Which is correct: “different from” or “different than”? Martha explains that the grammatically correct choice is almost always “different from.” This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Different Than vs. Different From”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi.
Hi, who’s this?
This is John from Hanover, New Hampshire. How are you?
From Hanover, New Hampshire. Well, welcome to the program, John.
Thank you.
Glad to have you. What can we help you with today?
So, I was wondering about the difference between the phrase different from and different than.
I had a high school English teacher my sophomore year who always told me different from was correct. Different than was not.
He never really explained why, and it kind of makes sense to me in my head, but I really don’t understand why that’s the case.
So I was wondering if you guys could explain that.
Martha?
Yes?
Can you help him?
Yes.
Okay.
Yes, I can help you, John. You’re right.
A lot of high school teachers will teach you exactly that.
A lot of people have a dilemma. Is it different from? Is it different than?
And the short answer to that, the shortest possible answer I can give you is you’re almost always right if you say different from.
Right.
Very good.
And that’s strictly speaking. That’s what the grammar snobs and the peevers will tell you.
Different from is almost always right.
And different than, you can use that every once in a while.
The difference is that you would use than if there’s a verb later on in the sentence.
So, for example, our economy is different from China’s, but our economy is different now than it used to be.
Because used to be is the verb in there.
Yeah.
Very good.
Yeah.
So that’s really it.
And, you know, there are a lot of people who aren’t bothered by different than.
A lot of people are, I mean, I think that’s changing.
But if you don’t want to ruffle the feathers of the grammar snobs, you want to use different from almost all the time.
And the times that you don’t use different from, your native intuition will probably serve you well.
No, I can understand that.
Cool.
Does that make sense?
Does it help you out, John?
Yeah, it does.
No, that definitely helps.
Okay.
Okay.
Thanks for calling, man.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Yeah, some, what was it, 17th century grammarians got all worked up about different from versus different than.
It’s, you know, it’s changing.
I know it’s changing.
Yeah, but different from still works.
I don’t, the cool thing about different from is it’s so safe that it will draw almost no attention if you use it.
Right, right.
People won’t even really notice.
That’s right.
They will understand your meaning without paying attention to your words.
Right.
Different from is the grammatical force field that will protect you from the snobs.
Zzz, zzz, zzz.
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