The 1934 song:
And the 1970 song:
I'm listening to both this morning after getting way too involved in the use of the word "for" as a conjunction as opposed to a preposition — after a doctor had said "for my wife and I," which is grammatically wrong if "for" is a preposition there. In the song title — in 1934 or 1970 — "for" is a conjunction... or, no... it's a preposition... right??
The Carpenters' song was in the 1970 film "Lovers and Other Strangers," which I've never seen. It won the best song Oscar that year. The older song is something I've heard many times, by so many different singers. It's much more familiar to me. It seems like the better song: "For all we know/We may never meet again/Before you go/Make this moment sweet again." The kindliest love-'em-and-leave-'em song. It's about living in the present. "So love me, love me tonight/Tomorrow was made for some/Tomorrow may never come/For all we know."
The phrase "for all we know" is an acknowledgment of the unknowability of the future. The older song tells us to be here now, because there may be no future at all. The newer song — I'm calling it newer though it's much older than the 1934 song was in 1970 — imagines a very long future and stresses the love that goes on an on forever: "Let's take a lifetime to say/I knew you well/For only time will tell us so/And love may grow/For all we know." Or does that final "for all we know" reveal the singer's doubt?
ADDED: "Lovers and Other Strangers" was the occasion for the first film appearance of Diane Keaton:
September 16, 2020
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Karen Carpenter version is much better. Nate had a great voice, but he swallows the lyrics, and his voice doesn't have much range. He's much better swinging out "route 66" or giving us a great version of "Come all ye faithful". Back to Carpenter, I'd forgotten what a great voice she had. Clear as a bell, and lots of emotion. Too bad she sang so many "chick" songs.
Vera Lynn did a different take: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsM_VmN6ytk
We'll meet again.
Where "for" art thou?
There's no "for" in Schoolhouse Rock's Conjunction Junction. But there is...
Eat this or that, grow thin or fat
Never mind, I wouldn't do that
I'm fat enough now
Conjunction Junction
Conjunction Junction, what's your function?
Hooking up cars and making 'em function
Conjunction Junction, how's that function?
I like tying up words and phrases and clauses
Conjunction Junction, watch that function
I'm gonna get you there if you're very careful
"I'm listening to both this morning after getting way too involved in the use of the word "for" as a conjunction as opposed to a preposition — after a doctor had said "for my wife and I," which is grammatically wrong if "for" is a preposition there. In the song title — in 1934 or 1970 — "for" is a conjunction... or, no... it's a preposition... right??"
I just say "for my wife and I" and get on with my life.
Bea Arthur is in that clip with Diane Keaton. It didn't look like her (to me) but you can't miss that voice!
Talk about fat shaming, that's Peter "Fat" Clemenza in the Keaton video, pre-Godfather.
For me, his point was clear.
Now this use of "for" is confounding: "'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain . . ."
"And Love may blow
For all we know."
Back in the 1970s there was a late-night jazz radio show in Madison, I forget the DJ's name. His sign-off was the Nat King Cole version of For All We Know, while he intoned, "Memento Mori, Paisan. Once again it has been accomplished."
For he's a jolly good fellow.
There are many such, possibly the most famous being "Best Of My Love", two songs of which title both went to Billboard #1.
Strangely, one song with this title:
You never can . . .
You really can't . . .
Reminds me of "The More You Joe," the title of a hilarious (or sad) YouTube channel that almost daily posts videos Slow Joe showing signs of dementia. Each video starts off with a parody of NBC's "The More You Know" rainbow, and ends with Biden delivering his trademark "Come on, man!"
"For all we Joe. . . "
Almost by chance I used the 1934 'For All We Know' as music for an 8mm home movie of my kids (and a friend's kids) back in the 1970s, splashing at a swimming pool when they were little. Today they're in their 50s, good people, and the song brings a kind of wistful nostalgia to those images from the unrecoverable past long ago.
as far as songs and overuse of a word--
... the Trump retweet of Biden/NWA video has garnered the overuse
of the words "manipulated media" by the Manipulative Media
Today's Talking Point
dont forget this classic from
Maurice Chevalier
Example of “for” as a conjunction:
The doctor’s wife is fat, for she eats too much.
