[Vocabulary] Verbs for differences and similarities

Hi,

I'm looking for an idiomatic and well-sounding combination of two verbs to say that two things have differences and similarities.

For instance, I want to show that soccer and American football are different in something and similar in something else, but instead of using this construction, I'd prefer using strong and direct verbs. Here are three possibilities I've come up with, but I think only the first one meets the condition of strong verbs (though I feel that the preposition in "differ in" lightens it):

1. "Let's discuss what Soccer and American football differ in and what they share."

2. "Let's discuss what makes Soccer and American different and what makes them similar."

3. "Let's discuss what differentiates Soccer and American different and what makes them similar."

Among these three, I like the first most, but maybe there's a better way of saying this?

Thanks,
nyggus

First, you don't need to capitalize the first letter in soccer and football. Second, you don't need to say American football since you already call the other sport soccer. This is especially true if you are writing for American audience.

"Let's discuss [STRIKE]what[/STRIKE] how soccer and football [STRIKE]differ in [/STRIKE]are different and[STRIKE] what[/STRIKE] how they[STRIKE] share[/STRIKE] are similar."

Do they honestly share that much? I would have thought that American football and rugby shared more.

Apart from being played on a rectangular pitch, there's little similarity. Gridiron (American Football) is certainly much more like rugby.

Andrewg's amendments work.

You will laugh at me when you hear that I was interested in this particular sentence construction and not at all in the football-soccer thing. I'm writing about something completely different but wanted to make the sentence simple. Sorry , but on the other hand, the discussion is interesting. Definitely American football has much more in common with rugby than with soccer.

OK, so we're with Andrewd's change:

Could we revise the sentence to get rid of the be-verbs?

nyggus said:

You will laugh at me when you hear that I was interested in this particular sentence construction and not at all in the football-soccer thing. I'm writing about something completely different but wanted to make the sentence simple. Sorry , but on the other hand, the discussion is interesting. Definitely American football has much more in common with rugby than with soccer.

OK, so we're with Andrewd's change:

"Let's discuss how soccer and football are different and how they are similar."​

Could we revise the sentence to get rid of the be-verbs?

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"Let's discuss if, and how, soccer and football differ."

GoesStation said:

Andrewg's amendments work.

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They do in terms of language, though the facts may thinner on the ground.

andrewg927 said:

"Let's discuss [STRIKE]what[/STRIKE] how soccer and football [STRIKE]differ in [/STRIKE]are different and[STRIKE] what[/STRIKE] how they[STRIKE] share[/STRIKE] are similar."

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GoesStation said:

Andrewg's amendments work.

Click to expand...

Tdol said:

They do in terms of language, though the facts may thinner on the ground.

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In fairness to Andrew, the amended sentence doesn't contain any assertions.

Soccer is similar to American football in a few ways. Both games are played on similar fields ("pitches" in BrE) featuring a goal at each end, a center line, and boundary lines. The teams have about the same number of players, some of whose positions have the same names. Both games involve kicking a ball; rarely in American football and nearly constantly in soccer. Both games use the verb tackle, though its meaning differs. I could go on but I'm even boring myself with this.

Tdol said:

They do in terms of language, though the facts may thinner on the ground.

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What facts? The sentence is "Let's discuss how soccer and football are different and how they are similar." If they are more different than they are similar, that would be part of the discussion.