Grammatical Mistake in [I]The Price of Principles[/I]

In Alphinaud's last statement in the quest The Price of Principles, he says:

"Your concern is most generous, but no─I have left them in the hands of men better suited to the task than I."

It should read "...in the hands of men better...than me." or "...in the hands of men better...than I am."

Using the personal pronoun, after "than" in anything other than a clause, is incorrect. My preference, because it is the most common usage of the two, would be the former one, in the alternatives listed above.

This is grammatically correct, because the verb "am" is understood to be there. "Than me" would be incorrect, regardless of the fact that it's the common way of saying it.

The common (but incorrect) usage trend that substitutes the syntactically correct "me" for the inappropriate "I" (in cases in which the English grammar unequivocally calls for the former) might be--as said--common, but it's just a common mistake.

I have heard deeply educated individuals claim that they avoid all usage of "me," because they feel it is impolite; this amounts to linguistic superstition. The words "I" and "me" are both correct in different circumstances. One is a subject pronoun and the other an object pronoun. It's a simple case of different morphological cases in the English language: the nominative versus the oblique.

Frequency or infrequency of usage is not what makes it correct or incorrect. Would you say in this specific case "...men better suited to the task than she?" If it sounds wrong, it is because it breaks a fundamental syntactic commandment. The obvious sentences in that case would be:

1) "...men better suited to the task than she is"
and
2) "...men better suited to the task than her."

The problem resides with the particle "than." Said word has an ambiguous syntactical role... It functions both as a conjunction, and as preposition. But not simultaneously. If you use it as a conjunction, and you decide it is there to link two sentences, then the subject pronoun (I) must follow, yes! But, you also need a verb (first example, above.) The conjunction "than" would indeed not be followed by the object pronoun (me), but it shouldn't be followed by a truncated sentence either.

However you can also argue (correctly, I should add) that "than" functions as a preposition, in which case the only possible correct usage would prescribe an object pronoun (like in the second example).

To play devil's advocate here, since this is spoken dialog, he is not required to be grammatically correct. I think frequency of use, correct or incorrect, should be taken into account for spoken dialog. That said, I'm not going to pitch my lot into which one of you is grammatically correct, because I have no idea.

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Originally Posted by Raldo

To play devil's advocate here, since this is spoken dialog, he is not required to be grammatically correct. I think frequency of use, correct or incorrect, should be taken into account for spoken dialog. That said, I'm not going to pitch my lot into which one of you is grammatically correct, because I have no idea.

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First of all, are you the Raldo I know? If so, very nice to see you! :)

As to the topic of the thread, it pains me a bit, but I must disagree with you.

It will be a sad day when spoken dialog is not expected to be grammatically correct. Street language is frequently incorrect, yes, but not because it is not reuquired to be so.

In this instance, though, we are really dealing with written dialog. And for the text in a video game, pretty much like that in a novel, a play, a movie, or any work of fiction, character determines speech.

Alphinaud, of all people, has never expressed himself in grammatically incorrect language. He does not even lapse into accepted colloquialism (which by the way the sentence in question is not). His grammar is, every time, coruscatingly correct, very much in concordance with his highly formal persona.

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Originally Posted by Rutelor

First of all, are you the Raldo I know? If so, very nice to see you! :)

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I believe so, as your name is familiar to me as well! Hello hello~

I'm afraid I don't have anything else useful to add :(
Curse the lack of private messages on this forum

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Originally Posted by Rutelor

Would you say in this specific case "...men better suited to the task than she?"

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Yes, I would, because that's the pronoun that belongs there.

I don't know why you're so opposed to the idea of an implied verb.

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Originally Posted by Viridiana

Yes, I would, because that's the pronoun that belongs there.

I don't know why you're so opposed to the idea of an implied verb.

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You're right, I'm opposed to the idea of a verbless clause that's just a subject, but that's another point, altogether. What I refuse to do, that is pertinent here, is count "than" as a conjunction, instead of a preposition. This is inconsistent with the functioning of the word, and its historical usage in English.

However, and because there is a strong contingent that believes what I oppose, I will concede on the fact that the following pronoun can be in the nominative, if it's part of a clause. I do not, however, accept that a loose nominative (or subject) pronoun can be used as a verb-less clause. I could grant you "She is more conservative than I liberal," (how's that for an implied verb?), or (for a different meaning) "She is more conservative than I am." But I will not take a disembodied subject pronoun. There is a glorious literary tradition of "than" used as a preposition, followed by a host of great writers throughout history, from all over the English-speaking universe.

William Safire, as astute a language theoretician as he is a misguided political commentator (another implied verb... See what I did there?) wrote, in his then weekly column "About Language," in the New York Times:

"The hard-line Conjunctionists have been fighting this battle a long time. Give them credit: They had to go up against the poet Milton's treatment of 'than' as a preposition--'than whom' in Paradise Lost--and against Shakespeare's 'a man no mightier than thyself or me' in Julius Caesar." --- William Safire "Than Me?", New York Times, Apr 1995

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Originally Posted by Rutelor

What I refuse to do, that is pertinent here, is count "than" as a conjunction, instead of a preposition. This is inconsistent with the functioning of the word, and its historical usage in English.

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I'd argue that it's been well used as both throughout history, honestly. At least, I'm not aware of anything indicating that its use as a conjunction is a modern fabrication. If there is evidence of a recent attempt to shift its usage wholesale into previously uncharted territory, please do let me know.

That said, this usage, with implied verb and all, is attested since at least the early 1600s, so it's not like you can say this is a recent deterioration of the language.