Kibbitzer 27

Comparing Like with Like


This problem is so common that it is perhaps surprising it has not turned up previously in the Kibbitzer series. The following example is taken from a dissertation by a student of Education:

OriginalRevision
This does not mean that the development of blind children follows a totally different direction from sighted children ... This does not mean that the development of blind children follows a totally different direction from that of sighted chlidren ...

It is clear that one can compare blind children with sighted children: or the development of blind children with the development of sighted children: but one cannot compare the development of blind children with sighted children! The following citations show the writers taking care to 'compare like with like', using the structure employed in the suggested revision.

  1. Halifax's asset base, at more than £60 million, is nearly twice that of its nearest rival, Nationwide.
  2. Quite simply, the prices being quoted in its brochure were too high compared with those of its competitors.
  3. So far, the passing of the Russian empire has cost far less blood than that of the British and French empires.
  4. Why has British investment lagged behind that of the US and Japan, and, latterly, even France and Germany?
  5. Malaysia, where the average per capita income, at $2,500, is 20 times that of Ethiopia, is enjoying an estimated annual growth rate of 8 per cent
  6. The registered addict population of the Netherlands as a whole is quite high: 21,000, exactly the same as that of the UK, a country with over five times the population.
  7. According to the gay pressure group Stonewall, 273 MPs of all political persuasions have indicated that they will vote to equalise the age of consent for homosexuals with that of heterosexuals.
  8. The modern keyboard looks different from that of early typewriters. It is much flatter and latest designs include an adjustable keyboard which is “split” in the centre to separate the right- and left-hand sections.
  9. In the case of South Korea, in the last two decades there has been a steady drift from the land to industry, so now would be a good time to encourage consolidation and rural efficiency to match that of the factories.
  10. Richard Lampard, sociology lecturer at Warwick University, finds that the chances of the marriage of an unemployed person ending in the following year are 70 per cent higher than those of a person who has never been out of work.

23rd November 1997 Consultant: Tim Johns
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