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base form technique to validate idioms

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base form technique to validate idioms

by concept » Mon May 31, 2010 9:55 am
I read a question in OG that required a selection between 'awareness about' and 'awareness of' and I ended up choosing the wrong idiom 'awareness about'. After I read the explanation, I formulated kind of a method to deduce the preposition that follows the noun by selecting the one that would fit better with the base noun form. I can easily tell 'aware of' is correct and 'aware about' is not. Now I want to know whether the rule is proper and has universal applicability.
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by money9111 » Tue Jun 01, 2010 1:57 pm
nothing it 100% universal but yes you can usually do that... ie..

different from or different than?

you would say - it differs from....not differs than. correct idiom is different from

identical to or identical with?

you would say - i identify with....not i identify to. correct idiom is identical with
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by kevincanspain » Tue Jun 01, 2010 2:31 pm
money9111 wrote:nothing it 100% universal but yes you can usually do that... ie..

different from or different than?

you would say - it differs from....not differs than. correct idiom is different from

identical to or identical with?

you would say - i identify with....not i identify to. correct idiom is identical with
Her dress was (superior/similar/comparable/identical) TO mine
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by concept » Tue Jun 01, 2010 7:52 pm
looks like I can use it when I am really not sure and it would have reasonable accuracy. thanks money9111 and Kevin.
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by money9111 » Tue Jun 01, 2010 7:58 pm
Kevin... so is there a rule? because you are right.. identical to does work there...
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by concept » Tue Jun 01, 2010 10:09 pm
is identify really the base form of identical?. The meanings are totally different. If not, the rule can't be wronged because the rule doesn't apply to the pair.
Kevin please comment on the rule.
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by Stacey Koprince » Thu Jun 03, 2010 4:46 pm
Received a PM asking me to respond.

There isn't a rule for this, no. The (really) annoying thing about idioms is that there is no rule - it's just the way the language is and we're supposed to memorize it. Sometimes it's the case that similar forms of words will be followed by the same preposition, but not always.

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It's annoying that we can't reproduce OG questions online. Could you tell me the book and problem number so I can look it up? I'd like to read the explanation. I do agree, though, that "awareness of" is preferable to "about."

Anyway, the nutshell is: idioms are mostly about memorization and there's not a lot we can do to get around that. (I'm learning that very slowly and painfully right now as I try to learn French.)
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by concept » Thu Jun 03, 2010 8:53 pm
Stacey,
Thanks for the reply. The OG doesn't say anything about such a rule. Its just that something that came to my mind and which wasted people's time :)

thanks,
Vishnu
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