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It's "taller than I" not "taller than me"
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@ Another Guest,
Would you also bethink phrases such as "as ____ as" to be prepositions? For example, "He sang his rendition of the song as good as I did/as good as me"?
""my girlfriend likes pizza more than I"
"my girlfriend likes pizza more than me" These have different meanings. " === and yet, the sentence "I can hear him better than you" is ambiguous and needs to be reworded, because 'you' has no specific direct object form like "I" (nor, of course, does any other modern English word except for the 6 pronouns: I, we, he, she, they and who, and the last one, whom, is half-dead). Don't tell me you want English to get its accusative case back. The language can live perfectly fine without "me". "My girlfriend likes pizza more than I do" "My girlfriend likes pizza more than she likes I". Easy solution to an infrequent problem and no need to bother with cases.
"He sang his rendition of the song as good as I did/as good as me"?
It should be "well", not "good"... and since you're comparing verbs (he sang - I sang), it should be "I did".
<<"My girlfriend likes pizza more than she likes I". >>
Do you mean "...than she likes me"? or was this intentional? <<and yet, the sentence "I can hear him better than you" is ambiguous and needs to be reworded, because 'you' has no specific direct object form like "I" >> Correct, and this is precisely why forms using the following verb will always remain, and continue to blive to this day ("...better than you DO", etc) In light of this, that following verb will always sake the use of "than" to be a conjunction. It's only colloquial usage to say things like "better than me"/"better than him". In writing, I rarely use such. I invariably scribe "better than I"/"better than he". This is not due to forescriptivism, but due to making it clear. To hear people flite to the contrary can sometimes seem eerily frempt. Like they've been riduculed cruelly for using "than I"/"than he" and now they've attached a sort of shame to it...it's really knowing when to use one vs the other
CID
<<Correct, and this is precisely why forms using the following verb will always remain, and continue to blive to this day ("...better than you DO", etc) In light of this, that following verb will always sake the use of "than" to be a conjunction.>> Even ignoring the typos, that is isn't coherent English. <<It's only colloquial usage to say things like "better than me"/"better than him". In writing, I rarely use such. I invariably scribe "better than I"/"better than he". This is not due to forescriptivism, but due to making it clear. >> There is nothing unclear about using correct English, and correct English doesn't become incorrect simply because some lout on the internet says so. And someone who uses words such as "flite" and "frempt" that hardly anyone outside of Scotland knows, and don't even appear in most dictionaries, can hardly claim that making things clear is a priority. <<Like they've been riduculed cruelly for using "than I"/"than he" and now they've attached a sort of shame to it...it's really knowing when to use one vs the other>> Accusing people who disagree with you of having some emotional damage. Will the childishness ever end? guest <<at least I don't have my girlfriend/boyfriend fight my battles for me>> Are we supposed to know what that means?
<<Are we supposed to know what that means? >>
um, did I miss something? who is "we"?
<<Another Guest >>
If you would argue your case as well as you try to run a smear campaign you might end up getting your point across
@ CID, @ Another Guest
Okay Girlz Can we please give it a rest? The issue here is whether it's taller than I or taller than me Geeze
guest
<<um, did I miss something? who is "we"?>> The people reading this, of course. Leasnam: <<The issue here is whether it's taller than I or taller than me>> It's clear to me that I'm the only one here interested in discussing that issue.
<<Leasnam:
<<The issue here is whether it's taller than I or taller than me>> It's clear to me that I'm the only one here interested in discussing that issue. >> Well, I'll discuss it with you... This is how I would explain it: Universal Suggestions: 1). You can *always* use the traditional pronoun: He sings better than I (He sings bette than I sing) She likes him better than I (She likes him better than I like him) She likes him better than me (She likes him better than she likes me) These are always acceptable in formal and informal English. Informal/Familiar Suggestions 2) You can *oftentimes* substitute the object pronoun for the nominal pronoun when it doesn't change the meaning: He sings better than me since there's no one else to compare to, or to be confused by, this is acceptable in informal speech, and sometimes in formal speech for effect, especially when referring to informal situations, but only in this instance, otherwise you run the risk of sounding ambiguous and you will likely have to follow up with a second verb (eg "better than I do/like him"). Doing this however, will bring you back to the Universal Suggestion above, because the verb will force you to use the correct pronoun case. My approach is not a prescriptivist approach--over the last few days I have actually tuned in to listen to myself as I spoke, and I do actually use these rules just as I have spelled them out. Honestly, I was quite amazed.
Your first rule is rather vague. "The traditional pronoun"? It doesn't really address the situation given in the thread title, where the comparison is directly to a person, rather than the person's action. It also doesn't really address any of the points that I've made.
And if "than" is not a preposition, why do people say "different than" instead of "different from" (or even "different to", which is semantically ugly, but at least is definitely using a preposition)?
As a native english speaker, I personally would never say: "my girlfriend likes pizza more than I". I would say "my girlfriend likes pizza more than me" or "my girlfriend likes pizza more than I do" or "my girlfriend likes pizza more than she likes me"
It's normally considered too formal to say "more than I" :)
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