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Yes, Ann, that is true. But I DON'T pop in a verb, not nohow. Grammar evolves and changes with usage. Alas that it is so. And the Latin I learned in school was not the Latin that Aquinas spoke and the grammar was different. Not that they TOLD us this.
The trouble with usage is that every ignorant chawbacon has a vote worth just as much as the Professor of Chaldean. Well, perhaps not quite as much. |
Although most English grammarians would like to pretend that English grammar descends directly from Latin grammar, with no influence from anything else, the fact remains that English is a grammatical bastard, and French emphatic pronouns are alive and well in it.
For example, the French C'est moi gives us It's me. Although the Latinate nominatives of It is I are not incorrect, they feel less natural because they are the result of trying to shove a medieval French-influenced genie back into its ancient Latin bottle. It did indeed fit there once, but now it doesn't want to go back without a fight. I suspect that something analogous is going on with He is fatter than me vs. He is fatter than I. I say both usages are correct. But no one listens to me, anyway. |
Miss Piggy holds the key to it and I often call upon her incontrovertible expertise in tight corners. Word Nerd? Moi?
But Oh, Michael Ferris! Let us lean closer to our keyboards and sniff each other's mothballs! |
Ann:
I'm woozy with pheromones. Pheromoans. Feralmoans... |
Pheromone, feralmoan, soppyswoon and sigh
I've found a fellow-spherean who feels the same as I Do |
Ann, that's one for the Eratosphere Hall of Fame!
If there isn't a HoF, there should be. |
Sweet Ann,
To sip of your wit is like nectar to bee: I'm drunk on it! You said it better than me... |
sometimes it matters, sometimes not
Now and then it's useful to know the difference. "I love you more than him" is different from "I love you more than he." Most of the time the context is enough to make the meaning clear. In writing, where we don't have the luxury of shrugs, smiles, and other gestures, it's usually best to err on the side of pedantry. Even there, however, with some audiences you'll gain precision at the cost of credibility.
RPW |
But Richard I think that if we wanted to make it clear that we mean "more than he" we would naturally add the word "does" to the sentence.
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Another footnote from the OED:
THAN 1b: With a personal or relative pronoun in the objective case instead of the nominative (as if than were a preposition). This is app. the invariable construction in the case of than whom, which is universally accepted instead of than who. With the personal pronouns it is now considered incorrect. 1560 Bible (Genev.) Prov. xxvii. 3 A fooles wrath is heauier then them bothe. 1569 J. Sandford tr. Agrippa's Van. Artes 165 We cannot resiste them that be stronger then vs. 1718 Prior Better Answer 27–8 For thou art a girl as much brighter than her, As he was a poet sublimer than me. 1762 Goldsm. Cit. W. xxxviii, I am, not less than him, a despiser of the multitude. a1774 I Surv. Exp. Philos. (1776) I. 163 Others, later than him, who appeal to experience as well as he, affirm the contrary. 1792 Wakefield Mem. (1804) I. 108 He was much older than me. 1815 Scott Guy M. xvii, I+could not be expected+to be wiser than her. c1825 Beddoes Second Brother i. i, You are old, And many years nearer than him to death. 1861 E. O'Curry Lect. MS. Materials 253 He is better than me, then, said the monarch. Clive |
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