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  • A mother spends much time with her children in comparison to the father.

  • A mother spends much time with her children in comparison with the father.

I don't have an idea which preposition to chose. I thought that I would get help online, but could not get what I wanted.

However there is one blog post of Oxford English Living Dictionaries site under the title of compare to or compare with; the title contains the words "compare to" rather than comparison, thus is not akin to what I am asking here.

Glorfindel
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Ahmed
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    Does "much time" in the sentence mean "more time" or "a lot of time" to you? I just want to be sure that you haven't got the two mixed up. – Mari-Lou A Aug 19 '18 at 10:13
  • @Mari-LouA, Both "more time" and "a lot of time." – Ahmed Aug 19 '18 at 10:34
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    I see, but "much time" means "considerable" "a lot". It does not mean the same as "more time" they are not interchangeable. A person can spend much *more* time doing something than they did earlier but in: "He spends much time in the gym than his friend" that construction is nonstandard. – Mari-Lou A Aug 19 '18 at 10:40
  • @Mari-LouA, Okay, I then go for "considerable" as well as "a lot", not more time. – Ahmed Aug 19 '18 at 10:45
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    *Not a duplicate* - in the supposed original question the is no mention of the expression “in comparison to/with” which differ from compare to/with as explained in the answer below. – user 66974 Aug 19 '18 at 11:56
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    @Mari-LouA, I accidently put my question as a duplicate to the other question. I have recently sent a written request to moderators through flagging the post. – Ahmed Aug 19 '18 at 16:13
  • @Mari-LouA, waiting for other answers now! – Ahmed Aug 19 '18 at 18:03
  • I doubt you're going to get any significantly different or better answers than user 070etc's. – Mari-Lou A Aug 19 '18 at 18:05
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    @Mari-LouA, let the sun rise tomorrow, and then look for the answers, it's gone 11pm here in Pakistan. – Ahmed Aug 19 '18 at 18:18

1 Answers1

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Google Books shows an interesting trend in both usages, which appear to be equally common in recent years.

though the more common suggested usage by the OLD is the preposition with (but note that also the preposition “to” is present)

by/in comparison (with somebody/something):

when compared with somebody/something.

  • The second half of the game was dull by comparison with the first.

  • The tallest buildings in London are small in comparison with New York's skyscrapers.

And:

[uncountable] comparison (with somebody/something) the process of comparing two or more people or things:

  • Comparison with other oil-producing countries is extremely interesting.
  • I enclose the two plans for comparison.
  • The education system bears/stands no comparison with(= is not as good as) that in many Asian countries.
  • For Durkheim, comparison was the most important method of analysis in sociology.

The following piece from jakubmarian.com illustrates the usage of “in comparison” and suggests that both preposition are commonly used now:

Although “compare something to something” and “compare something with something” do not mean the same (you can read more about the differences in my previous article), “in comparison to” and “in comparison with” do mean the same. You can say, for example,

  • In comparison to other candidates, she was very good.

as well as

  • In comparison with other candidates, she was very good.

and the meaning is essentially the same as that of “compared with” and “compared to”. Other examples:

  • France is relatively rich, in comparison to/with other European countries.
  • The American branch of the company makes very little profit, in comparison to/with their Asian division.

It is worth noting that “in comparison with” used to be much more common in the past than “in comparison to”, but there is no difference in their relative frequencies in modern English literature.

user 66974
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    The OLD entry also contains the following: "in comparison to" hidden in the Oxford Collocations dictionary menu – Mari-Lou A Aug 19 '18 at 10:26
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    @Mari-LouA - yes, but the more common suggested usage is “with” which, as explained, is now as much common as “to”. The convergence in usage frequency appears to be relatively recent. – user 66974 Aug 19 '18 at 10:29