Words clarification

There is a problem of English language in the exam paper of a local exam for master degree entrance in China as follows:

Human facial expressions differ from those of animals in the degree they can be controlled on purpose.

I think the sentence is not correct, "in the degree" shoud be "to the degree". And I told the same to some English teachers, but they did not agree with me. What do you say?

Another question is about the word "college", which means a place where higher education is done. But in the Election, there is "Electoral College", which is hard for us outside America to understand. And also in some cases of the UK, some institutions of (higher or otherwise) education bear the name of "so-and-so University College" or "so-and-so College University", which sounds very confusing too. As far as we know, such a school is either a college or a university, how can it be both at the same time? Is there any interesting history behind this?

Thank you if you can help.

"in the degree" is probably similar to "in the way that" and would likely be more correct to some grammar folk. Animals may not have more or less control (same muscles and nerves), so "to the degree" is not accurate...they (animals) simply don't enjoy making faces (as far as I know) so the difference in wording reflects that.

There's probably a good web link on colleges and universities here..colleges have a few 2-year degree programs, while universities consist of several colleges with different areas of 2- and 4-year study. Undergraduate is 2 or 4 years, graduate is a Masters (6 years) and then PhD is something beyond that....7 or 8 years.

And for some of us, everything is stretched out even longer.

Prepositions...funny things huh? And the rules are basically....nonexistent.

Correct word is "in".

"To" usually indicates direction, directionality, limits, time periods or relationships. For a relationship example: The answer to your question lies here.

To be honest, most Americans don't understand English in the degree that you are asked.

'Colleges' began as affinity groups, often national, within universities. The universities of Paris or Bologna etc had Spanish or German or English 'colleges', students banding together against administrators, local merchants & landlords, etc. 'College' came to mean any such organization. The USA "electoral college" is a group whose members never meet as a group but who exercise a certain group function, i.e. casting electoral ballots at a specific time.

And in USA at least, educational colleges are not merely 2-year institutions but can be distinct entities within or outside universities. A college may offer post-graduate degrees whether or not it's part of a university structure. I grew up in southern California next to the Claremont Colleges. All are independent; they host a distinct University Center. Most are secular but one is a multi-denominational theology school.

None of the Claremont Colleges offer two-year degrees; those that do are usually called Junior or Community Colleges, which are a separate system in this state. Community Colleges are publicly funded; some Junior Colleges are private. And then there are the unaccredited church 'colleges', ay yi yi. What a mess!

Think of a university as a collage of colleges.

box13 said:

"in the degree" is probably similar to "in the way that" and would likely be more correct to some grammar folk. Animals may not have more or less control (same muscles and nerves), so "to the degree" is not accurate...they (animals) simply don't enjoy making faces (as far as I know) so the difference in wording reflects that.

There's probably a good web link on colleges and universities here..colleges have a few 2-year degree programs, while universities consist of several colleges with different areas of 2- and 4-year study. Undergraduate is 2 or 4 years, graduate is a Masters (6 years) and then PhD is something beyond that....7 or 8 years.

And for some of us, everything is stretched out even longer.

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"in the degree" means that humans can control their facial expressions more than many animals including monkeys. Chimpanzees for example can make many different expressions. Humans can generally make more differences than animals.

It is an expression of the quantitative difference - and is technically right.

College and University is one of those examples where British and US usage is different.



The Concise Oxford Dictionary [of British English] gives TWO definitions of college, with a subset of 1 for Britain. My notes are in square brackets.

1. an educational establishment providing higher education or specialized professional or vocational training; [but see my sentence below] (in Britain) any of the independent institutions into which some universities are separated.

2. an organised group of professional people with particular aims, privileges and duties. [The College of Surgeons; The US Electoral College]

ORIGIN Middle English from Old French from Latin collegium (partnership) from collega .

Oxford and Cambridge are Universities but they are made up of various colleges Caius, Kings, St John etc.

The word college has been devalued by calling senior schools colleges e.g. "So and So's Sixth Form College".

"In the degree" is correct, although not nearly the best way to say it.

What the phrase means is that animals can't control their facial expressions as good as humans. This is true, because their mimic muscles are less numerous and more basic, less precise. Animals simply don't use their FACE to communicate in any way. Whereas humans evolved in such a way that face is the most important part by which we judge each other's mood. We thus control it better.

Now, back you your phrase. You are paying attention to slightly wrong part of the phrase. What you should pay attention is this: "Human facial expressions differ from those of animals in the degree they can be controlled on purpose."

You can't "differ to". True, there is such a construction as "to the degree", but here, in your phrase, the "in" part belongs to the word "differ", not to the word "degree".

The expressions differ in the degree of control.
same way you can say
Those balloons differ in shape.
Puppies differ in color.

Also you want to pay attention to the construction "to differ from ... in". That's exactly the case that you have here.
You differ from me in hair color.
Trees differ from rocks in that they are alive.

What you have there is a grammatically correct phrase, I believe. What throws you off is that is that it sounds awkward, and nobody would really say it in such a way. It's also too long, too spread out, and that's why it's harder to make the needed connections. You CAN say like that, the same way as you can effectively make a single one-page-long sentence which is still grammatically correct. But nobody does it, because it fails to relay information clearly, and that's the purpose of language.
For example I'd say it like this:
Humans' and animals' facial expressions differ from each other in the amount of control over them.

