There's no vaccine ____ the disease.

[Tdol]

New Entry: 'There's no vaccine ____ the disease.' has just been added to the Language Polls area of UsingEnglish.com.


Link to this entry: There's no vaccine ____ the disease.

 

[probus]

In my opinion, to is just plain wrong and for is a poor choice. I'd always use against.

 

[GoesStation]

In my opinion, to is just plain wrong and for is a poor choice. I'd always use against.

Vaccine for is 50% more common.

 

[Tarheel]

In 69 years I have only heard for.

 

[Tdol]

To make everyone happy, I have added against. Thanks for letting me know. Is against the most common choice in Canada?

 

[probus]

I think against is by far the most common choice in Canada. As I said, to my ear to is just wrong in this context.

 

[Tdol]

Canada is no longer excluded from the poll. Pardon my ignorance. I was simply looking for a wrong answer.

 

[Tarheel]

I think we are in agreement that "to" is a wrong answer.

 

[jutfrank]

It doesn't have anything to do with commonest choices, or with any particular region of the world. The obvious answer is for.

You could try to argue that against could make some sense in the context, but there's no reason to think it's a better answer than for, given the limited context we have.

It's not that for and against are two different ways of saying the same thing—it's that they are two ways of saying different things. The sense of for here, as it so often does, relates to special purpose. There are vaccines designed for those diseases, but there isn't one for this one.

Probus—I think you're confusing this context with others that you may have in mind, where against is indeed the correct preposition. Look:

They've been vaccinated against polio.

Here, for is not appropriate, as there is no sense of special purpose. Remember that different prepositions have different meanings.

 

[jutfrank]

Vaccine for is 50% more common.

That tells us nothing about the different meanings of the two forms. Sometimes for is correct, and sometimes against is correct.

This then is not a comparison of which preposition is more popular for a specific sense, it is only a (poor) indication of which meaning is more frequent.