<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
This is part five in a loose series detailing the difficulty of mastering pronouns. Even simple sentences can include snares that distract us from distinguishing between subjects and objects.<\/p>\n
Two weeks ago, we showed that pronouns linked by any form of the verb to be<\/em> wrongly become objects in everyday English, which prefers It\u2019s me<\/em> or It could be her<\/em> to the formally correct It\u2019s I <\/em>and It could be she.<\/em><\/p>\n Last week, we showed that in colloquial sentences with compound subjects or objects, personal pronouns are routinely confused, resulting in faulty usages such as Him and Joe went fishing<\/em> or It happened to my wife and I<\/em>. We also cautioned against mixing a subject pronoun with an object pronoun joined by and<\/em> or or<\/em>, as in her and I<\/em> or either he or us<\/em>, because in such constructions, one of the pronouns will always be wrong.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, there\u2019s more. In many comparative sentences, pronoun confusion is an unwelcome byproduct. Two common troublemakers are as <\/em>and than<\/em>. Sentences like She works as hard as me<\/em> and I\u2019m luckier than him<\/em> sound fine to most people\u2014but not if we repeat the verb: no one would say, \u201cShe works as hard as me work\u201d or \u201cI\u2019m luckier than him is.\u201d Adding the verb confirms that the strictly proper usages would be She works as hard as I <\/em>and I\u2019m luckier than he<\/em>.<\/p>\n Now consider I depend on you more than him<\/em>. It\u2019s correct if the subject (I<\/em>) thinks you\u2019re the one who is more dependable. But if the intended meaning is \u201cI depend on you more than he depends on you,\u201d than he<\/em> would be the choice.<\/p>\n Back in the sixties, the Beatles sang, \u201cI must be sure from the very start that you would love me more than her.\u201d They meant, \u201cI must be sure that you would love me more than<\/em> she loves me<\/em>.\u201d But a close reading reveals that they said something spicier: \u201cI must be sure that you would love me more than you<\/em> love her<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n So be careful: a humble pronoun used incorrectly may create a major distraction.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Pop Quiz<\/strong><\/p>\n Find the grammatically correct pronouns.<\/p>\n 1. She\u2019s as capable as I\/me.<\/p>\n 2. My little brother looks older than he\/him.<\/p>\n 3. I\u2019d rather give it to you than to Bill or they\/them.<\/p>\n 4. You must trust him more than we\/us, because we\u2019re not at all sure about him.<\/p>\n 5. He\u2019s not honest with either of us. He\u2019d lie to you as sure as I\/me.<\/p>\n Pop Quiz Answers<\/strong><\/p>\n 1. She\u2019s as capable as I<\/em>.<\/p>\n 2. My little brother looks older than he<\/em>.<\/p>\n 3. I\u2019d rather give it to you than to Bill or them<\/em>. (them <\/em>is the object of to<\/em>)<\/p>\n 4. You must trust him more than we<\/em>, because we\u2019re not at all sure about him. (than we<\/em> do<\/em>)<\/p>\n 5. He\u2019s not honest with either of us. He\u2019d lie to you as sure as me<\/em>. (as sure as he\u2019d lie to me<\/em>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This is part five in a loose series detailing the difficulty of mastering pronouns. Even simple sentences can include snares that distract us from distinguishing between subjects and objects. Two weeks ago, we showed that pronouns linked by any form of the verb to be wrongly become objects in everyday English, which prefers It\u2019s me […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-effective-writing","category-pronouns"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1084"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1084\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}