Ed,

I've noticed the same problem, mainly because I personally make the distinction all the time and everyone around me, on TV, in the newspapers, etc., seem to have forgot the prepostional object with "from" as a possibility.  I have no problem with your sample sentence.  Adjectives often have typical prepositions to relate to their "object".  I suppose that "different" has a meaning that is so much like a comparative, it has also commandiered "than" from the comparative construction.  

Bruce

>>> [log in to unmask] 07/27/01 07:35AM >>>
Hi all,

We have a little controversy at work over _different
from_ and _different than_.  Here's the sentence in
question:

a. Will the generic drug look different from/than my
brand-name drug?

I understand the traditional distinction that _from_,
a preposition, should be used with noun phrases and
_than_, a complementizer, should be used with clauses.
 Going by this, _from_ should be used here.  However,
I don't think I ever use _from_, and it sounds pretty
bad to me here.

I tried to convince others that _than_ is ok because
there is an elided verb in the complement--_than my
brand-name drug (does)_.  They aren't going for it.

Anyway, is anyone aware of a dialect difference in the
use of _from_/_than_?  Or am I the only one that does
this...

Ed Keer

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