[Gregory Dowling]

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)?

[Michael F]

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...

[Janice D. Soderling]

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.

[John Whitworth]

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.

[Julie Steiner]

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.

[Ann Drysdale]

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!

[Michael F]

Ann:

I'm woozy with pheromones. Pheromoans. Feralmoans...