0

Can we use a comparative (e.g. bigger or more difficult) with "compared to" or "in comparison to"? is There are contradictory disputes, answers, and examples on the Internet regarding this question which have made me confused. I would appreciate it if someone could rectify this contradictory content.

Admittedly, conveying the same meaning using "than" is less wordy, but I want to know about the grammatical validity of this structure and not about the better ways that we can convey the meaning.

For example, in this question these sentences are proposed by OP:

1 Microsoft has bigger market share compared to Apple.

2 This question is more difficult as compared to the previous one.

The answerer says: "It is ungrammatical to use a comparative (e.g. bigger or more difficult) with compared to. Either use a non-comparative adjective (e.g. big or difficult) with as compared to or simply compared to". The answerer also have suggested these alternatives:

3 Microsoft has a large market share [as] compared to Apple.

4 This question is difficult [as] compared to the previous one.

However, I found this example in Cambridge dictionary:

5 Children seem to learn more interesting things compared to/with when we were at school.

Which contradicts with the answer above.

I also I could find more contradictory examples form Cambridge English Corpus on this page:

6 Therefore, the difference in the dehydration and rehydration paths was much higher in control seeds compared to primed seeds.

7 We expect returns from agriculture to be greater and fisheries returns to be less under the alternate management plans as compared with the base model.


Additional content that I could find on the Internet regarding this question:

In this question the answerer has suggested following sentences as valid structures:

8 My house is much smaller in comparison to yours.

9 Compared to your house, mine looks much smaller.

10 My house is smaller compared to/with yours.


In this question it is asked if the following sentence is correct:

11 In comparison with Joe, Peter is much wealthier.

Someone has answered:

"Yes, it is fine to use a comparative adjective here ... Another way is .... 'In comparison with Peter, Joe is poor', ..."

and also someone has commented:

"Don't you think "in comparison" and a comparative adjective seem redundant together? "than sb./sth." seems more suited to go with a comparative adjective."


I could also find following sentences in COCA dataset.

12 Many women are much more verbal in comparison to guys concerning telling others about their feelings and also emotions.

13 this app store managed to reach this number of apps the most rapidly compared to other app stores in the world.


There is also some other contradictory content here.

7
  • The answer you're quoting has zero upvotes, while the accepted answer has 22 upvotes. That means it's probably not a good answer, and you can safely ignore it. You're likely to get a similar spread of answers and votes here.
    – gotube
    Oct 18, 2022 at 16:33
  • So the Cambridge Dictionary have provided ungrammatical examples?
    – alireza
    Oct 18, 2022 at 16:38
  • I don't find that sentence particularly good English; I would have said 'they learn more interesting things than we did'. Oct 18, 2022 at 16:44
  • 1
    Does this answer your question? 'Compared with' or 'Compared to' Oct 18, 2022 at 16:59
  • 1
    What @gotube said. Except the answer OP is quoting now has minus one upvotes, because I've just looked at it, decided it's garbage, and downvoted it. Oct 18, 2022 at 17:02

1 Answer 1

0

In almost all the cases where 'compare' is used in your examples, it should be be preceded by 'when' or 'if'. In almost all cases, 'than' would be better.

When reading the examples, they almost all look as if someone is using the longer constructions (with compared/in comparison) to appear more sophisticated users of English.

They usually fail.

The exceptions tend to be when (compared/ in comparison) appear at the beginning of sentences.

A construction of the form: "my house is bigger compared to your house" is not grammatically correct because you are suggesting that you can compare "house is bigger" to "your house" which is obviously wrong.

2
  • Admittedly, conveying the same meaning using "than" is less wordy, but I want to know about the grammatical validity of this structure and not about the better ways that we can convey the meaning.
    – alireza
    Oct 18, 2022 at 16:41
  • I've expanded the answer to make clear that the constructions are incorrect. However, the authors of the sentences might defend themselves on the basis that there is an 'understood' 'when' in front of the 'compared'.
    – PRL75
    Oct 18, 2022 at 16:59

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .