Than: Encyclopedia II - Than - Usage

Than - Usage

Usage prescriptionists have ordained a number of rules concerning than that those who do not wish to be edited or corrected may wish to note. These prescriptive grammarians deny that than is a preposition that invariably governs the oblique case, although it has been used as such by writers such as William Shakespeare, whose 1600 play Julius Caesar contains the line:

and Samuel Johnson, who wrote:

In actual usage, then, than functions as both conjunction and preposition; when it is used as a conjunction, it governs the nominative case, and when a preoposition, the oblique case. This rule, while describing the usage of the word in modern English, is thought insufficiently rigid by some, and deprives those who enjoy correcting their neighbours of a source of mostly innocent fun. So the prescriptionist rules have not been allowed to entirely lapse.

To determine the case of a pronoun following "than" observing the prescriptionists' rules, a writer must look for extra understood words and determine how they relate to the pronoun.

Examples:

• You are a better swimmer than she.
  • represents You are a better swimmer than she is.

therefore You are a better swimmer than her is a solecism.

• They like you more than her.
  • represents They like you more than they like her.

therefore They like you more than she is a solecism.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Usage", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki