Semantics

[amateur51]

why thank you...

If this thread is to be about the correct use of language the very least it can do is have a title that is not an incorrect use of language!

Aka Calum da Jazbo has it right in his #58 - we are talking about usage.
If the manes of Eric Partridge permit - perhaps an appropriate title might be Usage and Abusage.

A stonking idea, vints - English Language On The Move: Usages and Abusages.

Otherwise certain people will think the thread's about child abuse and we'll have the The Turn of the Screw saga all over again

[Ventilhorn]

why thank you...

If this thread is to be about the correct use of language the very least it can do is have a title that is not an incorrect use of language!

Aka Calum da Jazbo has it right in his #58 - we are talking about usage.
If the manes of Eric Partridge permit - perhaps an appropriate title might be Usage and Abusage.

Well, if you want to change it, start your own thread and ask FF to do a transfer. Personally, I couldn't care less.
One thing I do care about is that the subject, whatever you may wish to call it, does not include needless argument and point scoring.

I started this thread to give people something to talk about ─ not bicker about.

VH

[jayne lee wilson]

Calm down VH, go and pour yourself a Glenmorangie. I'll raise my glass to you in a few minutes, when I head out to Sainsburys fuelled by a coffee and cognac. Here's to music and the good companions!

Wait, abuse of language? "Moving forward" is my personal bete noir just now. Next time I'll throw the Tivoli through the window. Virtually.

Cheers,
JLW

Well, if you want to change it, start your own thread and ask FF to do a transfer. Personally, I couldn't care less.
One thing I do care about is that the subject, whatever you may wish to call it, does not include needless argument and point scoring.

I started this thread to give people something to talk about ─ not bicker about.

VH

[kernelbogey]

[....] "Moving forward" is my personal bete noir just now. Next time I'll throw the Tivoli through the window. Virtually.Cheers, JLW

I recently heard a weather forecaster on R4 say 'Moving on through into tomorrow...'

Which reminded me of this:

I lately lost a preposition
It hid, I thought, beneath my chair
And angrily I cried, “Perdition!
Up from out of in under there.”

Correctness is my vade mecum,
And straggling phrases I abhor,
And yet I wondered, “What should he come
Up from out of in under for?”

Morris Bishop, New Yorker, 1947

[amateur51]

Lovely stuff, kernel

[Chris Newman]

I recently heard a weather forecaster on R4 say 'Moving on through into tomorrow...'

Which reminded me of this:

I lately lost a preposition
It hid, I thought, beneath my chair
And angrily I cried, “Perdition!
Up from out of in under there.”

Correctness is my vade mecum,
And straggling phrases I abhor,
And yet I wondered, “What should he come
Up from out of in under for?”

Morris Bishop, New Yorker, 1947

Thank you, kb.

The aforementioned words are now afixed to my wall.

[Chris Newman]

I recently heard a weather forecaster on R4 say 'Moving on through into tomorrow...'

Which reminded me of this:

I lately lost a preposition
It hid, I thought, beneath my chair
And angrily I cried, “Perdition!
Up from out of in under there.”

Correctness is my vade mecum,
And straggling phrases I abhor,
And yet I wondered, “What should he come
Up from out of in under for?”

Morris Bishop, New Yorker, 1947

Thank you, kb.

The aforementioned words are now afixed to my wall.

[Ventilhorn]

From today's Daily Telegraph (online) Motoring:

Find out what makes (Citroën) DS4 different to anything you have seen before.

[tony yyy]

I can't remember what Fowler said about different to instead of different from (was it one of his 'superstitions'?), but Gowers 3d Edn, 1986:

There is good authority for 'different to', but 'different from' is today the established usage. 'Different than' is not unknown even in The Times:
...
'Different than' is, however, common in America.

[french frank]

The second edition (also rev. Gowers) is much more scathing about the insistence on 'different from', calling it a 'mere pedantry'.