It sounds old fashioned, but it’s English.
“ The doctor’s wife is fat, for she eats too much.”
You can tell it’s a conjunction because you’d never consider saying “ The doctor’s wife is fat, for her eats too much.”
Try to rewrite the sentence to make “for” a preposition.
“The doctor’s wife is fat. For her, eating too much is a problem.”
"...'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain..."
Worst lyric in human history.
Ah that Nat Cole thing was good. I love small group stuff from the 40s.
Getting kinda tired of all the noise that came after.
More than two. My song archive shows the following artists with songs named "For All We Know": Bill Hayes, Billie Holiday, Carpenters, the Caslons, Charlie Sexton, Dinah Washington, Donny Hathaway, Esther Phillips, the Flamingos, Hal Kemp and His Orchestra, Isham Jones and His Orchestra, Nat 'King' Cole, Nicki French, the Orioles, Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway, Shirley Bassey, the Spinners and Tommy Dorsey. (And those are just the versions I own; there must be many more.)
It's using how snippy people get when told the phrase they thought so proper and swellegant is wrong.
In undergrad I took the Grammar and Usage class, which was filled with Education majors and the arguments were hilarious.
"That's not how I was taught!" was their ultimate authority. LOL.
Please. It's "for my wife and me", not "for my wife and I". People thinking saying "I" is haute classe. It's wrong.
So I'm diving into this without having really paid attention to what others are saying, to know what I think before I'm influenced by the logic of other people.
So here's the sentence:
“For my wife and I, who are older and fatter — we are waiting for drugs like this so we can see our grandchildren.”
And right off I think that for is being used as a conjunction, although I agree you start off interpreting it another way. Now it would help to see what the man said before that to see if that assumption makes sense. But it is common to begin a sentence with a conjunction.
But if it is a conjunction then we should be able to remove the conjunction and the sentence will still make sense.
And thus,
My wife and I, who are older and fatter — we are waiting for drugs like this so we can see our grandchildren.
Yeah, that kind of works. Or how about this,
We, my wife and I, who are older and fatter, are waiting for drugs like this so we can see our grandchildren.
Now this is actually grammatically correct and I believe it's the intended meaning. My wife and I is in apposition to we and since 'we' is the subject of the sentence, then 'I' is the correct pronoun.
Now I doubt it's well-formed English to stick an apposition in front of it's object even if you use a long hyphen to do so, but on the other hand I've certainly heard people do that in spoken speech.
But if we read the for as a preposition, then not only is I the wrong pronoun but what does the prepositional phrase attach to? Prepositional phrases modify. They don't stand by themselves. So that would be a hanging prepositional phrase and that is not well-formed English.
The Carpenter clip almost makes me weepy. The song, her, the time it recalls -- bittersweet.
I've never considered "for" a conjunction, but I see it now. An independent clause follows its usage: "she eats too much", "all we know". These are not prepositional phrases.
bear said...
Almost by chance I used the 1934 'For All We Know' as music for an 8mm home movie of my kids (and a friend's kids) back in the 1970s, splashing at a swimming pool when they were little.
I used the pop music of the summer of 1981 as the sound track music of the movie I made of our Transpac race that summer. The crew were under 25 except for me. Now they are in their 50s. Same emotions. One is no long alive.
I have videos and movies of my kids but no music.
I can’t rewrite AA’s sentence, but I can rewrite the doctor’s sentence to retain his intended meaning:
Cohen: “My wife and I, who are older and fatter, are waiting for drugs like this to be available for us so we can see our grandchildren.
On second thought, The doctor’s wife is fat because eating too much is a problem for her.
