But alas, I have not forgotten! Here is the second installment of the series. Aren't you excited? Aren't you? anybody?? Well, either way, I am an English teacher, and this is what English teachers do. :) Get ready to learn something. ;-D
Today's lesson is about the difference between compare to and compare with. The following quoted paragraph is taken directly from Theodore Bernstein's book
"The choice of to or with to follow compare is not a matter of indifference. When the purpose is to liken two things or to put them in the same category, use to. When the purpose is to place one thing side by side with another, to examine their differences or their similarities, use with. The choice of the preposition was erroneous in each of the following examples: 'The economy can be compared with [to] a runner who is coasting to get his second wind for another sprint'; 'Compared to [with] the $4,900,000,000 the Administration has proposed for foreign aid, the cost of the overseas reactor program will be small.' Since compare to is most often involved in figurative constructions, whereas compare with is the more literal, everyday phrase, the uses calling for with far outnumber those calling for to."
I had to look this up this evening while I was writing comments on papers I was grading. On one paper, I was trying to tell a student that he had not followed the example given on the assignment sheet, and I was trying to tell him to compare them. I thought, I'm the English teacher. Is it compare to or compare with? Hmm. I'd better look that one up, lest I be embarrassed.
I was happy to learn the difference, but I would be even happier if the majority of the students' papers could be compared to the assignment sheet instead of compared with it! :-D LOL
Here's the bottom line: if you saying that the two compared items are similar, use compare to. But usually, when we are comparing in order to point out differences, we should say compare with.
9 comments:
This was very interesting! My grammar is horrible....I didn't realize how bad it was until I started my blog. LOL (o;
I know what you mean -- there is nothing like an audience to make us aware of what we are doing! :)
(Actually, that is why I tell my students that they should read their papers out loud to someone before they turn them in to me. Just the consciousness that someone else is going to read our words in print makes us pay extra special attention! It's funny how our minds are like that.)
By the way, Mrs. B, I do not notice "horrible" grammar on your blog at all! I really enjoy your writing, and I believe that we would get along quite well if we were actually to become acquainted. :)
Thank you, Leannot, that was very kind and gracious of you!
I guess what I find so awful about my writing is how I constantly end my sentences with prepositions and I get quite comma-happy at times! If I write a long sentence I just keep adding commas so it won't seem like such a run-on sentence. LOL
And I find myself to be quite hyphen-happy too. When is it appropriate to use a hyphen to link words together?
I have found that reading blogs whose writers are from England has helped me quite a bit....I bet they cringe at the way we Americans write sometimes! (o:
Blessings,
~Mrs.B
That is an interesting comment, Mrs. B. First, you will be pleased to learn that you may lay aside your guilt on the preposition-ending-a-sentence issue. Most grammarians, including my esteemed mentor, (who has written many wonderful grammar textbooks) agree that awkwardly trying to avoid this "problem" is more of a problem than just ending a sentence with a preposition.
In fact, Winston Churchill once scolded someone for editing his writing by arranging his words so that the prepositions were all in the middle of the sentence. Churchill pointed out how awkward this made his writing by saying sarcastically, "This is the sort of English up with which I will not put." Generally, if changing the order of your sentence would make it sound awkward, it is preferable just to put the preposition at the end and not worry about it. :)
As far as the hyphens, I will focus my answer on the most common uses, lest I chatter on about it all day and make you all die of boredom. (It's a good thing that I get paid to talk about this stuff all day so that I can get it out of my system! I love grammar way more than most would consider normal. Can you tell?) :-D
You used a hyphen correctly when you called youself hyphen-happy. A primary use of hyphens is to form one adjective with more than one word. Your phrase hyphen-happy is really one adjective, and to show that, you correctly joined the two words with a hyphen. I also used this rule above where I described the word issue with the long adjective preposition-ending-a-sentence.
The other most common hyphen rule is to use one in numbers such as twenty-one, one hundred forty-seven, etc.
I feel your pain on the comma issue. They really are tricky; in fact, commas are probably the most highly-misused piece of punctuation in our language, because we feel like using then whenever we would pause in a sentence. :) (The danger is this: picture a group of elementary school children reciting the pledge in a sing-songy manner: "I pledge allegiance, to the flag, of the United States, of America. And to the republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty, and justice, for all." Aagh! That would kill us with commas! LOL) It can be hard to know where to put commas because there are so many rules for their placement. However, I think that you are doing just fine, especially since a blog is not held to the requirement level of a doctoral dissertation. ;-)
My pet punctuation mark is the semicolon. I have been told that I use it more than most do; and probably, those critics are correct. :) Oh well.
By the way, the above comment was written by me, Lean Not. I don't know why Blogger said it is anonymous. I was signed in. Go figure.
Leannot,
Thank you so much for answering all of my questions, your information was quite helpful!
I'm so glad to know that I don't have to stress out over ending my sentences with prepositions! You'd laugh if you could see me wrangling some of the posts I've written....Spending tons of time trying to rearrange things so that this pesky little problem doesn't occur. Glad to know I can stop obsessing over it! (o:
And I understand about the hyphen now, thank you very much!
As for the comma issue. Well, I'm afraid that I do tend to place one where I want the reader to pause. Oh well, I guess that means I still have plenty to learn.
Thanks again for your help, I find this very interesting and you explain it very well!
Blessings,
~Mrs.B
Thanks -- you're cute, Mrs. B. Thank you for your interest in grammar: it makes me very excited. (ha, isn't that a little silly? I'm strange that way. God has given me a funny thing to be passionate about. But I do love it, even if it's a tad nerdy!) :)
Well, as far as putting the commas where people pause, that's commonly done because many times it really does work. Many appropriate comma situations just so happen to also be times to pause. So it's not a totally foolproof way to know where your commas go, but it really is at least a pretty good place to start.
Don't beat yourself up about it. Mrs. B., you have a good message that you deliver, and I do not think that your writing is hindered by your commas. :) Just keep up what you are doing -- we surely enjoy it already!
Don't beat yourself up about it. Mrs. B., you have a good message that you deliver, and I do not think that your writing is hindered by your commas. :) Just keep up what you are doing -- we surely enjoy it already!
What a lovely thing to say! Thank you so very much. (o:
Blessings,
~Mrs.B
You're welcome. :) Thank you for your ministry of writing.
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