Learn English – When to use “by” or “to”

word-choiceword-usage

Should I use "by" or "to" in the following?

If you create the image for the user and it's approved, it's then visible and usable by all members.

OR:

If you create the image for the user and it's approved, it's then visible and usable to all members.

By the way, the long-form is "If you create the image for the user and it's approved, it's then visible to (and usable by) all members.". I was just trying to make it as simple as possible.

Best Answer

The problem here is that visible and usable are not the same. Normally, you would use visible to and usable by:

stars visible to the naked eye
Merriam-Webster

Google Ngram:

enter image description here

Google Ngram:

enter image description here

However, since visible by is also acceptable, I would go with the less awkward combination:

visible and usable by all members.

rather than:

visible to and usable by all members.

I suppose:

visible and usable to all members.

is also grammatically correct, but it doesn't have exactly the same meaning: something is either usable or unusable (worthless) to me. If something is made available to me so I can use it, it becomes usable by me.

Related Topic