word usage What is the difference between Is it free and Is it on the house? English Language & Usage Stack Exchange

A friend claims that the phrase for free is incorrect. I don’t think there’s any difference in meaning, although “free of charges” is much less common than “free of charge”. “free of charge” or “for free” would be correct.

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A private school in the US typically means fee-taking. The National Health Service (NHS) is the publicly funded national healthcare system for England … It is the largest single-payer healthcare system in the world. In the UK and the US it is also called private healthcare, private medicine, or private medical insurance. In the UK, healthcare is either public, a.k.a the National Health Service, or private (paid for). For parking, the expression parking charges is frequently used and the request, How much do they charge for parking?

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I understand the phrase “I’m free, white, and twenty-one” was used in several films of the 1930’s (see clips here), generally to mean “I can do what I want and no one can stop me” and that the phrase was common in that era, at least in the some parts of the U.S. Some combination of these reasons can probably explain why the phrases listed by the OP sound awkward. Instead of ‘this is a paid service’ we may see ‘a charge for this service will be added to your bill’. To steer clear of this ambiguity, careful writers and speakers may avoid such phrases, and use some more elaborate wording instead. (2) Some of the listed phrases can be ambiguous.

For whatever service that is not paid, i.e., gratis, free, or pro bono if legal assistance is sought; as the client, you will be charged a fee. “At pornhubslots link no cost” is usually more accurate in that it indicates you will not have to pay money for the item. The use of a commodity, such as ‘five dollars’, can be correctly phrased, “for five dollars”. Well, Jonathan, how about it NOT being correct simply because many people use it? It states, “How about it being correct because many people use it, and that’s how languages evolve. – Jonathan. Aug 16 I believe the puzzle comes from the common but mistaken belief that prepositions must have noun-phrase object complements.

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That phrase, consequently, does not strike us as odd. (1) It is generally known that professional consultations, for example, usually need to be paid for, and that’s why we almost never hear the phrase ‘paid consultation’. That means I pay for it (are my insurance does). So, if I can afford it, I might for one reason or another decide to have a treatment done privately.