Some confusion
exists over whether to use the nominative or accusative case of pronouns (e.g.
I or me, he or him...) after ‘than’ in English. Although the nominative case is
the strictly grammatical option when the comparison is with the subject
of the sentence, modern everyday usage often goes against it.
He's taller than
I. [formal] / He's
taller than me. [informal but very common]
The latter
pattern, though somewhat informal, is so common that the former might even
sound stilted in most situations. One way to avoid this is to go a bit further
than just ending the sentence with the pronoun.
He’s taller than I
am.
Similarly:
She got better
marks at the exam than I did.
/ She got better marks at the exam than I. [formal] / She got better
marks at the exam than me. [informal]
When the
comparison is between two things that happen to be the object of the sentence,
this problem doesn't arise as the pronouns will be in the accusative case
anyway.
The ball hit me
harder than him.
Sometimes care
must be taken in informal situations to avoid misunderstandings with this type
of expression.
He hit me harder
than her.
(He hit both me and her, but I was hit harder.)
He hit me harder
than she did.
(Both he and she hit me, but he hit me harder)
In the second scenario
above, ‘He hit me harder than her’ should be avoided even in informal contexts
since it could most probably be misunderstood.
A similar pattern can be observed in comparisons with
‘as’.
He’s as tall as I am. /
He’s as tall as I. [formal] / He’s as tall as me. [informal]
After a form of the verb ‘be’, the accusative is
strongly preferred in informal usage while the nominative may be found in
formal contexts. To avoid controversy, people sometimes resort to other
patterns.
It was I who talked to her. [formal]
/ It was me who talked to her. [informal] / I was the one who talked
to her.
In places like photo captions, it’s usual to find the
accusative.
Me and my brother
As for the word order of the above, people sometimes
put whoever is perceived to be the main character (even oneself, as above)
first, especially in informal situations. However, it’s otherwise considered
more polite to put oneself last. The order often is as follows: ‘you’,
third-person pronoun (he/him, she/her…), proper noun (name), common noun, I/me
You, he, Michael, my brother and I are leaving
tomorrow.
As an aside, adjectives are ordered according to the
nature of the quality they describe (though it’s bad practice to use too many
of them in a row): opinion/observation, size (height, width, length, volume),
shape, condition, age, colour, pattern, origin (nationality, ethnicity),
religion, material, purpose
that ugly short old man
the large empty plastic shopping bag
an on-going Sri Lankan Buddhist wedding ceremony
Also note that when the adjectives used each qualify
the noun separately (co-ordinate adjectives), rather than each adjective
qualifying the whole phrase that follows it (cumulative adjectives), they’re
separated by a comma. Their order can normally be changed if necessary. Alternatively,
the word ‘and’ can replace the comma.
It was a dark, cold room. / It
was a dark and cold room. / It was a cold, dark room. / It was a
cold and dark room.
And adverbs (or adverb phrases), when they follow each
other, come in this order: manner, place, frequency, time, purpose
She walked briskly around the square three times every
morning to keep fit.
(Image
credit: Linea de Corte)
