Grammar Girl 語法女孩(2008年) Than I Versus "Than Me"(July 11, 2008)

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Episode 116: July 11, 2008

Grammar Girl here.

Today's topic is which pronoun to use after the word "than, as in "Nobody is more excited about the Grammar Girl book than I!"Or is it "than me"? Listen up because guest-writer Charles Carson is going to explain.

A few years ago around Easter, I saw a television ad for Cadbury Creme Eggs that said of the Cadbury Bunny, “No bunny knows Easter better than him.” While I appreciated the obvious word play—substituting no bunny knows for nobody knows—I was struck by the pronoun used at the end of the sentence. Remember, pronouns, such as him and he, come in different forms depending on whether the person or thing is the subject, the one doing the action, or the object, the target of the action. He is a subject pronoun, and him is an object pronoun.

With that in mind, let's look at the slogan in question: No bunny knows Easter better than him. I was taught long ago that than in this instance is a conjunction;* that is, it connects two complete sentences. Here it connects the first sentence, No bunny knows Easter better, to an implied second sentence, the Cadbury Bunny knows Easter to form the entire thought No bunny knows Easter better than he [knows Easter]. Using this interpretation, I believed that the sentence required the subject pronoun he--No bunny knows Easter better than he--not the objective pronoun him, because the pronoun took the place of the subject in the implied second sentence: the bunny.

A Grammar Rumble

Little did I know that I'd stumbled into a controversy that’s been hotly debated since the eighteenth century: Is than always a conjunction, or is it sometimes a preposition? Remember, a preposition is a word that combines with a noun or pronoun to form a phrase that modifies an object or action, as in the prepositional phrases before class, by the book, and behind him. The noun or pronoun coupled with a preposition is called the "object of the preposition." So in the example behind him, the word him is the object of the preposition behind. And when you're using a pronoun as the object of the preposition, it must be in the object case. In other words, you use object pronouns such as him, her, and us. Behind him; behind her; behind us. Some people argue that than in the slogan No bunny knows Easter better than him is a preposition and, therefore, him is the correct pronoun. Let's call them "prepositionists."†

Conjunctionists

But there are also people who argue that than is a conjunction. Let's call them "conjunctionists." They maintain that the case of the pronoun after the word than is determined by its role in that implied second sentence we talked about before--The Cadbury Bunny knows Easter. The conjunctionists believe the correct sentence would be No bunny knows Easter better than he.

Here's another example. Conjunctionists would argue that the sentences Aardvark likes Squiggly more than I and Aardvark likes Squiggly more than me are both correct but have entirely different meanings. Both use than as a conjunction, but when you use the subject pronoun I, you're saying Aardvark likes Squiggly more than I [like Squiggly], and when you use the object pronoun me, you're saying Aardvark likes Squiggly more than [Aardvark likes] me. If than is a preposition, however, you would always use the objective pronoun me and then the same sentence would mean both things--you don't care for Squiggly as much as Aardvark does AND Aardvark prefers Squiggly to you. It would be unclear which of the two meanings were intended. Avoiding ambiguity awards a point to the conjunctionists.

The conjunctionists also have history on their side. According to the Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage (1), than has been used as a subordinating conjunction since Old English. It didn’t start appearing as a preposition followed by an object pronoun until the sixteenth century. Examples can be found in the works of Shakespeare and Swift.‡

Prepositionists

However, a thorn in the side of conjunctionists is the phrase than whom; both sides of the debate agree than who just sounds wrong and recommend than whom in all cases, as in the question You were faster than whom? Whom is an object pronoun, so if than whom is always correct, why not than him and than us? Score one for the people who think than is sometimes a preposition.

Also in support of the prepositionist, Arnold Zwicky (2), on the American Dialect Society listserv, points out that it’s possible in informal speech to “strand” than at the end of a sentence, as in He's the one who I'm faster than. And, while it’s sometimes possible to end a sentence with a preposition, it’s not possible to end it with a conjunction.

Who Wins?

So the battle continues: the conjunctionists have history and the avoidance of ambiguity on their side, while the prepositionists have than whom and several counterexamples on theirs. Who wins? I believe Ken Wilson sums it up best in The Columbia Guide to Standard American English (3):

Than is both a subordinating conjunction, as in She is wiser than I am, and a preposition, as in She is wiser than me.... Since the following verb am is often dropped or “understood,” we regularly hear than I and than me. Some commentators believe that the conjunction is currently more frequent than the preposition, but both are unquestionably Standard.