Revisiting Wether, Incidence and Different Than

Revisiting Wether, Incidence and Different Than Revisiting Wether, Incidence and Different Than Revisiting Wether, Incidence and Different Than By Maeve Maddox wether/whether In researching the recent song lyrics post, I came across a comment written by a high school sophomore. (For the information of non-American readers, a high school sophomore is 15 or 16 years of age.) The student said she was writing a research paper on the influence of song lyrics. I certainly hope she looks up the spelling of the conjunction whether before she finishes her assignment; she used it four times in her comment, each time spelling it wether. wether (noun): a castrated ram. whether (conjunction): one use is to introduce an indirect alternative question expressing doubt or choice between alternatives. More at â€Å"Wether, Weather, Whether.† incident/incidence NPR (National Public Radio) announcers are a rich source of nonstandard English. On a recent morning I listened to Sam Sanders report on a pediatrician who prescribes exercise to his overweight patients. One of the doctor’s techniques is to encourage patients to visit local parks. Sanders mentioned that safety is a concern. He said that one of the parks, Kingman Island, â€Å"had 30 incidences of violent crime over the past year.† The erroneous use of incidences for incidents was cleaned up in the transcript, but it can be heard in the audio (3:33). incident (noun): something that occurs. incidence (noun): the range or scope of a thing; the extent of its influence or effects. For example, â€Å"The incidence of poverty among  the aged has consistently been higher than for any other age group in the United States.† More at: †It’s Not the Ox-Bow Incidence† different from/different than/different to A reader asks, â€Å"Is the correct usage ‘different to’ or ‘different from’? Different to seems very common (almost universal), but surely the essence of difference is separation, not convergence, so isn’t ‘different from’ correct?† This question comes up frequently, often with angry attacks on speakers who use the â€Å"wrong† phrase. Of the three, â€Å"different from† is by far the winner on the Ngram Viewer. â€Å"Different to† is heard more frequently in Britain than in the United States. â€Å"Different than† has its American defenders, but the AP Stylebook comes down firmly for â€Å"from, not than.† The Chicago Manual of Style is less dogmatic, but does say, â€Å"The phrasing different from is generally preferable to different than.† More at †Different from, Different to, Different than.† Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Misused Words category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:100 Words for Facial ExpressionsThe Possessive ApostropheRite, Write, Right, Wright