Since, during, and for

Consider the unfortunate French abbreviation, S.D.F., which normally means "sans domicile fixe". Those three letters, for our purposes, represent since, during and for. Here's how that's going to help us:

• SINCE is with STARTING POINTS -- SS
  [I haven't seen him since last week]... from a starting point in the past until now. A starting point can be an hour, a day, a year, etc.
• DURING is with DEFINED PERIODS -- DD
  [My boss slept during the meeting]... we define how long a meeting, lunch, holidays, etc, are. These periods aren't fixed, they can be longer or shorter.
• FOR is with FIXED PERIODS -- FF
  [We have lived here for 6 years]... six years is 312 weeks, or 2190 days. It's a fixed period. 2 minutes is fixed as well.

English, like any other language, isn't a hard science and some of it doesn't follow the rules as well as we'd like it to. But most of it does, and I hope that this little trick will help you use SDF correctly more often than not.

Remember to subscribe (using the form below) to this weekly newsletter, if you haven't already done so.

(Bidouillé par Ret)