- Krumhorn
You can blame Trump, if you want, for killing 200,000 Americans. But, for all we know, you can also praise him for saving 1,800,000 Americans.
Hey, that's Bea Arthur with "Fat" Clemenza.
Right-on, Maude.
For all I care...
The second version by Karen Carpenter is better, for she is the better singer.
"As for my wife and I, we eat too much.”
The “as" is understood to be implied by any native speaker of English. English hates unnecessary words a native doesn’t need to understand the meaning, in the same way French hates word endings unneeded by fluent speakers of that language but which the rest of us wish they had kept.
I'm always amazed at Karen's voice.
“ Back to Carpenter, I'd forgotten what a great voice she had. Clear as a bell, and lots of emotion. Too bad she sang so many "chick" songs.”
One of the best voices of a generation. Cut short by insecurities and an eating disorder. About the only Christmas albums we play anymore are hers and Elvis’.
"Or does that final "for all we know" reveal the singer's doubt?"
I think it means forever love, but maybe introducing that doubt is what makes it a great song...
When "for" is a conjunction and followed by a pronoun, the pronoun is in the nominative (or subject) case because "for" is joining two independent clauses; each clause must have a subject and verb.
When "for" is a preposition and followed by a pronoun, the pronoun is in the objective case because it is the object of the preposition.
EX: Please save a sear for my wife and me (prepositions)
Please save us a seat, for my wife and I will be late.
PS. the most common coordinating conjunctions are the FANBOYS: for, and, nor, but, or, yet, and so. There are other kinds of conjunctions, too.
Thanks for posting. I'm a little ashamed to admit -- I would have said I'm a big Nat King Cole fan, and absolutely not a Karen Carpenter fan -- but her version is the one I could sing along with. I guess it was on am radio in the early 1970s and I must have heard it over and over again. The her/she thing has been covered so conclusively, I can't believe anyone is arguing with Althouse.
The use of "for" actually has nothing to do with this. The usage "so-and-so and I" in all syntactic positions, including positions in which the conjunction is the object of a verb or preposition (it doesn't matter which), is at least 3 decades old (actually more: I remember it annoying me in the 1980s). There are actually two principles of official grammar that are relevant here: (1) mention yourself last (a politeness issue) and (2) use the phrase "and I" in syntactic positions where the whole conjunction is a subject (as in, "He and I went to the movies"). Both of these principles are unnatural and thus flouted or misapplied in common speech, which (contrary to the politeness principle) wants (1) to mention the first person first and (2) to put the whole conjunction in the objective (accusative) case (as in "Me and him went to the movies"-- something any normal kid would say). Normally, the politeness principle is adhered to, but normal speakers, including most adults, balk at the second, while simultaneously registering, and adhering to, the weird violation of expectations enshrined by the expression "...and I." Hence such (to me) interesting examples as "Him and I went to the movies" and "for him and I," which I've heard many times.
conjunction... or, no... it's a preposition
It's probably one of those things or something similar. Back in Jr. High they were tawkin' about English grammar and there seemed to be so many exceptions that I decided that the main, and perhaps only, grammar rule for English is: "if it sounds right, it is right". The difference between impeccable grammar vs accurately communicating information is status seeking, supposedly something which took place in 1800's English private (US meaning) schools where they invented the weird "up with which I will not put" "rules" to distinguish the landed from the peasantry.
"Earliest Joni Mitchell tape found" (House of the Rising Sun)
We are such stuff as dreams are made on. I think Nat King Cole's voice was better suited to melt into thin air and express how insubstantial the pageant was. They're both faded and gone, but I think Nat King Cole might be remembered for a generation or two longer. He has the best rendition of Stardust. In his voice, there's a kind of awe and bafflement about how gorgeous and transient the moments are, and he finds the melody in the dying fall of our heartbeats.....You would think Karen Carpenter would know more about how to melt into thin air and leave not a rack behind, but Nat King Cole gets the nod in my book.
