similarities

[Do228]

Which of these sentences can be used?

1 Who has more similarities, men and women or Asians and Americans?
2 Whose similarities are bigger, men and women or Asians and Americans?
3 Which earthlings look more alike, men and women or Asians and Americans?
4 Who is more similar to each other, men and women or Asians and Americans?

 

[Tdol]

I wouldn't use any of them.

 

[Do228]

I wouldn't use any of them.

How would you formulate the question then?

 

[Rover_KE]

I can't think of a reason why any of us would want to spend any time doing so. They're meaningless, as such similarities are unquantifiable.

 

[Skrej]

The problem is with the comparisons themselves. You're trying to pair men vs. women and Asians vs. Americans.

Disregarding for a moment the fact that Americans come in a wide variety of skins tones, ethnicities, and races (although this alone makes the question nonsensical - 'American' is a nationality, not a race or ethnicity) it doesn't allow for the possible overlap of your categories. There are millions of Americans of Asian descent. However, for the sake of argument let's assume what you really mean is 'white Caucasian'.

Even then none of your pairings are mutually exclusive. What if it's a American man and an Asian woman? An Asian man and an American woman? An Asian woman and an American woman? An American man and an Asian man?

Never mind that 'Asian' is in of itself an impossibly broad category. Koreans and Indians are both Asian, yet look nothing alike. An Armenian looks completely different from an Sri Lankan. Yet, all four are Asians.

Logically, none of your options work. Realistically, none of your choices are either exclusive enough nor similar enough to work. Practically, this is pointless.

 

[Tdol]

How would you formulate the question then?

I wouldn't. It is simply a question that isn't really worth asking as it won't produce much in the way of sense and clarity. Is a Native American woman closer to an Asian American woman than a White American male is to a Vietnamese male?

 

[jutfrank]

However ridiculous the question is, you could say it like this:

Are the differences between Asians and Americans greater than the differences between men and women?

 

[Do228]

OK Frank, I think I'll take your version then. It's for an international Facebook fun group where stuff like this is often discussed and I doubt that most users find it ridiculous. Or maybe they do find it somehow ridiculous but nevertheless they like, share and comment it to a huge extent. I have established several international dating and fun sites to make some extra money and bring people together and, from my experience, for many users it's quite entertaining to have discussions about cultural similarities/differences, relations between men and women, aliens and earthlings etc.

 

[MinQKim]

Not a teacher

If you are just posting this sort of fun stuff, you can use any of them.