How is the Coca Cola recipe different in the U.S. from the U.K.?
My question is whether this is the correct form of this type of question or it should be "from in the U.K." or even "from that in the U.K."
English Language & Usage Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for linguists, etymologists, and serious English language enthusiasts. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this communityHow is the Coca Cola recipe different in the U.S. from the U.K.?
My question is whether this is the correct form of this type of question or it should be "from in the U.K." or even "from that in the U.K."
The problem with all of these is that they come off sounding as though one were comparing a recipe with a country:
Example (3) above leads to an immediate understanding of the error, and to its solution.
In comparisons of two things using different or similar and a preposition to or from, keeping the two words involved closer to each other results in a clearer construction than letting them drift farther away from each other does.
If you do split different and from, you need to be careful to remain consistent in your comparisons so that you are always comparing like things, not different things:
Now you’re still comparing one recipe with another recipe, not trying to compare a recipe with a country. It’s better this way because even though people will probably work out what you had meant, you shouldn’t ask them to. Instead you should state it more clearly in the first place by comparing only like things with each other.
How is the Coca Cola recipe different in the U.S. from the [recipe in the] U.K.?
The construction is grammatical but with ellipsis.
(S How is (NP the Coca Cola recipe (Adj Phrase different(PP in (NP the U.S.))(PP from [the recipe] (PP in (NP the U.K.)))))