Week 2 and Im already behind
in school in blogging... however, today I am going to tell you how today's grammar class changed my life.
Here are two sentences that I would have conceivably uttered before today, 5:48pm PST.
I'm smarter than him.
My SP is a better knitter than me.
THESE ARE WRONG! Am I the only one that is speaking incorrectly??
The corrections are:
I'm smarter than he.
My SP is a better knitter than I.
The reason (even if you knew the correct usage, you might not why, so here's a bit of useless grammar info)
THAN is an elliptical conjunction meaning it is taking the place of words. When you use THAN it's basically two complete thoughts.
I'm smarter than HE (is smart)
My SP is a better knitter than I (am a knitter)
Notice when I had the words in the () they are two complete thoughts-- meaning you must have a subject.
You wouldnt say
Him is smart or Me am a knitter.
So there you go. It is only day 7 of school and a I have learned something tangible.
OKOK So I said this exact same thing when last semester (7th day too) I was taught in good writing you dump prepositional phrases and LY ending words. I vowed I would stick to it and it lasted a month. But this time it's different. This THAN thing is doable really it is.
Here are two sentences that I would have conceivably uttered before today, 5:48pm PST.
I'm smarter than him.
My SP is a better knitter than me.
THESE ARE WRONG! Am I the only one that is speaking incorrectly??
The corrections are:
I'm smarter than he.
My SP is a better knitter than I.
The reason (even if you knew the correct usage, you might not why, so here's a bit of useless grammar info)
THAN is an elliptical conjunction meaning it is taking the place of words. When you use THAN it's basically two complete thoughts.
I'm smarter than HE (is smart)
My SP is a better knitter than I (am a knitter)
Notice when I had the words in the () they are two complete thoughts-- meaning you must have a subject.
You wouldnt say
Him is smart or Me am a knitter.
So there you go. It is only day 7 of school and a I have learned something tangible.
OKOK So I said this exact same thing when last semester (7th day too) I was taught in good writing you dump prepositional phrases and LY ending words. I vowed I would stick to it and it lasted a month. But this time it's different. This THAN thing is doable really it is.
posted by Nic at 8:40 PM
1 Comments:
I'm a total grammar nerd. I don't want to sound like one, though. I always say something like "He's taller than I am" because it doesn't sound as weird as "He's taller than I" even though it is technicially proper.
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