What makes this different from correct

If I could, I’d ask the Yahoo! Style writer if she knows what makes this wording different from, say, the correct wording:

The American Heritage Dictionary covers the use of different than and different from. Here’s the part that’s relevant, though you may want to read the full discussion:

Traditionally, from is used when the comparison is between two persons or things: My book is different from [not than] yours. Note that noun phrases, including ones that have clauses in them, also fall into this category: The campus is different from the way it was the last time you were here.

Advertisements

This is no different from the others

Why does this happen so often of Yahoo!? This time it’s on the home page of Yahoo! Style:

This is so different from correct. According to the American Heritage Dictionary:

Traditionally, from is used when the comparison is between two persons or things: My book is different from [not than] yours.

A little different from correct

Readers’ opinion of this is a little different from most yahoo.com staffers’.

The comparison that’s here is between an 11-year-old’s first day of school and most kids. But it should be between an 11-year-old’s first day of school and most kids’ first day of school. To accomplish that, the writer should have included an apostrophe with kids. And should have used “different from” instead of “different than.”

This is very different from correct

This is very different from correct. But that’s not surprising since it’s from the Yahoo! front page:

This couldn’t be any more different from correct

From the Yahoo! front page:

How it’s different from the correct word

How is this different from the correct word? Well, for one thing, it appears on the Yahoo! front page, where use of the correct word is purely optional:

Here’s what the American Heritage Dictionary has to say about why this is different from correct:

According to traditional guidelines, from is used when the comparison is between two persons or things: My book is different from (not than) yours. Different than is more acceptably used, particularly in American usage, where the object of comparison is expressed by a full clause: The campus is different than it was 20 years ago. Different from may be used with a clause if the clause starts with a conjunction and so functions as a noun: The campus is different from how it was 20 years ago.·

I wanted something totally different from this

I wanted something totally different from this sentence on the Yahoo! front page:

I was looking for a grammatically correct sentence — one that included different from and not different than.

Why do you compare that to Katy Perry?

Why would anyone compare one person’s style to a singer? Wouldn’t it make more sense to compare one person’s style to Katy Perry’s style? And then maybe you could see a different style from Katy Perry’s. Oh, well. That would be logical and logic is not in style on the Yahoo! front page:

This is so different from correct

This is so different from correct; what’s not different is that it appears on the Yahoo! front page:

If you’re comparing two persons or things, use different from, not different than.

This is different from correct

This looks a little different from what is grammatically correct:

Of course, it appears on the Yahoo! front page.