Korean Job Discussion Forums

[SMOE NSET]

I just had a long debate with my vice principal about what is grammatically correct.

Is it:
She is taller than I. (She said this was correct. I always thought it was "She is taller than I am.)
or
She is taller than me. (I said this was correct.)

I did some quick research and the results were inconclusive and it seems the scholars have been debating about this for a long time as well.

What do you think/use? What would be the grammatical rule for your reasoning as well?

[magnolialove]

Me.

In your explanations, you are right on both counts. The verb "to be" in 1PS takes "I," as in your first argument against her, and "than ___" takes an object, which in 1PS case is "me."

Gold star.

[jvalmer]

I had an english teacher way back in high school who said using 'I' in that situation sounded pretentious and discouraged its use. But warned us of some stick up the rear professors that might insist on using 'I'.

He also did mention that it has been debated for a long time and scholars do get into serious conflicts over such trivial matters of grammar that the vast majority of people hardly care about.

[Reise-ohne-Ende]

Prescriptively, "I", since the implication is, "She is taller than I am."

Descriptively, "me". Teach the students "me". That's the only thing anyone ever actually says outside of academic papers or adventure novels.

"It is I, Fernando!"

[FMPJ]

Depends on the need. Standardized tests all expect "I," but in common speech that would be pretty annoying.

[storysinger81]

This kind of thing bothers me. They want us to teach "I" using stick up the ass formality, but they use "get" informally all over those tests. A professor is much more likely to be annoyed by "She got scared by the dog" than "She is more scared than me" written in a formal, academic essay. Pick one style. You're either formal or informal. Not some bizarre mix of both.

[SMOE NSET]

Thank you all for your responses.

She is editing an English textbook that will be published and is always asking me for help. This one just bugged me a bit as she backed her reasoning up with "that is how it is written on Naver."

She said she wanted the book to be more geared towards grammar that would be on tests. So, I will tell her to just use "I" like we agreed on before I posted this. I have done the dialogs for the English tests here, but I do not remember seeing any "than me/I" questions. I teach my students the informal way so it might confuse them.

Has anyone else seen the standardized tests and know if they have these types of questions?

Regardless, thank you all again and keep on teaching "than me."

[crisdean]

I guess this argument all comes down to whether you consider 'than' to be a preposition (use the object noun me) or a conjuction (use the subject noun I)

for a little info on this, look here

[SMOE NSET]

That was the exact site I went to for my "quick research" I mentioned in my original post. From reading through that, we (read:she) concluded that "I" would be the best answer for the textbook.

Like another poster said though, the other part of the text was in an informal style so this will more than likely confuse the students.

I will just explain it to her and see if she listens. If not, I tried.

Thank you all again for your replies.

[FMPJ]

[FredDaSked]

[akfusion]

Wow, seriously? It's definitely "me".

I know this is not addressing the question directly, but here's another way of looking at it:

Correct: Jane and I played basketball.
Wrong: Jane and me played basketball.

The test to find out if this kind of sentence is correct is to ask the question, "Can you take out Jane and it still be grammatically correct?"

Let's find out.
Obviously correct: I played basketball.
Obviously wrong: Me played basketball.

[WadRUG'naDoo]

[lukas]

OP, this link is outside the fact that it's your job to answer Korean questions.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oI3DlIrvoHg

[FMPJ]