Followed with or followed by

Question

when referencing an event following another event should I use followed with or followed by

Mister Micawber · Accepted Answer

Please give us a sample sentence.

Jason.oconal · Answer

The past participle followed can be used in various ways:

(1) Passively: I am being followed by ..., the stopover in Oxford will be followed by ... (by should always be used in this sense)

(2) Actively: He followed ... (any adverbial clause can be added here: he followed her with baited breath, he followed her by the river, he followed her into the night, he followed with the picnic basket, etc.)

The only time one would use with rather than by in the passive voice would be as an adverbial clause: he was being followed with care (How was he being followed? With care).

Mister Micawber · Answer

I believe that the question was about a sequence of events, Jason.  Could you address that problem more directly?

Anonymous · Answer

You are quite correct. Thank you for pointing that out to me.

Usage would suggest that, when describing a sequence of events, it is correct to use by. E.g., My visit to the shop was followed by a rather ugly encounter with the police. There are some data to support using with, but it is non-standard.

An example using with from the British National Corpus: ' "Push", "discipline" or "dig in" came hissing forth, and were once followed with a hilarious bellow when Parke made an injudicious shot selection: "brain".' While it may not be obvious, I believe that most would agree the sentence sounds better when followed by is substituted for followed with.

Gray scarf 646 · Answer

followed by

Followed with or followed by

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