Your last question first: no, save in this sense is not archaic. It’s not as common as except, but it occurs in natural speech, especially as part of the phrase save for.
As to why save (for) means ‘except (for)’, that is a relatively long story.
Originally, in mediaeval French, sauf/salf (masculine) and sauve/salve (feminine) were used as adjectives meaning ‘whole, intact, safe’ only. All the way back since Latin, this adjective was frequently used in an absolute manner to mean ‘with [X] safe/whole/intact’: in Latin, this was an absolute ablative, and you had expressions like salvā fīdē ‘with your faith intact/without violating your faith’. In French, where the ablative was long gone, the absolute usage was simply just the plain form, but still originally inflected to fit the number and gender of the noun it qualified: sauf sun ordre ‘with his order intact/not disobeying his order’ vs. sauve sa grace ‘with his grace or lordship intact/not disobeying or disrespecting (etc.) his grace or lordship’.
During Middle French, the inflection to match the noun modified started to be lost, and the masculine singular form sauf was used, becoming more and more preposition- or conjunction-like.
The meaning also shifted: from indicating that something was kept intact and unviolated, it came to be used as a polite way of expressing disagreement, similar to pace in modern academia: it meant something like ‘while not meaning any violation towards X’, ‘if X will excuse me saying so’, etc.
From this meaning came a more abstract meaning of the object of save, which was now clearly a preposition. This object now started being considered as having been removed from harm’s way, having been taken apart to avoid violation or unwholesomeness, as it were. The thing that was ‘safe/save’ in this sense was therefore now simply considered as not being included in the main group. The overlapping sense can be envisioned in an example phrase like “All the men were killed in the war, save one”: the one man is removed from his group of belonging (“all the men”) and is considered apart, immune to the effects of the sentence upon that group. He is both literally safe from being killed in the war and ‘safe’ from whatever happens in the sentence, so to speak.
This nuance of meaning was probably blurred out quite quickly, and only the notion of the object being seen as something that had been taken out of its group and was seen as an exception survived, which is basically the meaning both save and except has today.
[This answer is based on and fleshed out from the definitions and etymological notes given in the OED article for save (requires subscription).]
Answer from Janus Bahs Jacquet on Stack ExchangeYour last question first: no, save in this sense is not archaic. It’s not as common as except, but it occurs in natural speech, especially as part of the phrase save for.
As to why save (for) means ‘except (for)’, that is a relatively long story.
Originally, in mediaeval French, sauf/salf (masculine) and sauve/salve (feminine) were used as adjectives meaning ‘whole, intact, safe’ only. All the way back since Latin, this adjective was frequently used in an absolute manner to mean ‘with [X] safe/whole/intact’: in Latin, this was an absolute ablative, and you had expressions like salvā fīdē ‘with your faith intact/without violating your faith’. In French, where the ablative was long gone, the absolute usage was simply just the plain form, but still originally inflected to fit the number and gender of the noun it qualified: sauf sun ordre ‘with his order intact/not disobeying his order’ vs. sauve sa grace ‘with his grace or lordship intact/not disobeying or disrespecting (etc.) his grace or lordship’.
During Middle French, the inflection to match the noun modified started to be lost, and the masculine singular form sauf was used, becoming more and more preposition- or conjunction-like.
The meaning also shifted: from indicating that something was kept intact and unviolated, it came to be used as a polite way of expressing disagreement, similar to pace in modern academia: it meant something like ‘while not meaning any violation towards X’, ‘if X will excuse me saying so’, etc.
From this meaning came a more abstract meaning of the object of save, which was now clearly a preposition. This object now started being considered as having been removed from harm’s way, having been taken apart to avoid violation or unwholesomeness, as it were. The thing that was ‘safe/save’ in this sense was therefore now simply considered as not being included in the main group. The overlapping sense can be envisioned in an example phrase like “All the men were killed in the war, save one”: the one man is removed from his group of belonging (“all the men”) and is considered apart, immune to the effects of the sentence upon that group. He is both literally safe from being killed in the war and ‘safe’ from whatever happens in the sentence, so to speak.
This nuance of meaning was probably blurred out quite quickly, and only the notion of the object being seen as something that had been taken out of its group and was seen as an exception survived, which is basically the meaning both save and except has today.
[This answer is based on and fleshed out from the definitions and etymological notes given in the OED article for save (requires subscription).]
I had someone use "save for" in an email recently. And I thought it was odd. I actually wasn't sure what it meant. And last Sunday at church, we sang the hymnal "Be thou my vision" and it uses the term "save for" also. But it's a really old hymn. So, yes, I find it archaic.
How can I use "save and except for" in a sentence?
When should I use "save and except for" instead of "except for"?
What phrases are similar to "save and except for"?
In the sentence below, ‘is ‘save’ used as ‘except for’?
When Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral: the men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument, the women mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house, which no one save an old manservant—a combined gardener and cook— had seen in at least ten years.
The definition of save in this example is other than : but, except.
This article gives a rather interesting discussion about when to use except/except for, and that applies equally to save/save for.
That article mentions one case where you would use the 'for' version:
when what is excluded is different from what is included
Examples cited:
Your essay is good except for the spelling.
All the compositions are good except John's.
It goes on with several other cases, so I guess the nutshell answer is: Both are correct in different situations, and the rules for figuring out which to use are fairly complex.
My first thought on reading this question was that although including the word "for" isn't exactly incorrect, it doesn't sit well with me. Here's the obligatory NGram showing I'm not alone...
The original meaning of save as protect from harm morphed through preserve -> put aside -> make an exception of -> with the exception of. This same meaning shift has also happened with the French sauf.
“I loved that movie, save for the ending.”
No, no, no!
It’s “I loved that movie, except for the ending.”
I’m hearing this a lot more lately and I don’t know why.