Language wonks might recall my January column about the rise in
American English of the all-purpose preposition, “All for one – and “for” for
all.”
I spotted another instance of this curious usage while driving last weekend in
the blessed precincts of Chicago’s suburbs, where a municipal street sign admonished drivers to “Yield for pedestrians.”
I have no idea if the drivers in this town do yield
for pedestrians; one can only hope for the sake of public decorum that they don’t
do it on the streets.
This article appears in Jul 24-30, 2014.
