这篇文章写的比较“水”，因为我实在太累了，大家要早点休息 -- 争取早睡早起，比晚睡晚起要好。
你知道but, 也知道 for, 可是连在一起 “but for” 是什么意思? 其实这是一个查查字典就能解决的问题，在这里多说几句。
有这样一个句子:
High housing prices force workers towards cheaper but less productive places. According to one study, employment in the Bay Area around San Francisco would be about five times larger than it is but for tight limits on construction.
你看懂了吗？
"But for" 相当于 "if it were not for" 或 "if it had not been for”。中文可以理解为 “要不是多亏..." "假如没有..."
例如 “要不是多亏了他们，我们的钱本来会全部丢失”就可以说：
But for them, we'd have lost all our money.
你已经注意到了，这是传说中的虚拟语气。简单说一下:
首先让我想到碧昂斯的那首:
If I were a boy…
当然了我们可与把它倒装成
Were I a boy…
再来个句子
If it were not for the rain, I would go shopping.
Were it not for the rain, I would go shopping.
这时我们可以用 "but for" 去取代 "if it weren't for" 或 "were it not for"：
But for the rain, I would go shopping.
上面的例子都是现在的情況。如果我们想表达过去的情況呢？
例如，上星期的某天是下雨天。我想说「如果那天没有下雨的话，我会去购物。」：
If it hadn't been for the rain, I would have gone shopping.
Had it not been for the rain, I would have gone shopping.
这个句子也可以变化成:
But for the rain, I would have gone shopping.
需要注意的是：不是所有的but for都是这个意思
But for Hillary Clinton, the shift now is into new territory...
在这个句子里，but和for都各自保持本身的词义，是“但是对于...”的意思 -- 具体情况要具体分析。
之前分享过郎朗说英文的视频，其中他就犯了一个有关虚拟语气的错误:
What is the one thing in the world that you would rather be?
I (would) like to become, like, a talk show host, if I’m not a concert pianist.
If I were Lang Lang 我或许会说If I were not a concert pianist, 表示虚拟。 这种情态动词在口语中是我们经常忽略而有极其重要的，也是我们不习惯使用的。
拿"would"为例,来自电影Boyhood, 我们感受一下:
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