Than

[James A. Landau]

In a message dated > Thu, 11 Nov 2004 20:06:43 -0500,
> From:    "Douglas G. Wilson" <douglas at NB.NET> prescriptivizes or perhaps
> prosciptivizes:
>
> >Does anyone find this sentence grammatical?
> >
> >1) She's the one than whom I am better.
>
> I guess I would call it grammatical although I wouldn't particularly
> recommend it.
>
> [But then I'm one than whose most persons' grammar is better.]

In 10th grade English we were given the following sentence to diagarm:
"Artists than whom the world has never seen better, men endowed with the
spirit's best gift, found their natural method of expression in the simplicity and
clarity which are the gift of the unclouded reason."  (from Edith Hamilton
_The Greek Way_)

As I recall, the correct solution was to consider "than...better" to be a
prepositional phrase modifying "Artists", with "than" as the preposition and
"whom the world has never seen better" as a noun clause functioning as the object
of the preposition.  The noun clause has a transitive verb "has seen" with
"whom" as the direct object and "better" as an adjective modifying "whom".

This explains why it is "than whom..." instead of "than who..." because
"whom" is a direct object and therefore the accusative form of who/whom should be
used.

By this analysis Douglas WIlson should have said "I'm one than WHOM most
persons have better grammar".  Not only is "whose" an adjective, or adjectival
preposition, which lacks an object, but he is implying a comparison between
"grammar" (an impersonal noun) and "whose" (which refers to a person, or sometimes
an animal.  Also "person's" should have been "persons'".  If we get
prescriptivist, we should go whole hog.

I miss diagramming sentences.  It made for clear explanations of a lot of
complicated grammatical situations.  Specifically, for me diagramming made the
entire who-whom business clear.  Granted it is a prescriptivist tool, but it was
a nice tool.

Diagramming, unfortunately in my opinion, has gone out of fashion.  My kids
were never taught it.  Their middle school English teacher agrees with me that
it is a loss, but he can't change fashion all by himself.

    - Jim Landau