By Contrast vs. In Contrast

[Allen165]

"In most European jurisdictions, shareholders can usually act in concert without burdensome regulatory requirements to influence the board. ... In contrast, US law imposes extensive disclosure requirements on the communications and actions of shareholders who act in concert and together control 5% or more of a class of voting shares in a public company."

The text above was written by a British law professor. Do you consider "in contrast" correct? I think it should be "by contrast" (see in or by contrast « Language Usage Weblog).

Thanks a lot!

 

[luschen]

Hi, I am not an English teacher, but as a native speaker, "In contrast" sounds correct to me. I looked at the website, but I have never followed those guidelines. I don't really ever use "by contrast". I use "In contrast" for both cases. I speak American English, so that may be part of it.

 

[5jj]

The Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) citations suggest that many writers generally follow the usage suggested by Allen's link; however, there are also many examples of 'in contrast' followed or preceded by the subject of the sentence.

So, some would consider only 'by contrast' correct in the original quotation, but many would use 'in contrast'.


It is clearly not something to worry about.