You Think You're Smarter than Me?
Thursday, June 3, 2010 at 6:30 PM | Filed under grammar/usage
When you're writing to compare two things, it can be a little confusing to decide whether to use a subject or object pronoun. For example, should it be, "He likes candy more than I," or, "He likes candy more than me"? Actually, each sentence means something different.
The trick is to flesh out the sentences. Be wordy and duplicate the verb. Looking at the first sentence, we can see that "He likes candy" is the first part. The second part involves "I," a subject pronoun, so when you flesh it out to match the first part, you get, "I like candy." Putting it together, you have "He likes candy more than I like candy." So I like candy, but he loves it.
Let's flesh out the second sentence. The first part is "He likes candy" again; the second part has "me," an object pronoun, so this part becomes "he likes me." So the whole sentence means, "He likes candy more than he likes me." So I guess he'd rather eat candy than be with me. Oh well.
Regardless, if somebody gets upset with you for some reason and asks, "You think you're smarter than me?" it's probably not a good idea to correct him and say, " 'smarter than I.' "
The trick is to flesh out the sentences. Be wordy and duplicate the verb. Looking at the first sentence, we can see that "He likes candy" is the first part. The second part involves "I," a subject pronoun, so when you flesh it out to match the first part, you get, "I like candy." Putting it together, you have "He likes candy more than I like candy." So I like candy, but he loves it.
Let's flesh out the second sentence. The first part is "He likes candy" again; the second part has "me," an object pronoun, so this part becomes "he likes me." So the whole sentence means, "He likes candy more than he likes me." So I guess he'd rather eat candy than be with me. Oh well.
Regardless, if somebody gets upset with you for some reason and asks, "You think you're smarter than me?" it's probably not a good idea to correct him and say, " 'smarter than I.' "
