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What is the difference between:

  • You can better wait for tomorrow.
  • You can better wait until tomorrow.

Context examples:

  • "It is cloudy today. You wanted to go to the beach, but you can better wait ... tomorrow."
  • "It is 8pm. I think the supermarket is already closed. You can better wait ... tomorrow."
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    [grammar correction for your question: You had better wait for tomorrow or until tomorrow//not can better, I'm letting you make the change, so it sinks in. :)]
    – Lambie
    Commented Nov 27, 2018 at 17:33

3 Answers 3

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Either "for" or "until" would be idiomatic in both your examples. "Until" is slightly more pedantically correct, but a native speaker would understand either, and might use either (or the abbreviated "'til", dropping the "un-"). For most purposes, they mean the same thing in this context. The reason "until" is slightly more correct is that "tomorrow" is (in this context) acting as a time, rather than an object (for the arrival of which you might wait) or an event (for the occurrence of which you might wait).

In some slightly modified examples, "for" and "until" would still mean the same thing, but would need you to phrase the sentence differently:

  • "It is cloudy. You wanted to go to the beach, but you had better wait until it clears up", but "[...] but you had better wait for it to clear up"
  • "I think the supermarket is already closed. You had better wait until they reopen tomorrow", but "[...] wait for them to reopen tomorrow"

However, as a side note, your examples probably do not mean what you think they mean. "You can better wait until tomorrow" means that you are better able (than something or someone else implied by context) to wait until tomorrow. Normally we would say "You had better wait until tomorrow".

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  • Wait for tomorrow suggests that tomorrow will bring some important development or surprise. Wait until tomorrow is a more prosaic statement that means just what it says. Commented Nov 27, 2018 at 17:12
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  • I can't wait for my friends to arrive.

to wait for means: to have high expectations about something or to be excited about something that will occur in a near future or more distant future. It is used in the negative even though the idea is positive.

  • I can't wait for tomorrow. Meaning: my expectations about something good happening tomorrow are high.

Whereas:

  • I can't wait until tomorrow. In standard English, this means: it is not possible for me to wait until that time, I need to do or say something today. But it is not related to one's expectations necessarily as wait for is.
  • You had better wait for tomorrow. [there are expectations]
  • You had better wait until tomorrow. [wait for that time to come for some reason not involving the idiomatic use of: can't wait for.
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Both your examples require "until" because "wait for tomorrow" in that context sounds unnatural.

"wait until tomorrow" indicates that the anticipated action can not happen before the designated time (tomorrow). For now, the person is forced to wait passively until a certain temporal condition is fulfilled, i.e. that today becomes tomorrow. The waiting period has a finite end. Then, the action or event can happen.

"wait for tomorrow" actually sounds a little strange to me, to be honest. But in general, waiting for something/someone does not necessarily constrain the waiting period to a specified time frame. If you wait for your friend, you don't actually know when they will turn up. You can wait for a bus, but it might never come. There is no finite end. In the case of "wait for tomorrow" there is a finite end, but as mentioned this phrase sounds somewhat unnatural since "wait for" tends to be used with more abstract time frames.

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