What's the difference between "case by case" and "case to case"?
I often hear the former from my Japanese students. When I asked them where they got the phrase, they always say they learned it from their high school grammar lessons.
idiomsmeaningphrasesword-choice
What's the difference between "case by case" and "case to case"?
I often hear the former from my Japanese students. When I asked them where they got the phrase, they always say they learned it from their high school grammar lessons.
Best Answer
This is probably due to difficulty with prepositions, for which it is harder to learn by rules than by experience! The preposition "by" is used in "X by X" where "X" is a noun to adverbially specify that the main verb is performed to each "X" in the context one at a time. Some examples are:
In contrast, the adverbial phrase "X to X" specifies that the main verb is performed to the "X"s in the context from one to another. It need not imply that all "X"s are involved, but simply conveys the process of going from one to another, usually repeatedly.