because they were infected by/with a disease

[z7655431]

"Thousands of chickens were slaughtered because they were infected by a disease." (from Advanced Vocabulary Builder for English Exams of LiveABC)
Is "were infected by" used correctly? I think the preposition is wrongly used; it should be "with". Am I right? Thanks!

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

Both are okay, but I agree with you. I would have said "with," too.

 

[GoesStation]

Infected by a disease is wrong. Nobody would misunderstand it, but the phrase should be infected with​ a disease.

 

[Tdol]

I checked COCA and the BNC and both have quite a few examples of infected by:

Coca:
Infected with: 1915
Infected by: 404

BNC:
Infected with: 290
Infected by: 93

And Ngrams shows a fairly constant presence for infected by.

There are some false positives in the results - infected by accident - but the majority seem OK. I'd use with, but I wouldn't say that by is wrong.

 

[jutfrank]

GoesStation is right that infected by is wrong, based on a misuse of the verb infect.

One chicken may infect another with a disease. The second chicken is then infected with a disease (by the first chicken.)

The disease doesn't infect the chickens, so the chickens are not infected by the disease.

 

[GoesStation]

I haven't had the time to look at instances of infected by cited upthread, but I suspect most of them are valid uses like the one you propose. A person can be infected with the chickenpox virus, or infected by a person with chickenpox, but saying that someone was infected by​ chickenpox would be careless writing.

 

[jutfrank]

What difference do Ngram data make? They won't tell you what is correct or acceptable -- just the instances of use. However, Ngrams are interesting in that they tell you how many people are right/wrong!

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

GoesStation is right that infected by is wrong, based on a misuse of the verb infect.

One chicken may infect another with a disease. The second chicken is then infected with a disease (by the first chicken.)

The disease doesn't infect the chickens, so the chickens are not infected by the disease.

That makes sense to me!

Z, I think that's your answer.

 

[z7655431]

GoesStation is right that infected by is wrong, based on a misuse of the verb infect.

One chicken may infect another with a disease. The second chicken is then infected with a disease (by the first chicken.)

The disease doesn't infect the chickens, so the chickens are not infected by the disease.

Yes! You have a good point. Thank you!