Learn English – “Congratulations on …” or “congratulations for …”

prepositionsword-usage

While I was chatting with one of my friends on Facebook, I wrote this to him after he was selected in a on-campus recruitment drive by the company TCS from our college:

Congratulation on being selected in TCS.

Then I thought, should it be "on" instead of "for"? I felt perplexed. I thought if I said on it would mean "Congratulation on the occasion of being selected in TCS." and if I say "for" it would mean "Congratulation for being selected in TCS." So is it understandable to use "on"? Or must I use "for" here?

Best Answer

Using on here is perfectly idiomatic. And it's quoted as an example in a respected dictionary:

noun
(congratulations)
words expressing one’s praise for an achievement or good wishes on a special occasion:
our congratulations to the winners

[as exclamation]:
congratulations on a job well done!

  • [mass noun] the action of expressing congratulations:
    he began pumping the hand of his son in congratulation

Congratulations for would be understood. Google Ngrams shows that on is far more common than for, though.

[As an aside, in TCS sounds odd, but I've no idea what TCS is, so it may be fine.]

Related Topic