A: What are you wearing?
B: Funny. Excuse me.
A: Geez, wake up on the wrong side of the bed or something?
B: For a few days now, yeah.
Q: I don’t understand the “now” in the last sentence. I would just say “for a few days”, is that okay?
Thank you!!
The “now” indicates that the “few” is starting to become more than a few. In this case, the speaker might be getting annoyed that this is still happening. So it adds a small amount of emphasis to the sentence.
If you have a cold, you can say, “I’ve had a cold for a few days.” If you’re sick of your cold and/or it’s dragging on longer than expected, you could say, “I’ve had this cold for quite a few days now.”
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Yes, you could leave it out. It means the same as always: “at this point.”
Now, I’ve been at LingQ for five years. I’ve been at LingQ for five years now. At this point, I’ve been at LingQ for five years.
It’s redundant and saying it in the above example emphasizes in the way jungleboy mentioned.
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wow
“For a few days” is simply a measure of time, which does not express that something is continuing to occur. For example:
How long will you be staying at this hotel?
(I will be staying) For a few days.
How long were you locked out of your account?
(I was locked out) For a few days.
Expressions such as “for a few days now” are typically used with the (stated or implied) present perfect continuous to express something that “has been” happening or going on for a period of time … and continues to the present moment (now). For example:
How long has the air conditioning in your room not been working?
(The air conditioning in my room has not been working) For a couple of hours now.
I’ve been studying English for two years now.
I’ve been doing long distance training for a while now.
We’ve been dating for six months now.
My dog has been missing for a week now.
Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed or something?
(I’ve been feeling pretty irritable) For a few days now, yeah.
If you do a Twitter Search for “for a few days now” (be sure to use quotes) you will find lots of examples where something “has been” happening for a few days and continues to this very moment. Hopefully this will give you a better sense of when to use time expressions like “for a few days now” and why people use such expressions.
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