Learn English – Is it acceptable to use “will be late for five minutes”

grammar

I was asked today whether we could use the phrase:

"The bus will be late for five minutes."

Or whether we should always use:

"The bus will be five minutes late."

The latter phrase is the one that I would always use, but I wasn't sure whether the top phrase was used in some regions.

I also wasn't sure how to explain why we use "five minutes late" in this way.

Many thanks in advance.

Best Answer

To answer your questions.

  1. Can we use the phrase "late for five minutes"?
    That sounds very odd to me, but googling, I see that it is used occasionally. This isn't grammatical in standard English, but it could be in some regional dialect.
  2. Should we always use "five minutes late"?
    You don't have to. You could also say "late by five minutes."
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