I remember seeing Lovers and Other Strangers in the theater and I enjoyed it. I wonder if it's held up over the years. I'll put it on my list.
THEOLDMAN
I like sentimental songs. I'm a sap for them.
Remember There's Got to be a Morning After and Shelley Winters, the now-fat former swim champ using her weight to try to rescue the victims of The Poseidon Adventure.
Still gives me chills.
For All We Know, THIS is true for EVERY UW grad student
https://www.foxnews.com/us/white-grad-student-admits-to-tells-others-they-are-black-resigns-from-ta-position
The Singles: 1969–1973 (which to some extent is not the actual singles) is an amazing album. Pristine production & stereo, impeccable songs, and then there's that voice...
I watched a documentary about Karen Carpenter a few weeks ago.
She was a near twin to her older brother, Richard, but she was much shorter. She looked up to Richard.
It was a neutral documentary, but there was a sub text. Richard was a perfectionist. Karen had a better voice. She wanted to be a drummer, and that is revealing, a drummer can hide behind drums. Richard pushed her into being a vocalist, center stage.
She couldn't take it.
But OMG, what a beautiful voice.
Karen had a better voice. She wanted to be a drummer, and that is revealing, a drummer can hide behind drums. Richard pushed her into being a vocalist, center stage.
There was some controversy about whether she was the best rock drummer around. Her voice was the best. The blacks complained it was "white bread." It was still the best.
Never worry about the idiomatic use of small words in English. It's like trying to nail jello to a tree. It's also true in Romanian and German, and I'll bet in every other spoken language that has not calcified to a formal, unchanging usage.
Nat King Cole and Karen Carpenter. Two of the greatest voices... ever.
"He [Nat "King" Cole] has the best rendition of Stardust. In his voice, there's a kind of awe and bafflement about how gorgeous and transient the moments are, and he finds the melody in the dying fall of our heartbeats."
Yes. In the movie MY FAVORITE YEAR, part of his version of STARDUST was used in the opening credits, and as a friend of mine who saw the movie with me said, "It makes you want to go home and do nothing but listen to his records."
KC is not singing a version of the song NKC is singing. They’re sing different songs with the same title.
The live Karen Carpenter version you picked was more flowing and ethereal and sweet than the broadcast version, which has punchier instrumental hooks and a more pronounced drum track.
Listening to Nat King Cole made me weep. His cigarette smoking led him to an early death, as it did Duke Ellington, George Harrison, and Leonard Bernstein.
I recall how "We've Only Just Begun" became one of the most popular wedding anthems of the 1970's-80's. I always felt that "For All We Know" was better, and would have been my choice - along with Paul Stookey's "Wedding Song (There is Love)".
"For all we know" was the theme song of a very charming 2005 British film, Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont.
“There’s Got to Be a Morning After” is my unofficial anthem for this pandemic.
"For" in your example is a grammatical particle, a somewhat loosely-defined component of speech, more commonly spoken rather than written, or at least prior to social media, which are, for the most part, inscriptions of colloquial speech. For example right here and in the previous sentence though that does not preclude their use as other forms of speech, such as prepositions.
Other English example (far from exhaustive) would be "thus", "however", "though", and "so". also other parts of speech used as intensifiers such as "fucking" and "bloody". Other languages have them as well, for example "aber", normally a conjunction [but] a common as in intensifier, as in "aber schlect" [really lousy].
So there you have it, for all I know.
“There’s Got to Be a Morning After” is my unofficial anthem for this pandemic.
Sung by Maureen McGovern. Written for the 1972 movie The Poseidon Adventure.
[/ pedantic mode]
Oh, and I didn't mean that Nat King Cole's smoking killed those other people. I mean those other people killed themselves with cigarette smoking, in the same way that Nat King Cole did.
In 1948 the whites complained about NKC moving into the Hancock Park neighborhood of LA. He still did it.
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