Make Your Editor Cry: For All Intensive Purposes vs. For All Intents and Purposes

Make Your Editor Cry: For All Intensive Purposes vs. For All Intents and Purposes

This idiom is most often used to say that one thing has the same effect, or the same result, as something else.

No matter how intensive your purposes may be, be sure to write about the intents, as in the intentions, and purposes when trying to describe how something is practical for all purposes.

Example:

The decision by the Nazis to begin bombing was, for all intents and purposes, a declaration of war.