Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2022 March 24

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March 24

Different than/from

I'm a great disliker of "different than". Mainly because "than" goes with comparative adjectives, such as better, worse, bigger etc., and different is not a comparative. I also dislike "different to". My strong preference is "different from".

However, here's a heading from an article I read (all boldings are mine):

• "Political leaders feel very differently about the ABC than the public does".

Simply replacing "than" with "from" doesn't work: it needs something like "Political leaders feel very differently about the ABC from the way (or from how) the public does". Maybe better pedantically, but it wouldn't satisfy the imperatives of short, pithy journalese.

Is there a solution that would satisfy everyone? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 00:19, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Shorter: "Political leaders and the public feel very differently about the ABC." I'm sure, though, that this formulation will not please everyone.  --Lambiam 01:57, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

It does not please me, and Jack wanted to please everybody. I say the "differently than" version should be accepted as the best one. I argue that "than the public does" is a subordinate clause, that using the clause is the natural way to express the difference, and that therefore a conjunction, than rather than from, is necessary. In a case like "Jack's opinion is different than mine", substituting "from" is fine because here no clause is needed. (And incidentally, "different" does introduce a comparison; it's just not a comparison of degree.) --184.144.97.125 (talk) 04:10, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

I would be inclined to write (and even say) "Political leaders feel very differently about the ABC than does the public", but my default style is somewhat old-fashioned (or pedantic, if you will). {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.209.233.48 (talk) 15:16, 24 March 2022 (UTC).

I was about to say the "does" is unnecessary, but it would deambigufy a lot of mushy newspaper sentences. Temerarius (talk) 15:58, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

I can't remember the word for leaving out implied parts of a sentence (which shows what a great authority on language I am), but if the way can be implicit then so can does, and leaving out both makes it less awkward:

• Political leaders feel very differently from the public about the ABC.

(Rearranged to avoid saying the ABC from the public, which suggests that the ABC comes from the public.) Oh and I remembered the word: elision. Reading the article, though, that doesn't apply to entire words, only syllables. There must be some other word for the phenomenon.  Card Zero  (talk) 11:26, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

See Ellipsis (linguistics), Gapping and Stripping (linguistics). Another common form of ellipsis found in many languages is known as "pro-drop".  --Lambiam 17:22, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

• This seems to be a discussion about prescriptivist vs. descriptivisim in grammar. The question is whether proper language involves following immutable rules which shall never be violated, or whether it involves using a common set of (often evolving) rules in a way that the shared language community all uses them. The "never use than except in comparatives" is a prescriptivist rule, largely because it ignores the fact that many people do use it in other situations, and so commonly that it often isn't marked as non-standard for most people, even in formal writing and speaking. Is it a "rule"; I have no doubt that it is, or was. It may have even been common, but it is less so today. This is not necessarily wrong or undesirable; languages change over time; if they didn't we'd all be writing like the author of Beowulf did. --Jayron32 15:59, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

  The thing is, in order for rules to evolve, we can't just all passively describe them. It entails making bold and futile attempts to win other people's compliance, like Noah Webster did. (Actually, reading that article, it says he didn't invent his prefered spellings, he just selected them from the zeitgeist. Even so, he was definitely applying some pressure with his thumb on the scales.)  Card Zero  (talk) 16:53, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

  There are certainly pressures applied; various things, like popular music, emulating preferred social classes or specific societal groups, etc. that all influence how language may change. Language change is unpredictable, but not unmotivated. --Jayron32 17:12, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

  Jayron, your point might have had validity if I'd said the heading was grammatically wrong. But I didn't. I said I'm a great disliker of "different than". We all have our likes and dislikes. Nothing to do with any kind of -ism. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 03:31, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

  And I generally don't dislike things, so that's probably where we tend to run into conflict on things. But you do you. --Jayron32 11:02, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

If you want it in the most compressed headlinese, I think it would be "Pols, public differ on ABC". And if you want to go for clicks: "What political leaders really think about the ABC -- and why the public knows they're wrong". --Amble (talk) 18:01, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

I like these ideas. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 03:31, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure that there is anything wrong with the original phrasing. "X is different than Y" is generally considered to be bad grammar (and would sound odd to me), but that's not how the sentence is worded. I don't know enough about grammar to say exactly what the change to th esentance structure is or why it makes a difference, but I'm pretty sure that in that form, "than" is more appropriate than "from". Iapetus (talk) 10:32, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

I (for one) do experience the original article heading as jarring. That is not an issue of like or dislike – just a feeling that something is off with the phrase. I kid you not, but jarring the phrase is. On the ABC issue itself, I'm sure the public also feel very differently about the ABC than the political leaders, which raises the burning question, which of the two sides feels the most differently?  --Lambiam 11:27, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Obviously the one which is most differenter, that is, the differentest. I've been itching to use these words all day.  Card Zero  (talk) 19:36, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Jack's original observations are on the money. It's not either/or. In some cases, "from" is the right way to say it; in other cases, "than" is. --←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:45, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Different from is a USA usage. People in the UK and Australia say Different to, paralleling Similar to. Different than, in writing, is just lazy. 2600:1700:A3A0:1630:A8BC:66AE:DB82:2CE3 (talk) 01:44, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

Not so. R. W. Burchfield in the New Fowler's says "In the 20c a marked preference for different from has been shown in BrE; in the same period different than has flourished in AmE, but so too has different from". He goes on to say "the construction with than is widespread in AmE, but does not form part of the regular language in Britain", and, after discussing various ways of recasting sentences to avoid repetition, "a wiser course, perhaps, is simply to avoid different than if you are writing (or speaking) in Britain". DuncanHill (talk) 00:00, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

Summarizing:

• Foo is different than bar is an Americanism, and sounds weird in the UK (and to many Americans as well).
• Foo is different to bar is a Briticism, and sounds weird in the US (and I expect to many Brits as well, but this would need confirmation).
• Foo is different from bar is the unmarked form that is accepted in all varieties, and is probably best to use in professional writing everywhere.
• Foo does things differently than bar does has much wider acceptance than foo is different than bar, but if your audience is particularly picky you may wish to reword.

Hope this helps! --Trovatore (talk) 00:17, 30 March 2022 (UTC)