Grammar help please?

Question

Hi there,Could you please tell me which words is close to the actual meaning of "analogy"?There are no analogies between case A and B. (Analogy means "similarity or comparison" ?)I drew an analogy between A and B.Cheers

CalifJim · Accepted Answer

John AkiCould you please tell me which words is are close to the actual meaning of "analogy"?

I think it's time for you to start using an all-English dictionary. You're getting into very high-register words, i.e., not just everyday words.

It's almost as if you are learning English backwards. You are starting from the most difficult parts of the language when you have not yet mastered the small things, like the use of 'is' and 'are', as shown by your mistake above.

I hope your method works, but I'm a little worried that it won't.

John AkiAnalogy means "similarity or comparison"?

Here's a good definition.

analogy: a comparison of two otherwise unlike things based on resemblance of a particular aspect

There are no analogies between case A and B. (OK)
(But more likely: I can't find any analogies between case A and case B.)
I drew an analogy between A and B. (OK)

Your examples are, of course, much simpler than what you find in real journals, newspapers, or magazines. It can take a paragraph or two to set up the situation in which the word 'analogy' might be used. You have to explain what the analogy applies to. You have to make the reader understand what "Case A" and "Case B" are in such a way that the reader knows what the "unlike things" are, and what the "resemblance" is, and what the "particular aspect" is. (See definition above.)

I hope you have a week or two to think about these , because they are typical complex examples of how 'analogy' might come up in an article. As you can see, 'analogy' usually comes up in scientific articles.

You can have 'a helpful analogy', 'a false analogy', 'a controversial analogy'.
You can 'draw an analogy', 'use an analogy', 'find an analogy'.
You usually have 'an analogy with (something)'.
The adjectival form is 'analogous'.

1. The distribution of galaxies indicates that most of the volume of the supergalactic plane is a great void. A helpful analogy that matches the observed distribution is that of soap bubbles. Flattish clusters and superclusters are found at the intersection of bubbles, which are large, roughly spherical voids in space.

2. Researchers in the new field of synthetic biology "program" populations of genetically altered bacteria to direct their actions in much the same way that a computer program directs a computer. In this analogy, the genetic alteration is the software, the cell the computer. The Duke researchers found that not only does the software drive the computer's actions, but the computer in turn influences the running of the software.

3. At the time, most physicists working on electricity and magnetism were looking for analogies with gravity, which they viewed as a force acting between bodies at a distance. Faraday had a different idea: to explain the series of experiments he conducted on electricity and magnetism, he postulated that both phenomena are fields which pervade space, change over time and can be detected by the forces they produce. Faraday posed his theories in terms of geometric structures, such as lines of magnetic force.

Maxwell reformulated these ideas by analogy with the mathematics of fluid flow. He reasoned that lines of force were analogous to the paths followed by the molecules of a fluid and that the strength of the electric or magnetic field was analogous to the velocity of the fluid.

Good luck!

CJ

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