"identify . . . from"

[Wilson Gray]

"Is it becoming ordinary?"

Damn, Charlie! I hope not!

-Wilson

On Tue, Aug 5, 2008 at 2:38 PM, Charles Doyle <cdoyle at uga.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Charles Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU>
> Subject:      "identify . . . from"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> A "Yahoo! News" item about the undesirability of prostate-cancer screening for men over the age of 75 contains this phrasing:
>
> ". . . there is no foolproof method of identifying aggressive tumors from slow-growing ones."
>
> I believe I have heard (and seen) that use of "identify" in place of "distinguish" or "differentiate" on other occasions lately.  Is it becoming ordinary?  The "identify . . . from" construction is not easily searchable online!
>
> --Charlie
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--
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
 -Sam'l Clemens

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