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Margaret Muwonge wrote:
> These days I hear 'different than' everywhere. Question: Is this mainstream now and OK?
Mark wrote:
>It is clearly mainstream. Whether that makes it OK is a matter for
whatever authority you must answer to.
I agree fully with Mark. Those who insist that we cannot say "different from" are not allowing language to make normal changes. The real issue, IMHO, is whether it sounds OK--and, to me, "different than" sounds fine, at least in some contexts. Mark's analysis shows that it is also linguistically sound and defensible.
>In practice, both forms are commonly understood and inoffensive to the
average ear so any effort expended on changing from one to the other (in
either direction) is wasted.
Absolutely correct. This is similar to the "rule" that requires one to say "fewer than" instead of "less than" if one is speaking of "count" items--another rule that is rapidly disappearing under the inevitable changes that all languages make over time.
Best,
Tim Hadley
Texas Tech University
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