“Why is he late?”
,
“she came, but for what purpose?”
.
Too often, we read the word
“why”
completely when it should be read in two words:
“for what”
.
“Why”
in one word and
“for what”
do not mean the same thing.
There is in fact a nuance that allows them to be distinguished.
The French Academy took care to study their difference in its “Say, don’t say” section.
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The word
"why"
, attested from the end of the 12th century, is an interrogative adverb, that is to say an invariable word adding a determination to a verb.
It comes from the contraction of the preposition
“for”
and the pronoun
“what”
.
It can be replaced by the question
“For what reason?”
.
Initially, the word
“for what”,
detached, was encountered as a direct or indirect interrogative.
We see the word “why”, all attached, in the phrase “this is why” where it is used as a connecting relative.
This use, common in the 16th century, is no longer relevant today.
Only the logical connectors
“this is why”
or
“this is why”
bear witness to this ancient usage
.
It is only since the 18th century that the term
“why”
has been used to ask the cause, the reason for something.
Also read “Nothing new under the sun”: where does this expression come from?
“That for which”
,
“this is why”
,
“the why”
...
As for the phrase
“for what”
, it is used to ask about the purpose of something.
When asked whether to write in one word or two words in the following sentence:
“He came, but for what purpose?”
or
“why say?”
, we can replace it with the following question,
“for what purpose did he come?”
or
“for what thing?”
.
It must therefore be written with the two-word phrase
“for what”
.
Indeed, the preposition
“for”
has a final meaning which allows us to announce a goal, the pronoun
“what”
is to be understood as
“something”
.
To the question
“why is he late?”
, we will answer by starting with the subordinating conjunction, that is to say:
“because”
.
For the second question,
“what did she come for?”
, the first word of the answer will most often be
“for”
.
What about the phrase
“this for what”
or
“this why”
?
What should we write in the following sentence:
“I still don’t understand the why/for what of his reaction this morning”
?
For the first question, Larousse indicates that, although they were in competition for a long time, the two spellings are accepted today.
However, the phrase
“that why”
, once criticized, is more common today than
“that for which” which
is considered
“nicer”
.
Indeed, with the preposition
“for what”
we ask ourselves about a thing or an objective.
The rule, however, requires writing
“this is why”
and not
“this is why”
.
As for the second question, the answer is
“the why”
because it can be replaced by
“the reason or motive”
.