I'm working on a passage of writing and found a spot I'd marked for additional research. Two characters who have known each other for a long time have kind of started to have a falling out in recent months (Character A is upset about something Character B did, and while he understands why she did it, he still doesn't necessarily agree with her justification).
In the scene in question, things are a little bit tense, and Character A lashes out a little at Character B without meaning to. Character B is the POV character in this scene, and she observes the following:
" It seemed the subtle anger he’d harbored [with / for] her for the past couple of years had never fully ebbed."
Based on the sentence structure, I've been under the impression that either with or for would technically be correct in this instance, but is either of them more correct than the other? Or more widely accepted / commonly used? Using for would definitely make the sentence clunky, so if that was the more correct of the two, I'd need to re-work everything a bit.
Or, as a third option, would toward work? It would basically be the same as saying "anger he'd held toward her."
Basically, what's my best option?
Best Answer
Harbor or harbour anger for both seem incorrect, googling them yields 900 results and 205 results, respectively.
Harbor or harbour anger with both seem incorrect too, googling them yields 462 results and 9 results, respectively.
In fact, just Googling "harbor anger" and "harbour anger", yield very few (relative to other phrases in English) results: 28.900 results and 9.420 results, respectively.
Some of the other proposed options (limiting to the American spelling, which has the most results in total): "harbor anger toward": 3950 results "harbor anger towards": 4150 results 19.900 results
As noted in the comments, it seems to be a biblical term
Harbor can be used in conjunction with a noun, according to OLD:
Considering "harboring anger against" got the most hits on Google, and the fact that "harbor a grudge against" is used in the OLD, I think that is your best option if you want to use the phrasal verb to harbor anger.