than

Usage notes

Usage prescriptivists have a number of rules concerning than. According to them, than is not a preposition to govern the oblique case (although it has been used as such by writers such as William Shakespeare, whose 1600 play Julius Caesar contains the line A man no mightier than thyself or me. . ., and Samuel Johnson, who wrote No man had ever more discernment than him, in finding out the ridiculous.). Than functions as both conjunction and preposition; when it is used as a conjunction, it governs the nominative case, and when a preposition, the oblique case. To determine the case of a pronoun following "than", a writer can look to implied words and determine how they would 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, according to such prescriptivists, 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, if it attempts to represent the previous sentence. It may be correct, however, if it represents They like you more than she likes you.

Some prescriptivists insist that whom must follow than (not who); although according to the above rule, who would be the "correct" form in the first example. Critics of this often cite this mandatory exception as evidence that the prescriptivist rule is logically erroneous, in addition to its being inconsistent with well-established usage.

Translations

Descendants

• English: than

Descendants

• English: then
• Yola: than

Derived terms

Derived terms