Requesting

My, how time flies! In my mind, my last blog post was two days ago. When I opened my blog today, I realized the last time I posted was Monday and now it's Friday! Where did the week go? Do you get that feeling sometimes too?

Today, I'd like to discuss the word, request. I was at the supermarket the other day and I heard this announcement: "Requesting for customer service personnel please." I don't know the reason for the announcement, I was just struck by the phrase, requesting for. I felt there was an error somewhere.

More often than not, we see or hear people saying request for or requesting for. I checked this out and there is an error. Ideally, the word request is not used with for. Hence, we say "I'd like to request assistance" or "I'm requesting that they meet me early."

There are many instances though of people on the Internet using request for or requesting for. I think this is a case of usage overrunning the rule. Technically, I don't think this is a serious error. It's a case of more words than necessary being used. Still, it does not make for efficient English use.

As to the supermarket example above, here's a revision "Calling on customer service personnel, please."