Re: For V/s Of

[Di <dicorrie -at- gmail -dot- com>]

some-one needs to play devils advocate and put forward a case for one or
other. otherwise how do we get to the excellent bun fighting stage of
conversation?

so.

i would find a preference for 'for' or 'of' in this sentence depending on
the focus of the reader's interest in the details.

i would choose

> a) You do not have the privilege to view details for this shipment,

if the details of primary interest in the context were things like sender,
code and date sent. Such details are external to the shipment itself. The
shipment would essentially be the same shipment if any of these details
changed.

and i would choose

> b)  You do not have the privilege to view details of this shipment.

if the details of primary interest in the context were the content of the
shipment. The content is inherent to the shipment. The shipment would be a
different shipment if the content was different.

i'm fairly sure there is a piece of grammar, style or possibly philosophy
advice that i was given way back in the dark passages of time, that
dictates why i would think of 'details' in this way in order to make the
choice between 'for' and 'of'. But i don't recall anything about it. The
principle at work seems clearer to me with a person. With a person - 'gender
of the person', sounds better to me than 'gender for the person' and 'code
for the person' sounds better than 'code of the person'. with all them i'd
be tempted to turn the sentence around and talk about 'shipment details'
'person's gender' and 'person's code'.

Di
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