เผื่อ And เพื่อ

[DavidHouston]

Two different Thai words:

เพื่อ [CONJ] for; for the sake of; for the purpose of; on behalf of; in order that; in order to; so that Syn. เหตุด้วย, เพราะด้วย, เพราะ, เพราะว่า, ด้วย, ด้วยว่า, เกี่ยวกับ, เนื่องด้วย, สำหรับ Sample:ผู้ควบคุมจำเป็นต้องปิดเครือข่าย และสถานีงานทั้งหมด เพื่อทำให้ระบบกลับคืนสู่สภาพปกติ

"The adminsitrators were forced to close the entire network as well as all the workstations in order to bring the system back to its normal state."

and

เผื่อ เผื่อว่า [CONJ] if; supposing; in case Syn. ถ้า, หากว่า, สมมติว่า, ถ้าว่า, เผื่อ

Def. เป็นคำเชื่อมแสดงความคิดที่สำรองไว้หรือเพิ่มเติมไว้.

Sample:หนูนั่งคอยไปอย่างนั้นเอง เผื่อว่าเขาจะเรียก

"I [a young woman] am sitting her, just in case he calls."

The first word is to express "purpose", the second to espress a "condition precedent."

However, here is a sentence from the newspaper today:

"เมื่อรัฐบาลสบโอกาสโกงกินก็จะกินไม่เหลือไว้เผื่อคนอื่น "

When the government has an opportunity to enrich itself [to the detrement of the people], there is [generally] nothing left for anyone else."

My question: is the use of the word "เผื่อ" in this sentence correct or is it a misspelling and the word should have been "เพื่อ". I am not the word police; just trying to understand usage of these very common Thai conjunctions. Thank you.

[mangkorn]

Good question. There seem to be several meanings or shades of meanings for เผื่อ which indicate "to reserve, to save for, to put aside, to deposit, to have on hand..."

Could that explain that usage for "nothing left (reserved) for anyone else"?

I wonder if it's a matter of syntax: a wild guess - if you used เพื่อ would you then need to render a wordier construction that would translate as "in order that other people might be able to receive a share..." ?

The two words do appear to have some overlap in meaning; could there be a grammatical rule determining what should follow in each case (noun, verb, adverb, dependent clause, etc.)?

[stateman]

However, here is a sentence from the newspaper today:

"เมื่อรัฐบาลสบโอกาสโกงกินก็จะกินไม่เหลือไว้เผื่อคนอื่น "

When the government has an opportunity to enrich itself [to the detrement of the people], there is [generally] nothing left for anyone else."

My question: is the use of the word "เผื่อ" in this sentence correct or is it a misspelling and the word should have been "เพื่อ". I am not the word police; just trying to understand usage of these very common Thai conjunctions. Thank you.

The use of เผื่อ is the right use here. It means without leaving (saving) (whatever they are eating) to others.

This is partly from the Thai culture which typically eat together at the same table, sharing the same food at a meal (e.g. at a family dinner). One manner expected of each is to eat in moderation, even when that dish is one's favorite. So to eat it (that dish) all without saving for others is just not cool.

In fact on the subject of corruption in the past few decades, when the government "ate", it ate its share on that particular project, leaving other projects for others to have their share. But the talk of town during the previous gov. was that they not only gorged among themselves. They positively blocked other big businesses, who had joined force with previous gov. in their share of corruption, from any crumbs. It was like if you are not part of us, you get nothing. That was why there were so much resentment and background support for the peoples' movement.

If you change the word to เพื่อ, it is just not the way Thais use it.