Date:  Thu, 23 Feb 1995 09:36:11 -0600

From:  debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UIUC.EDU

Subject: Re: "different than"



>    A general query:

>Can anyone provide a chronology of "different than" in American English?

>I have observed it to be highly geographical and chronological: few

>over 50, at least in the mid-Atlantic, and fewer Southerners yet would

>say anything but "different from," on the model of the verbal expression

>"this differs from that."

>    I thought James Baldwin's "Go Tell It On The Mountain" (1950?)

>contained the earliest printed mention of "different than" but later

>found an earlier work, whose name I can't remember.

>    Can anyone shed some light?   --Cathy Bodin cbodin[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]msmary.edu





Webster's Dictionary of English Usage has a 1644 cite for different than.

Different to is earliests. Different from is in the middle. The

discussion of different than does not suggest the pattern above, but of

course they're talking about written texts, not spoken ones. It seems to

me that different from is rare in the Midwest in all contexts.



dennis

--

Dennis Baron                      debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uiuc.edu



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