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The Free Dictionary Language Forums English English Grammar By vs. with

By vs. with

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LCouperin

Posted: Monday, March 26, 2012 4:02:48 AM

As a child he was fascinated by telescopes.
As a child he was fascinated with telescopes.

Rank: Member
Which is correct?
Joined: 1/15/2012
Posts: 124
Neurons: 372
Location: United States, C A

It is like the sound of one hand clapping.

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Shivanand

Posted: Monday, March 26, 2012 5:21:04 AM

Both are correct. The meaning is contextual.

Rank: Advanced Member

Joined: 9/2/2011
Posts: 7,771
Neurons: 79,147
Location: Bangalore, Karnataka,
India

The child saw the telescope and was fascinated by its features.Its parents bought it a few toy telescopes. The child was fascinated with her
telescopes.
C heers!

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weraqion09

Posted: Monday, March 26, 2012 8:59:59 AM

Rank: Newbie

From what I know... both are correct but since very, and I mean VERY, few words have an exact same meaning with another word, it still
depends on what you actually FEEL at the moment the sentence's delivery.

Joined: 3/26/2012
Posts: 2
Neurons: 6
Location: Philippines

If you say "...fascinated by...", your statements leans on having a fascination and that fascination is caused by the telescopes, while when
you say "...fascinated with...", it leans closer on saying that the object of fascination is, in fact, the telescope.
Let's put it this way... there's a clerk at a shop and you have the telescope as the object of fascination then you say:
"The clerk's description gave me a fascination with the telescope". So you feel as though you like the telescope but it isn't the telescope
per se that made you fascinated, it was the description.
But on the other hand, the word "by" cannot replace the said word above not only because of difference in meaning of the word but
because the sentence
"The clerk's description gave me a fascination by the telescope" would make the sentence REALLY different.
If we would analyze this ^ sentence, it would seem as though the clerk used the telescope to give you the fascination. So not only is the
sentence changed but it's meaning, then, wouldn't be like what you wanted it to mean at all.

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leonAzul

Posted: Monday, March 26, 2012 5:16:15 PM

LCouperin wrote:
As a child he was fascinated by telescopes.
As a child he was fascinated with telescopes.

Rank: Advanced Member

Which is correct?
Joined: 8/11/2011
Posts: 7,468
Neurons: 22,766
Location: Miami, Florida, United
States

They are both correct but can have subtly different shades of meaning.
The phrase "fascinated by" sounds to me like an occasional attraction to something.
The phase "fascinated with" suggests to me more of an on-going preoccupation with something.
This is actually more of a vocabulary question than a grammar question.
"Make it go away, Mrs Whatsit," he whispered. "Make it go away. It's evil."

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