My housemate just showed me how to switch off the fire alarm in the kitchen in case that it sounds for no reason. Then I asked him “Can I do the same with the one in my room?”
Is it correct to use “with” in my sentence? Should I use “as “ or “to”? Please help clarify. 🙂
Answer
with and to are correct; as is not.
Both permutations of the sentence
Can I do the same with/to the one in my room?
indicate you would like to know if the method you used to turn off the fire alarm in the kitchen can be used to turn off the fire alarm in your room.
The sentence
Can I do the same as the one in my room?
would be nonsensical, because you’re indicating that the fire alarm in your room performs some action, and you’d like to know if you could perform the same action. It would be a little bit more sensical to say:
Can I do the same as with the one in my room?
In this sentence (above), the fire alarm is no longer performing some action; “as with” is understood to mean “as [I do] with”. But you would be incorrectly indicating that you already know how to turn off the fire alarm in your room, and you would like to know if you can use the same method to turn off the fire alarm in the kitchen. Since your roommate just showed you how to turn off the fire alarm in the kitchen, this would not make sense.
Attribution
Source : Link , Question Author : Rose Carter , Answer Author : mRotten