Job Discussion Forums

[gugelhupf]

A student has just confused me to the extent that I'm beginning to doubt my sanity today. In scientific writing we often need to describe homology or analogy between things. I have always used "with" as in: A is analagous with B. However, said student has just complained that I corrected him for using "to" - A is analagous to B - when he has a grammar textbook(?!) that tells him to use this form.

I am happy to admit when I'm wrong - so am I?

[soylentgreen23]

A quick Google search shows the following:

"Analogous to" = 613,000 results
"Analogous with" = 14,400 results

Also, if you consider "analogous" to be a synonym of "similar" then it should definitely be "analogous to" because nobody would say "similar with".

[gugelhupf]

Thanks! I'll concede defeat on that one.

[Eijse]

...

[shmooj]

You can use this "mistake" to your teaching advantage. Tell the student what you have always said and what the grammar books say. TEll him how old you are and therefore how little this "mistake" has damaged your communicative abilities over the years despite your qualifications and experience.

Then politely suggest he get a communicative life if he can't accept that this "mistake" is the least of his worries.

[gugelhupf]

HaHa! Nice one Shmooj. I've just checked and my "erroneous" sentence construction occurs twice in a paper I had published recently in a very prestigeous journal. Admittedly, the referees on that one were biologists rather than linguists.