How Shall I Compare Thee?

It's estimated that Shakespeare, the author of the memorable line above, had a vocabulary consisting of about 30,000 words, which is remarkable, especially when you compare the number of words he had at his command with the nearly 6,000-word vocabulary possessed by us less worthy wordsmiths.

Speaking of compare, I wonder how The Bard would have dealt with a common point of confusion among modern-day writers regarding that word: Should compare should be coupled with to or with, as in, "Authoring blog posts can be compared with/to putting money in the bank -- try to do both regularly." The answer is to.

Here's the rule (bet you didn't know there was one, did you?), use compare with when making a literal or statistical comparison, as I did in comparing Shakespeare's vocabulary count with the normal person's. Likewise, you might write, "Our sales figures this year are up when compared with last year's." Use compare to, when making figurative comparisons, as I did in comparing blog posting to saving money. Another example would be, "He compared finishing the long, difficult project to digging a ditch with a teaspoon.

English has a host of usage rules like the one for compare to/with. Mastering them all can be challenging. But if you succeed, people may start comparing thee to a wise old bird.