I have been reading this great series of cyberpunk science fiction books. The author is very well-spoken and the books are utterly absorbing. There’s just one thing I don’t understand – whenever it comes to a place in the book where a comparison is made of the “different from” variety, the author always says “different** to**.”
Is this a convention in some part of the world? I find it kind of jarring, every time, as I’ve never heard anyone else say it that way.
P.S. I don’t mean like in, “it looks different to me.” I mean like, “as different as it was to the way it was before” kind of things.
Oh. Never mind. I googled “different to” and found out more than I ever wanted to know.
Compare “compared to” with “compared with.”
Or maybe I mean:
Compare “compared to” to “compared with.”
[end of unhelpful interjection]
It’s a Britishism, isn’t it?
Pretty much, yeah. Apparently, a little bit more common in UK spoken conversation than UK writing, but basically it’s one of those UK/US differences that I’ve just never run across before.
“Different than” is an American usage. “Different to” is British usage. “Different from” is used both in the U.S. and the U.K.