Compared with or to?

[stanwixman]

Please can somone tell me when its correct to use compared to and when its correct to use compared with as there is no consistancy with their use? My wife keeps telling me its compared with and not to at all so whos correct?

[nightmare]

Strictly speaking, a comparison is made WITH something, so you should use " compared with."

I won't even get started on the American monstrosity
different THAN

[jno]

I think either is fine. Shakespeare wrote 'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?', so if you want to use 'to' he may rate as an authority almost as good as your wife.

Bill Bryson reckons you can use 'to' to liken things ('he compared London to New York' means he was saying they were alike) and 'with' to study both likenesses and differences (so listing the similarities and differences between London and NY) and reckons that 'with' is the most useful. Then he says you can use either. So do I.

(That's in his Dictionary fo Troublesome Words, not his History of Nearly Everything.)

[Quizmonster]

In certain circumstances in British English, 'with' is obligatory...ie when the verb 'compare' is intransitive. For example, "The situation in Scotland compares favourably with that in England" or "John's achievements do not compare with those of James."

[jno]

that's interesting, Quizmonster, because it's the opposite of what Bryson says - as the verb means in effect to liken, rather than just to weigh similarities and differences. You're both right, I'm sure, so it suggests that even though the word has the same meaning, the change from transitive to intransitive also means a change of preposition. i wonder why that should be?

Sorry, stanwixman, probably more answer than you really needed.

[BillStickers]

Digressing slightly, is "different THAN" wrong?

I think it sounds a monstrosity as well, nightmare. However, it's so widely used so is it that might just be right... am I right, or am I wrong?

[Vesper99]

Usage is (just about ) all. What is right today will be different in 100 years time.
'Correct' usage is currently 'different from...' but stick around.
The sad thing is when differences in meaning are obscured by usage: disinterested coming to mean uninterested.

[sophie_1003]

the only way you could use different than, (i think) is when there it's 'more different than' or 'less different than' otherwise it should be different to.

[Quizmonster]

In British English usage, 'different to' dates back to the 1520s, 'different from' 1590s and 'different than' 1640s. All three were accepted until the 20th century. Then, the 'from' version became quite the thing in Britain whereas the 'than' version became more popular in American English, though they used 'from', too! The diversion is really quite recent in language terms and - given the more or less simultaneous historical background of each - 'than' is not really that much of a monstrosity.
"Manchester United is suffering from a different problem than Liverpool is" certainly seems to me a better way of expressing the thought than "Manchester United is suffering from a different problem from that which Liverpool is."

[joko]

don't know if it means anything, but i always think of compared 'to' as being a bit of a negative comparison - such as "compared to mine, your hair is a mess", whereas compared 'with' seems more positive, as in comparing 2 styles and just discussing it....

[Chairex]

Bill Bryson is a brilliant writer and one of the very few who has ever made me laugh out loud - but that doesn't make him an expert on this topic. Quoting what he thinks might be interesting, but nothing more than that.