Flawed Comparisons
In a series of posts Virtus will provide tips and advice covering many aspects of publishing. This series will be an ongoing selection of language tips, covering areas that many authors find difficult or confusing. These will be short and to the point.
Virtus Publishing Language Tip #21: Flawed Comparisons
As a follow-up to Tip #20, “Compare with” versus “Compare to,” let’s look at what might be called flawed comparisons, specifically when (and how) the words “than,” “similar to,” and “compare to” versus “compare with” (and other similar constructions) should be used.
Let’s look at these issues, which many people finding confusing.
Examples
Sally’s writing skills are better than Bob.
Opinions of the management are no more relevant than employees.
Reading War and Peace is more difficult than a comic book.
In December, the weather in Idaho is colder than Mexico.
Unlike Phil, the marks of Steve didn’t decrease.
Similar to Joe, the blood sugar levels of Jim were very low.
The density of oil is higher compared to alcohol.
Than
Let’s look at the “than” examples first:
Sally’s writing skills are better than Bob.
Often what happens when trying to make comparative statements is that words or punctuation may have been omitted, which completely changes what is being said.
Does the speaker really mean that the writing skills of Sally are “better” than Bob (the person)?
Of course not. The speaker is referring to writing skills and intended to compare the skills of Sally to the skills of Bob, and say this:
Sally’s writing skills are better than Bob’s.
or
Sally’s writing skills are better than those of Bob.
The first option is fine; I’d regard the second option as more elegant.
Opinions of the management are no more relevant than employees.
We’ve got the same situation here: the comparison doesn’t involve the “opinions” versus the “employees.” It involves the opinions of management versus the opinions of the employees. The simple omission of a few words makes the sentence as written very unclear. The best option would be one of these:
The opinions of the management are no more relevant than those of the employees.
or
The opinions of the management are no more relevant than the opinions of the employees.
Keep in mind that our objective is to always keep it simple.
Reading War and Peace is more difficult than a comic book.
Same problem: a few words are missing. The best option would be this:
Reading War and Peace is more difficult than reading a comic book.
Here’s another example:
In December, the weather in Idaho is colder than Mexico.
This one is easily fixed:
In December, the weather in Idaho is colder than in Mexico.
Unlike and Similar to
Let’s look at examples of these one at a time.
Unlike Phil, the marks of Steve didn’t decrease.
Although it’s possible or even probable that the listener/reader would understand the point, there are better ways of saying it. There would be a few possible ways to rewrite this sentence to make it more clear:
Unlike the marks of Phil, Steve’s marks didn’t decrease.
Unlike Phil’s marks, Steve’s didn’t decrease.
Unlike Phil’s, Steve’s marks didn’t decrease.
Here’s another very similar situation:
Similar to Joe, the blood sugar levels of Jim were very low.
Again, the intended meaning might be understood, but there are better ways of saying this:
Similar to Joe’s, Jim’s blood sugar levels were very low.
Similar to the blood sugar levels Joe, Jim’s were very low.
Compare to and Compare with
The density of oil is higher compared to alcohol.
There are two potential issues here: As in the cases above, some clarity would help. Here’s one way to resolve this:
The density of oil is higher compared to the density of alcohol.
The other issue concerns “compared to” versus “compared with.”
We covered this is Tip #20, but The Chicago Manual of Style also weighs in on this issue as follows.
CMS, Section 5.220, Good usage versus common usage
compare.
To compare with is to discern both similarities and differences between things.
To compare to is to note primarily similarities between things.
Remember to consider the context when making comparative statements and to aim for clarity.
Like this post? Follow Virtus Publishing on LinkedIn!