I wish I had continued to run for longer.
I wish I had continued to run longer.
I wish I had continued to run more.
What is the difference between these, especially semantically?
In my view, the adverb more is cover term, isn't it?
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I don't know what you mean by "cover term". – Martha Jul 19 '14 at 14:43
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I would leave out the "continued to"; i.e.: I wish I had run longer, I wish I had run more, I wish I had run further, I wish I had pushed myself harder, etc. The "continued to" part is implied and seems redundant. – J.R.♦ Jul 19 '14 at 22:35
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I don't think including for would ever affect the meaning. Since continuing to run is a relatively uncommon activity, let's look at...
slept longer than (46,500 hits in Google Books)
slept for longer than (979 hits)
I can't say I think there's anything wrong with #2 there, but it's worth noting that you can't introduce for with other "comparative adverbs". It's okay with longer, but ...
- "I ran for faster than you, so I finished first" (not valid English)
So given that for longer isn't particularly common anyway, and it doesn't involve a principle which can be extrapolated to other contexts, I'd say it's not really worth learning (except if you need to satisfy yourself that the usage isn't actually "incorrect").
answered Jul 19 '14 at 15:05