"This does not imply," he concedes, "that d. from is wrong; on the contrary, it is 'now usual' (OED); but it is only so owing to the dead set made against d. to by mistaken critics."

You have been told , as far as the second edition goes.

Edit: One of the entertaining aspects of Fowler is that it can sometimes fall victim to the same dogmatism that it denounces.

Now, down to the bus station lost property to pick up my pocket edition of Henry Ryecroft which I dropped on the No 76 last night

[Serial_Apologist]

Well I'm sticking dogmatically to "different from". One does not say "similar from", for clearly logical reasons. "Similar to" surely indicates an attraction of common properties, of convergence towards, whereas "different from" a stepping away or distancing *from*...

"Different than"... "Similar than"? Nah!

[Nick Armstrong]

Well I'm sticking dogmatically to "different from". One does not say "similar from", for clearly logical reasons. "Similar to" surely indicates an attraction of common properties, of convergence towards, whereas "different from" a stepping away or distancing *from*...

"Different than"... "Similar than"? Nah!

S_A that is precisely what I was going to say! I agree - "Different to" sounds to me as alien as "Similar from", and that's how I was always taught anyway... It's always seemed odd to me that it caught on.

[amateur51]

The second edition (also rev. Gowers) is much more scathing about the insistence on 'different from', calling it a 'mere pedantry'.

"This does not imply," he concedes, "that d. from is wrong; on the contrary, it is 'now usual' (OED); but it is only so owing to the dead set made against d. to by mistaken critics."

You have been told , as far as the second edition goes.

Edit: One of the entertaining aspects of Fowler is that it can sometimes fall victim to the same dogmatism that it denounces.

Now, down to the bus station lost property to pick up my pocket edition of Henry Ryecroft which I dropped on the No 76 last night

How classy you are, french frank! I've only ever had to go to the bus station to pick up my green cap - twice!

On the third occasion it was not there

I hope that your & Henry Rycroft are reunited - I have a slim blue Constable & Co 1912 edition in a blue cover with Gissing’s signature picked out in gilt on the front. A book for our times, sadly

[vinteuil]

I hope that your & Henry Rycroft are reunited - I have a slim blue Constable & Co 1912 edition in a blue cover with Gissing’s signature picked out in gilt on the front. A book for our times, sadly

... so: FF, Am51, and vinteuil are all possessors and readers of the nice little Constable edn of Henry Ryecroft - I like it! - Any other Gissingites out there??

[vinteuil]

"Different to" sounds to me as alien as "Similar from", and that's how I was always taught anyway... It's always seemed odd to me that it caught on.

:sigh: I had hoped we wd avoid sterile territory.

Yes, I too was taught to use 'different from' - I was told that 'different to' was not incorrect, but less approved, and that 'different than' was, ahem, American...

Back in 1926 Fowler was already scouring this area. "That different can only be followed by from & not by to is a SUPERSTITION. Not only is to 'found in writers of all ages' (OED); the principle on which it is rejected (You do not say differ to; therefore you cannot say different to) involves a hasty & ill-defined generalization. Is it all derivatives, or derivative adjectives, or adjectives that were once participles, or actual participles, that must conform to the construction of their parent verbs? It is true of the last only; we cannot say differing to; but that leaves different out in the cold. If it is all derivatives, why do we say according, agreeably, & pursuant, to instructions, when we have to say this accords with, agrees with, or pursues, instructions? If derivative adjectives, why derogatory to, inconceivable to, in contrast with derogates from, not to be conceived by ? If ex-participle adjectives, why do pleases, suffices, defies, me go each its own way, & yield pleasant to, sufficient for, & defiant of, me? The fact is that the objections to different to, like those to averse to, sympathy for, & compare to, are mere pedantries. This does not imply that different from is wrong; on the contrary, it is 'now usual' (OED); but it is only so owing to the dead set made against different to by mistaken critics."
HW Fowler Modern English Usage, 1926