3 ms·

I'm not good at English but shouldn't that be just "You'll never want X"?, "for" seems redundant to me. Anyway I looked it up, seems it's a legit usage, my bad

• Brian_K_White 6y ago
  That is not wrong, but "want for" is also a common and old idiom. Akin to "for want of a horse" Another way to think of it is simply another slightly different meaning for the word "want". Just like in "for want of a horse", or "was found wanting", you can replace the word "want" with the word "lack" in all these examples. "You'll never lack for work", "the project stalled for lack of engineers", "the code was found lacking" "Want" may be used as a drop-in for "lack" in each of those. You could also just say "lack work" instead of "lack for work". But that doesn't really make the "for" redundant. Though I can't explain the reason why not. Maybe the "for" in "lack for X" or "want for X" is like the "for" in "look for X" or "wish for X"
  • pessimizer 6y ago
    "Want" is a synonym for "lack." "Want" to mean "desire" is a euphemistic usage that doesn't have a citation until over 500 years after the original usage. > You could also just say "lack work" instead of "lack for work". But that doesn't really make the "for" redundant. Though I can't explain the reason why not. I think it's just that "want" in its original usage is a noun. "Wanting" in "found wanting" is really a gerund of "have a want," not a gerunding of "want." "Wanting" as a gerunding of the verb "want" doesn't necessarily imply a lack. "Wanting to go to the park on Wednesday" doesn't mean you lack anything.