Grammar question
 

Here is something that has been bothering me. I was taught that the proper way to make a comparative statement is "Her sister is taller than she (is)." Now it seems to be the rule to say "Her sister is taller than her." I have seen this so many times that I can no longer write it off as one author's or editor's ignorance. Does anyone know when this change happened and why? Or have I always been wrong?
Thanks--

I don't know. I agree there is some laxness in the rule, but "taller than her" sounds a bit crude to me. But "taller than she" sounds stilted. I think I generally find myself saying "taller than she is," including the verb just to make it clear that my choice of pronoun is correct.

To get a feel for the variety out there, try googling, "comparisons with 'than'." Here's one such result. Scroll down to the box that says "Taller than...?"

"It is she" is only used in the most formal of social contexts (unless used mockingly). Likewise, "I am taller than she." The conjunction, 'than', is used as a preposition: "I am taller than her."

Another feature I see disappearing is the use of the comparative in this example: "Which of you two is the taller?" Where the grammatically incorrect "Which of you two is the tallest?" is the preferred version in most social contexts, as the correct version is deemed too pedantic.

O tempora, o mores!

Duncan

Great website, Maryann. Everything's on the net if you only know where to look.

Yes, Duncan, mores are changing. I expect to go to my grave as the last person to bother making a distinction between "lie" and "lay".

But Roger, you're fatter than me. I mean you're not fatter than I, are you?
And could anyone say you're not as fat as I?

John - pop a verb in and suck it and see. You are fatter than me am? I don't think so. Whereas your not being as fat as I am is not only grammatical but true.

Yes, but the verb isn't there. And when the verb isn't there, we tend to consider the word "than" as a preposition rather than a conjunction. (Look at the use of the word "than" in that sentence; isn't it more like a preposition than a conjunction? And there too?)

When we put in the verb, then of course the word "than" changes its function and becomes a conjunction. (I could turn this into a poem, I guess.)

The same thing happens with other words, like "as":

He used his shoe as a hammer.

There it's clearly being used as a preposition (and in this sentence too).

But in the sentence "He used his shoe as he would have used a hammer...", it's clearly a conjunction.

Admit it, doesn't it feel a little bit twee when you say "He's taller than I" (not to mention fatter)?

In conversation, I do exactly as Ann suggests.

I cannot bring myself to say "taller than her" (or, in New Yawkese, "talluh than huh"), so I always add the second verb.

So I don't smell like mothballs. I hope...

It's one thing to say it, and another thing to write it. We all occasionally use colloquialisms ain't and phrases like give it to who!! or he don't know nothing from nothing", to make a point that we are being informal or friendly or funny or at least trying to be. But we know the difference and wouldn't write it in a magazine article.

But Gail was deploring that she sees it often in writing, newspapers maybe?

Keep up the good work Word Nerds. Lift that standard, tote that dangling participle.

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.

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

And what of that "I"--is it righter than "me"?
Or is rightest whatever the heck seems to fly;
Lord poet ain't happy when language flaps free
So I'm sure he's fancier rhymer than I

Thanks for the OED quotes, Clive. (How could I have forgotten Prior's Better Answer?)

On the other hand, up against Proverbs I would put Edmund Burke:
"In the reporter's gallery yonder there sits a Fourth Estate more important than they all."

Also, Julie, good points about English as a hybrid lanaguage. But the French word for "I" (pronounced "zhuh") sounds just plain funny at the end of a sentence, and they avoid putting it there. I'd like to see how a French Bible translates, "Lord, is it I?"

You are correct, Gail. That you have begun to question a correct use of grammar just goes to show how grammar has been trashed in the English language.

But as Clive points out, it's a trashing that's been going on since at least the 16th century, and by writers like Goldsmith and Scott along the way.