Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

faith2k · Joined: 05 Oct 2007 Posts: 103

Dear Teaches,

When you make a conditional sentence from, "It was David who saved my life," why do I have to add the prepositon "for" in a conditional sentence as below. Can you skip "for" in an informal utterance?

A. If it were not for David, I would have died.
B. If it had not been for David, I would have died.

Christine123 · Joined: 15 Oct 2008 Posts: 90 Location: Indiana

The use of the preposition "for" in your examples is necessary in informal speech. One of the definitions of "for" is "because of," and that is what is being conveyed here.