_As_ replaced by _than_

[Arnold Zwicky]

On Oct 17, 2011, at 11:56 AM, Wilson Gray wrote:

>
> "Hey, nice shoes! They are the same color _than_ mine."
> From a post to Cracked.com, but I assume that the poster was serious.

probably so.  there are a great many occurrences of "same color than" (and, more generally, "the same N than"), including many from people who seem to be native speakers.  the usage is especially likely in contexts where "the same N" occurs in combination with "different than", comparative adjectives with "than", etc.  three examples out of a huge number:

   Border: The fill has the opposite color than the border (if the border has the foreground color, the fill has the background color)
  Solid: The fill has the same color than the border
http://icofx.ro/help/tools.html

  i´d like to know if it is possible to hide or change the color of the menu bar in twenty ten theme, but ONLY in a given page. so the rest of the pages remain the same, but this one would have the menu bar hidden or with the same color than the text, so it can not be seen.
http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/hide-or-change-color-menu-bar-twenty-ten-theme?replies=15

   An object is 30 cm in front of a converging lens of focal length 10 cm. The image is:
A) real and larger than the object
B) real and the same size than the object
C) real and smaller than the object
D) virtual and the same size than the object
E) virtual and smaller than the object
http://astro1.panet.utoledo.edu/~scheng/phys2140/quiz-samples/quiz34.pdf

i suspect that this is another case of the extension of "than" as the marker of the second element in constructions with the semantics of comparison (other examples discussed on this list a while back).

as a bonus, note "the opposite color than" above, with "than" used instead of "from" or "to" -- just as in "different than".

arnold

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