Faulty comparison

When comparing anything you have to beware of faulty comparison. Faulty comparison occurs when you compare one thing to more than one thing, or when you compare an action to a person, or basically when you compare anything to something odd from it. It'll be clearer after the examples.

Examples:

• Reading the books of William Shakespeare is more difficult than Jane Austin.

The sentence is incorrect, because it's comparing an action which is reading to a person which is Jane Austin.

The correct form is "Reading the books of William Shakespeare is more difficult than reading the books of Jane Austin."

• James is better than any other student in class.

The sentence is incorrect, because it's comparing James (one person) to all the students in class (20 people).

The correct form is "James is better than his friend Tom." or if we're keeping the meaning of the sentence "James is the best student in class."

• The Amazon River carries more water than the water carried in any of the world's other rivers.

The sentence is incorrect, because it's comparing the Amazon River (one) to any of the world's other rivers (hundred).

The correct form is "The Amazon River carries more water than the Nile River."

• The interest at a loan company is higher than at a bank.

The sentence is correct, because it's comparing the interest at a loan company to the interest at a bank. If the second "at" in the sentence was removed, then it would've been comparing the interest to a bank, which doesn't make sense.

• Jacob likes pizza better than Cheryl.

The sentence is incorrect, because it's comparing pizza to Cheryl (a person). The actual meaning of the sentence is that Jacob likes pizza more than Cheryl likes pizza.

So, the correct form is "Jacob likes pizza better than Cheryl does."

• TV advertising is more effective.

This sentence is incomplete. It's comparing TV advertising to nothing. 

The correct form is "TV advertising is more effective than newspaper advertising"

• I am more lonelier here than I was in California.

The sentence is incorrect. The word "more" has to be crossed out.

The correct form is "I'm lonelier here than I was in California."

• Of the two cities on the map of Egypt, Cairo is the bigger.

This sentence is correct. It's a little bit tricky, some people might think "Cairo is the biggest" is the correct form, but it's not because it's distinguishing between two, so we have to use the comparative form not the superlative.

If you need to answer exercises you can do that on this site:

http://www.towson.edu/ows/exercisefaultycomp2.htm