Learn English – “relevant for our purpose” or “relevant to our purpose”

phrase-meaningphrase-request

I wrote the following sentence

We use a subset of XPath axes which are relevant for our purpose.

To check its validity I searched the phrase in google (I always do that trick)

  • "which are relevant for our purpose " : 62000 results
  • "which are relevant to our purpose " : 122000 results

Then I doubt which of the phrases is correct or if they mean differently?

When can "to" and "for" be used alternatively?

Best Answer

IMO, it is a confusion between usage of 'to' and 'for' with relevance of something.

Although 'to' is mostly used after relevant, in some cases 'for' is also used.

We also use a subset of XPath axes which are relevant to our purpose. (Most frequent use)

Normally, 'for' is used when the object of relevant is directly implied (not stated), therefore, in your example, it looks relevant!

We also use a subset of XPath axes which are relevant for our purpose.

We can write the same sentence like this:

We also use a subset of XPath axes which are relevant (to something) for our purpose.

Here, 'something' will act as an object. Therefore, we can say that if an object of relevant is stated, then we can put 'to' after it.

Hope this helps.

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