[Grammar] Using "in comparison" without offering anything to compare the subject to.

[nazca]

I recently found out about amazon.com's print on demand service. Being an author of a book grants this sort of fake authenticity for any author, especially in the industry I'm currently in people just fall in love with you, if you are an author. So i've kind of always wanted to be a "moron with a book." I want people to be able to say "This is Nazca the author of a bunch of cr*p."

Well I hope my book isn't a bunch of cr*p.

I started writing a little short story to a set of alternate rules to a table top game I've played for years. I want to get the expansion published and printed.

In this short story I had the following:

TheAckuzay Republic is a proud nation whose pride is well earned with ahistory riddled with war, failed regimes, and hard earned lessons. In comparison, not a very old nation, but learned and aged enough tobe looked upon and learned from with, at the very least, a littlerespect.

I am by no means a writer and may very well have plenty of mistakes in grammar and other wise, but is it okay for the reader to compare the subject to comparable things and not the very long list of things that I'm obviously not talking about such as light bulbs, snails, house fly's and so forth? Is it grammatically incorrect not to say OTHER NATIONS?

 

[emsr2d2]

Re: Using "in comparison" without offering anything to compare the subject to.

I recently found out about Amazon.com's "print on demand" service. Being an author of a book grants this sort of fake authenticity for any author, especially in the industry I'm currently in. People just fall in love with you (no comma here) if you are an author. So I've kind of always wanted to be a "moron with a book." I want people to be able to say "This is Nazca, the author of a bunch of cr*p."

Well I hope my book isn't a bunch of cr*p.

I started writing a little short story to a set of alternate rules to a table top game I've played for years. I want to get the expansion published and printed.

In this short story I had the following:

The (space required here) Ackuzay Republic is a proud nation whose pride is well earned with a (space required here) history riddled with war, failed regimes, and hard earned lessons. In comparison, not a very old nation, but learned and aged enough to (space required here) be looked upon and learned from with, at the very least, a little (space required here) respect.

I am by no means a writer and may very well have plenty of mistakes in grammar and otherwise, but is it okay for the reader to compare the subject to comparable things and not the very long list of things that I'm obviously not talking about such as light bulbs, snails, house [strike]fly's[/strike] flies and so forth? Is it grammatically incorrect not to say [strike]OTHER NATIONS[/strike] "other nations"?

Welcome to the forum.

Please see my amendments and corrections to your post above (in red and grey).

In answer to your question, yes, for me it sounds very odd to say "In comparison" and then not say what the reader is expected to compare them with. Of course no-one is going to compare your nation to a housefly or a snail, but there are plenty of other nations, real and fictional, to which you might be referring. Be more specific.

Please note that I edited your first post to replace one letter of the swear word (cuss) with an asterisk. We do not write swear words in full on this forum. We have readers of all ages and it's not appropriate to have such words in full.

 

[nazca]

Re: Using "in comparison" without offering anything to compare the subject to.

Of course no-one is going to compare your nation to a housefly or a snail

This is exactly what I think. Is it wrong because it might offer a road bump for a reader and all road bumps should be removed to make the experience for the reader as smooth as possible?

Let me put it this way; if I had a test with one question that said "Write a grammatically correct sentence." Would the sentence "In comparison, not a very old nation, but learned and aged enough to be looked upon and learned from with, at the very least, a little respect." be marked as correct?

 

[emsr2d2]

Re: Using "in comparison" without offering anything to compare the subject to.

Let me put it this way; if I had a test with one question that said "Write a grammatically correct sentence." Would the sentence "In comparison, not a very old nation, but learned and aged enough to be looked upon and learned from with, at the very least, a little respect." be marked as correct?

No. It would be marked as incorrect. That is partly because of the lack of anything to compare it with but also because (even if something to compare it with had previously been stated) it would need to be "In comparison, it/name of nation is​ not a very old nation ...".

London is an old city. In comparison, New York is not an old city, but it is old enough to ...
In comparison with London, New York is not an old city, but ...