Once upon a time I got a letter from a reader of my column pointing out that I had incorrectly used “different than” instead of “different from.” I wrote a new column owning up to the mistake and explaining the difference. A few months later, I got a letter from another reader pointing out that I had again incorrectly used “different than” instead of “different from.”
Not two months after writing a column on the difference between “may” and “might,” I screwed up in an article and used “may” instead of “might.”
After a discussion with a co-worker on the difference between “between” and “among,” I promptly forgot the difference between “between” and “among.”
After years of following what I thought was a clear guideline on the difference between “compared to” and “compared with,” I realized I’d been wrong all along.
And though I’ve repeatedly looked up the difference between “like” and “as,” my writing continues to suggest that I have no idea of the difference between “like” and “as.”
Some things just don’t stick in my brain.
One of three explanations apply. Either 1. I was dropped on my head as a child, or 2. I was dropped on my head as a child, or 3. some things are hard. Sure, I could drive myself nuts trying to figure out which of the above scenarios explains it, painstakingly researching both grammar and family history until the flat spot on my head throbs. But I’d rather just go over these pitfalls one more time, hoping that this time they’ll stick for good.
The difference between “may” and “might” is as clear as the difference between “day” and “day.”
“ ‘May’ expresses what is possible, is factual, or could be factual,” Chicago tells us. “ ‘Might’ suggests something that is uncertain, hypothetical, or contrary to fact.”
So obviously, the difference is as clear as the difference between “possible” and “uncertain.” That is, not clear at all.
“Sometimes ‘may’ means the same thing as ‘might,’ and there’s nothing wrong with that,” writes Bill Walsh in terms that leave me wondering whether he skipped English class to watch Seinfeld. “If there’s some potential for confusion, of course, you can use ‘might’ if you mean ‘maybe’ and ‘may’ if you mean ‘allowed to.’ ”
Is the flat spot on your head throbbing, too? Stay with me.
Strunk and White’s guide includes no entry for “may” or “might.” The AP Stylebook doesn’t have one, either. The Oxford English Grammar, on the other hand, talks about “may” and “might” a lot, dragging the reader into the deep end of the grammar pool with terms like “modal auxiliaries” and even offering a super-practical explanation of “mayn’t” (thanks for that, guys). But Oxford never explains the difference between the two words “may” and “might.”
How can you dodge the criticism I’ve suffered for not knowing the difference? I’ll make it easy. When choosing between “may” and “might,” latch on to the word “hypothetical.” Or, better yet, latch on to this word I just made up; “might-o-thetical.” With any luck, this will help us both remember that “might” is for the purely made-up stuff while “may” is for things that really may have happened. Chicago’s examples, unlike its explanations, are helpful:
“I may have turned off the stove, but I can’t recall doing so.” “I might have won the marathon if I had entered.”
The latter is indeed might-o-thetical.
“Between” and “among” are much easier. “Between” is for one-on-one relationships: Tom and Roseanne divided the money between themselves. “Among” is for collective relationships: Tom, Roseanne, and Sandra divided the money among themselves. Note that “between” also works when talking about more than two people or things as long as you’re referring to one-on-one relationships within the larger group, as in “trade between members of NAFTA.” That’s because it’s presumed that the trades are taking place one-on-one. Mexico is trading with the United States at the same time that other NAFTA countries are making similar trades.
“Amongst,” by the way, is a great word for discrediting yourself with both camps at once, at least in American English. Normal people find “amongst” stuffy; grammar snobs call it an “archaism” that dumb people use to sound smart.
For me, the only hard thing about “between” and “among” is caring. Perhaps that’s because, years before, I did make the mistake of caring about the difference between “compared to” and “compared with.” The former, I’d learned through various sources, was for metaphors only, as in “nothing compares to you.” But years later when I looked this up again, I couldn’t find a single source to say I hadn’t been using it wrong all those years. Here’s the real difference between the two. To “compare to” means to look at similarities. To “compare with” means to look at both similarities and differences. “William Safire’s prose has been compared to that of a legal brief.” In other words, “compared to” means “likened to.” That’s different from, “I compared the Hyundai with the Hummer and found that they’re both excellent automobiles.”
In comparison, “different from” and “different than” are very user-unfriendly. If you’d just as soon steer clear of the whole ugly hornet’s nest, just stick to “different from.” It’s defensible in any situation. You can even cite Strunk and White and the Associated Press Stylebook as being one hundred percent on your side. “Different from,” they say, is always the way to go. But what the authors of these books don’t seem to know is that, while “different than” is often wrong, it’s not always wrong.
For you masochists who’ve not yet turned the page, I’ll go on. Though the Associated Press Stylebook says unrelentingly, “ ‘different’ takes the preposition ‘from,’ not ‘than,’ ” consider the following sentence: “Grammar snobs have a different brain chemistry from you and I do.” Absurd, huh? Only “than” would make sense here: “Grammar snobs have a different brain chemistry than you and I do.”
Yes, the difference hinges on that little verb “do.” Yes, it has something to do with the tricky and evil word “than.” And yes, changing “you and I” to “us” or “we” in the above example makes the whole mess even messier.
The case for “different than” here is a little thing Bill Walsh calls an “indirect comparison.” You’re not comparing grammar snobs’ brain chemistry to you and me. You’re comparing their brain chemistry to your and my brain chemistry. But you’re omitting the second mention of this chemistry when you say, “They have different brain chemistry than you and I.” Of course, it would be even better to say, “They have different brain chemistry from yours and mine,” but if you’re determined to use “you and I,” it’s a clear case for “different than.”
In that example, there’s an implied verb: either “do,” as in, “. . . than you and I do,” or “have,” as in, “. . . than you and I have.” Either way, the implied verb is your hint that the sentence isn’t weighing brain chemistry against brain chemistry but instead weighing brain chemistry against “you and I.” The parallel term has been omitted. The comparison is indirect.
Another case in which “than” is the clear choice happens when you use the adverb “differently.” It would be a little off to say, “She danced the macarena differently from he did.” For the same reasons laid out above, “than” is the right choice here.
“Like” and “as” operate on a similar principle. In Strunk and White’s terms, “like” applies to nouns and pronouns, while “as” applies to phrases and clauses.
Strunk and White sniffed a baby named Chloe for their example—“Chloe smells good, as a baby should”—while Bill Walsh modified the more popularly cited example of a vintage cigarette ad—“Winston tastes good, as a cigarette should.” In both those cases, “as” is the way to go (contrary to the original Winston ad).
“Like” would be the right choice when you say, “Chloe smells like a full diaper,” or “Winston tastes like a full diaper,” which are both much more realistic than the examples Walsh and Strunk and White gave us.