2

I know 'not to be confused with' is correct but again don't know why. Why do we say this instead of "Not to confuse with" and "Not to be mistaken for" instead of "Not to mistake for" ?

Improve this question

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
4

We say to be confused with because one thing CAN BE CONFUSED WITH a second thing. We're saying that confusion is causing the first thing and second thing to seem similar.

We don't want to say the first thing CONFUSES the second thing. That has a very different meaning -- that the second thing (such as a person or animal) is feeling confusion because of the first thing.

It's easier to understand in an example: Not to be confused with bronze, tin is a chemical element.

Here, we're saying tin is not to be confused with bronze, which is the same as saying, "Tin should not be confused with bronze." In this case, we cannot say "Tin should not confuse bronze," because bronze is not a thing that can feel confusion.

Improve this answer
1
  • 1
    It occurs to me that the two senses of confuse mean it can be used either way: "The students are frequently confused by English tenses" and "English tenses are frequently confused by the students." It depends on whether you are using confuse to mean "to cause someone to become bewilderered" or "to identify wrongly"!
    – stangdon
    Commented May 12, 2016 at 11:49
1

This depends on the subject of the sentence, and whether it matches with the subject of the phrase.

For the phrase "confuse something with something" and "mistake something for something", the subject is the person who cannot tell the difference. See the details here. (We take the second definition here)

Now when such subject is absent, i.e. when the subject of the sentence is a thing instead of the people, it doesn't match with the subject of the phrase. This is where the passive tense comes in.

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

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