some parts of the English-speaking world, “for free” may still strike many listeners or readers as outlandish. But in the United States the days when using “for free” marked you as a probable resident of Goat’s Whiskers, Kentucky, are long gone.

Perhaps surprisingly, there isn’t a common, general-purpose word in English to mean “that you have to pay for”, “that incurs a fee”. “Free” in an economic context, is short for “free of charge.” As such, it is correct. All uses of the word ‘for’ in front of the word ‘free’ are just plain wrong. As the Pepper Bill is set up, it contains a proviso that permits the cutting of e.

Answers

Although the earliest match for “for free” in my original answer was from the August 16, 1947 issue of The Billboard magazine, I have subsequently run more-extensive searches in Google Books and Hathi Trust and turned up multiple matches from as early as February 1943. Finally, my answer is based not only on the reference I cited but also on my 28 years of experience as a copy editor (and a reader of books on usage) and on my 45+ years as a close reader of literature and nonfiction. Please note that the Ngrams, although interesting, are problematic because they include the internet age, during which an enormous amount of garbled and inaccurate prose has appeared; I wish the person who provided those impressive images had used 1995 as the cut-off date. “Freedom from want.” “Freedom from fear.” “Freedom from hunger.” These phrases cannot be constructed using the word “of.” They demonstrate of being free from an entity that is externally attached in a conceptually philosophical way; hunger besets you, fear comes upon you, “want” sinks its claws into you. If you can remove these things from your life, you are “free from” the undesirable attention (attack) of these things. If we extend the conceptualization to the word “freedom,” I think we’ll find more basis for differentiation in the choices between “free of” and “free from.” So let’s try a few examples.

Because this question may lead to opinionated discussion, debate, and answers, it has been closed. You may edit the question if you feel you can improve it so that it requires answers that include facts and citations or a detailed explanation of the proposed solution. “She will call early Saturday morning to check in, and will give me her final answer in the afternoon.” We are satisfied that editors may importune the legislature till the crack of doom, without one particle of effect. There were still black slaves in some states in the mid 1800s, so obviously being free and white was a meaningful part of “I can do what I want and no one can stop me”.

By the time it began appearing in Hollywood movies of the 1930s, it seems to have become a nonregional catch phrase to indicate a headstrong (and sometimes reckless) belief in one’s autonomy and self-sufficiency. In South Carolina, as in other American States, the legislative power is vested in a general assembly, consisting of a senate and a house of representatives. To be qualified for this office, a person must be a free white man, 21 years of age; must have been an inhabitant of the state three years, and, if he reside in the district for which he is chosen, he must have a freehold clear of debt to the amount of 150 sterling. To be entitled to the privilege of voting for members of the legislative body, a person must be a free white man, 21 years of age, must have been an inhabitant of the state two years, and must have been, for six months preceding the election, possessed of a freehold of 50 acres of land, or a lot in a town. This was usually how it showed up in the Hollywood movies of the 1930’s. It is commonly claimed that reflexive pronouns are only permitted when the subject and object are the same.

The choice of prepositions depends upon the temporal context in which you’re speaking. “On ~ afternoon” implies that the afternoon is a single point in time; thus, that temporal context would take the entire afternoon as one of several different afternoons, or in other words, one would use “on” when speaking within the context of an entire week. As the above commentator suggests, one can never say “in the Saturday afternoon” — but i think you already know that. In any event, from the above two examples i think it’s clear that the choice of “in the afternoon” versus “on Saturday afternoon” depends on the temporal frame of reference, and the context in which you’re speaking.