Do you remember when teachers used to correct our statements? Now it seems they only create inconsistencies.
What’s up with assignments to “Compare and Contrast” things? To compare means not only to look at how things are alike but also how they are dissimilar. There is no need to add the “Contrast”. When did this state and why are teachers doing it instead of teaching NOT to do it?
Similarly, when did people start taking offense to what they call “Being compared” to something bad, like Hitler.
Don’t they really mean that they are being “Likened” to Hitler?
When did this start? I remember people saying “likened”… but at some point that seems to have gotten swapped.
I’ve always been confused about the distinction between “compare and contrast” myself. Of course, your interpreting the modern usage as compare meaning find similarities, and contrast meaning find differences, seems right to me.
Here’s something similar from marketing-speak: “Features and Benefits.” As if they’re different. A feature is talked about because it’s a benefit, right?
I don’t much like it, but much of language is vague and up to different interpretations. Here’s another one: Acceleration and braking. In a car, clearly they refer to using the gas pedal and the brakes. Different mechanisms. But acceleration means changing velocity, and doesn’t just refer to the forward direction. When you brake, there’s a negative acceleration. So to de-confuse this issue, someone came up with “de-celeration.” But if I say “acceleration” instead of “deceleration” in conversation with non-engineers, people get confused very easily…
I don’t think so. Features provide benefits, but that doesn’t mean they are benefits. For example, a feature of a new cell phone might be that it accepts micro-SD cards. The benefit is that the user can store more pictures and videos. Other features might included Gorilla Glass, large battery, and multiple cameras. The benefits are improved durability, extended operating times, and better pictures, respectively.
There is a relationship between features and benefits, but I don’t think the definitions are interchangeable.
Technically acceleration is a vector. You don’t even have to change your speed to accelerate. If you take a curve a a constant speed, you’re accelerating. I can’t think of any single English words (rather than phrases) which indicate vectors. Furthermore it implies some frame of reference.
More importantly it would be awkward, to say the least, to tell the driver of an eastbound car to accelerate in a westerly direction. By the time s/he parsed that, you’d be through the red light. (Though possibly that does explain Connecticut drivers.)
We used “compare and contrast” for assignments in the 70s, so it’s certainly nothing new. It’s just a convenient and memorable phrase to capture similar and different aspects in an essay.
You seem to be complaining that language changes use over time, and loses specificity. It’s not an argument without merit, but it rarely achieves anything.
I wonder if they’re unconsciously paralleling the Saxon/Norman couplets found in legal language (will and testament, assault and battery, etc.) in order to make is sound more serious.
I was surprised too when I heard this phrase from my brother, who took the SAT test and went to university in the USA long ago (he’s an American citizen). We wondered why simply comparing things was not enough. Romanian students are required to compare things in their papers quite extensively, and they’re supposed to point out both similarities and differences between the things to compare. My brother decided it must be something idiomatic.
Yes, it’s definitely an idiom. Idioms don’t have to make either grammatical or logical sense. They must be understood as is.
It’s also true that words can have more than one meaning. Compare’s primary sense of “note the similarities and differences of” has been around for 500 years, true. But the phrase “without compare” dates back almost as long. Logic would state that one could note the similarities and differences between any two things so that all are comparable, but language doesn’t work strictly within logic. While we’re noting, note that comparable sometimes can mean capable of being compared but it’s primary usage has become “equivalent” and de-emphasizes differences almost entirely.
In this case “compare” means note similarities and “contrast” means note differences. The term emphasizes that the student must consider both sides of the situation. You can argue that “both sides” are inherent in the word compare, but being explicit removes any chance for ambiguity and misunderstanding.
At least they are sort of opposites. At one college I taught at, there was an official style guide for course syllabuses. Two of the sections were “Goals” and “Outcomes”. And this was on top of the the course outline. So it was a listing of things X, Y, Z I would be teaching, the goal would that the students would learn X, Y and Z and the outcome was that they would retain X, Y, and Z. Slightly dressed up to not look too identical but a lot of redundancy.
In particular, this is an example of a binomial, which usually functions as lexical unit that isn’t broken apart. Many binomials consist of a pair of synonyms. They’re very common.
Sdowiat, have you ever used the term bits and pieces? You probably have, and you were doing the same thing you’re complaining about. This is how language works. It isn’t some kind of mathematical equation.
If this upsets you so much, then don’t go into law. Legal language if rife with this type of binomial: legal and valid, free and clear, deem and consider–it goes on and on, as **Yllaria **notes.
Goals and outcomes comes from the need to do “outcomes assessment,” pushed rather hard by the accrediting agencies, but worthwhile to an extent anyway. Goals are, as you say, the things you want the students to learn, but outcomes are meant to be the concrete things you’re going to have them do to demonstrate that they’ve learned those things. So there is a valid distinction to be made here, even if it does come across at first as redundant jargon.
Comment from a friend who has been a teacher for decades: ‘If you don’t say Compare and Contrast, students only remember the ‘compare’ part – they spend all their time on the similarities, and neglect the differences. And what’s different is often a very important part of the subject.’
Late to the thread, but I’m 55 and remember “compare and contrast” assignments from junior high school. It’s not a new thing.
I don’t get what’s so strange about it or why it contradicts teachers correcting an assignment. You take two pieces of writing and point out the similarities and differences. If you do a bad job, the teacher can note that.
A feature might be a benefit for one user and a detriment (or unimportant) to another. Is “Read Aloud” capability a benefit to an ereader? It is if you are blind, but not necessarily if you aren’t - but it’s always a feature.
Heated seats are a feature in a car - but they’re not a benefit if you live in Hawaii.
“Contains peanuts” is a feature of some cookies - but for some people that’s not a benefit at all.