Different from, different than and different to

One bird is different from/than/to the rest.

Which of the following sentences do you prefer?

Your opinion is different from mine.
Your opinion is different to mine.
Your opinion is different than mine.

Does it matter?

Traditionally, different from was regarded as Standard English, but different to and different than are becoming increasingly common.

I don’t think it matters which you use, but some people have strong feelings about the correctness of different from.

In The Cambridge Guide to English Usage, Pam Peters says that all three constructions have a long history of usage and that different from ‘has no exclusive claim on expressions of comparison’.

Fowler’s Modern English Usage says that different ‘can only be followed by from and not by to is a SUPERSTITION’.

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