You should understand, that when it comes to foreign languages only tremendous practice will allow you to nail your speech and not to sound awkward. The more your native language's grammar and sentence structure differs from English, the easier it will be to make a mistake of producing an awkward-sounding phrase. That's completely fine, and teachers are susceptible to this too.

For example, English is foreign to me too, and for myself I can say that I probably read 5-6 times more English text than my teachers by now. I went to meet my school teacher recently and my English threw her off because she couldn't understand some words that are natural to me. And still, I sometimes write phrases that just sound odd to native English language bearer.
Practice makes perfect.

gxnn said:

There is a problem of English language in the exam paper of a local exam for master degree entrance in China as follows:

Human facial expressions differ from those of animals in the degree they can be controlled on purpose.

I think the sentence is not correct, "in the degree" shoud be "to the degree". And I told the same to some English teachers, but they did not agree with me. What do you say?

Click to expand...

The teachers are right here.

Both "different IN the degree" and "different TO the degree" are used in English but the meanings are slightly different.

"to the degree" has the same meaning as "only as far as".

For example: "A fast car is better than a slow car, to the degree that you can control it at speed." This means that the advantage of a fast car is limited by how well you can control it at high speed; if you can't, then it's no better than a slow car.

"different in the degree" is used to say that one thing has more of an attribute than another. The sentence you posted says that humans have more ability to control their expressions on purpose than an animal does (e.g. I can frown even if I'm happy).

The sentence "Human facial expressions differ from those of animals TO the degree they can be controlled on purpose" would mean that human expressions are only different from animal expressions as far as we can consciously control them - i.e. uncontrolled expressions are no different to animal expressions.

Nezhul said:

Animals simply don't use their FACE to communicate in any way.

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Quite a few animals do use their faces to communicate. Baring teeth is a very common form of threat display in the animal kingdom, and a dog's face can express many different emotions - it's usually not hard to tell the difference between angry, scared, happy, and hungry dog.

The point of the sentence is that they don't have the same conscious control over their expressions - e.g. I can deliberately make a face that doesn't match what I'm actually feeling.

Bramblethorn said:

The sentence "Human facial expressions differ from those of animals TO the degree they can be controlled on purpose" would mean that human expressions are only different from animal expressions as far as we can consciously control them - i.e. uncontrolled expressions are no different to animal expressions.

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Thank you very much, @Bramblethorn and @Nezhul, as well as other friends.

Yes, that (the above )is exactly what I want to say. Though @Nezhul also makes much sense in his explanation.

Human facial experssions are totally different from those of animals.
Because there seems no animal can conciously control its expression.

So my original question about this should be: the phrases "in the degree' and "to the degree' are acceptable if only it is a question of grammar, but considering the truth, "to the degree" in this context sounds more sensible and logical.

Hi, all.
I've found some new and real evidence to help explain my question.
The following is from an article of an American translator Paul Russel Garrett

"At times I forget how fortunate I have been as a translator, but when I hear from colleagues working from French, German, and Spanish, for example, of how they struggle to make a living, to break into the world of translated literature, I am reminded of how difficult a career in translation is. The impetus for my career can be traced back to a number of years ago, when I made the wise decision (though everyone told me I was mad at the time) to pursue Scandinavian studies at University College London."

Please note that phrase "University College London", what kind of institution is it? How come it bears such a weird name? Is it a college or a university? (They are supposed to be the same thing, right?)

Please help clarify, thank you.

gxnn said:

Please note that phrase "University College London", what kind of institution is it? How come it bears such a weird name? Is it a college or a university? (They are supposed to be the same thing, right?)

Click to expand...

"College" can mean several different things, e.g.:

- a group of people who have a common purpose (e.g. a College of Surgeons is a professional association, or there's the US Electoral College)
- a university
- a place where university students live
- a branch of a university that's responsible for both accommodation and teaching (e.g. Oxford University has 38 different colleges).

In Australia, "college" can also mean a high school, especially what would be "senior high" in the USA.

I'm not sure exactly how University College, London came to be "University College", probably some complicated historical reason.

Just wrong

The correct phrase for a natural English speaker would be:

Human facial expressions differ from those of animals to the extent that they can be controlled deliberately.

Or better:

Human facial expressions differ from those of animals in that they can be controlled deliberately.

The phrase 'in the degree' or 'to the degree' just jars, as does 'on purpose' in this context.

Bray123 said:

The phrase 'in the degree' or 'to the degree' just jars, as does 'on purpose' in this context.

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Such excess verbiage (too many words) is a common sin of academic writers wishing to impress rather than communicate clearly.

Or better:

Human facial expressions differ from those of animals in that they can be controlled deliberately.

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Even clearer and briefer:

Distinctively, humans can control their facial expressions while animals cannot.

But this is incorrect. Dogs have studied humans for many millennia; they read our faces. Most of us who have resided with dogs have seen their facial expressions and physical behavior change with events, from looks of longing or dejection to joy, and even guilt. Is that 'begging' look deliberate? I think so.