I have seen different prepositions after "Good luck". Example:
Good luck on/with/for your new job
Could you explain the possible differences of usage or meaning? Thank you.
expressionsprepositions
I have seen different prepositions after "Good luck". Example:
Good luck on/with/for your new job
Could you explain the possible differences of usage or meaning? Thank you.
Best Answer
The most common preposition paired with "good luck" is "to." The meaning is clear enough, but here are a few examples:
"Good luck to people selling rubbish plates, but for us it's nothing but bad news."
"It's just the way depression works. Meds will fix it. Good luck to you."
Next most common, according to some quick searches on Brigham Young University's English corpora (i.e., massive repositories of English texts) is "with." This matches my own sense of how the word is used. The preposition is used mainly with a specific thing, such as a job or plan. And of course, the sardonic "good luck with that" is popular. Some examples:
"Thank you so much for calling and good luck with making it all work."
"Good luck with, well, whichever career you decide to follow."
"On" is very similar to "with" in meaning. I personally don't see a difference, even after looking up many examples of both words' use. One commenter suggests that "on" is used when only the result matters, whereas "with" is used when the process is more important. That doesn't seem to be true; maybe others would like to weigh in?
One clear case is when "good luck" is being combined with an existing idiom using "on." For instance, "Governor Huntsman, thanks so much for joining us. Good luck on the campaign trail." Otherwise, I'd say you can generally use with, as it is more common, and use "on" only when necessary.
Finally, "for" resembles "to" except that it's used much less frequently ("to" is about 8 times more popular) and expresses less of a wish and more of a statement of fact.