2021-02-11 ศัพท์ น่าสับสน ชุด T – than & then
2021-02-11
ศัพท์ น่าสับสน ชุด T – than & then
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ความหมาย อาจผันแปร ตาม ตำแหน่ง/หน้าที่ ในประโยค
Dictionary.com
ออกเสียง than = ‘THAN’ or ‘THEN’ unstressed ‘THUHN’
ออกเสียง then = ‘THEN’
Abused, Confused, & Misused Words by Mary Embree
Then = at the time:
He’ll be home then.;
= soon afterward:
Then we’ll have dinner.;
= next in order
Not to be confused with:
than = used after comparative words such as other:
She is prettier than her sister.
Dictionary.com
GRAMMAR NOTES FOR THAN
Whether than is to be followedby the objective or subjective case
of a pronoun is much discussed in usage guides.
When, as a conjunction, than introducesa subordinate clause,
the case of any pronouns following than
is determined by their function in that clause:
He is younger than I am.
I like her better than I like him.
When than is followed only by a pronoun or pronouns,
with no verb expressed, the usual advice for determining the case
is to form a clause mentally after than
to see whether the pronoun would be a subject or an object.
Thus, the sentences
He was more upset than I and She gave him more sympathy than I
are to be understood, respectively,
as He was more upset than I was and She gave him more sympathy than I gave him.
In the second sentence, the use of the objective case after than
(She gave him more sympathy than me) would produce a different meaning
(She gave him more sympathy than she gave me).
This method of determining the case of pronounsafter than
is generally employed in formal speech and writing.
Than occurs as a preposition in the old
and well-established construction thanwhom:
a musician than whom none is more expressive.
In informal, especially uneducated, speech and writing,
than is usually treated as a preposition
and followed by the objective case of the pronoun:
He is younger than me.
She plays better poker than him, but you play even better than her.
Dictionary.com
“Then” vs. “Than”: See If You Know The Difference Between Them
Then and than are among the 100
most frequently used words in the English language.
The fact that they’re so common means that they’re also commonly misused!
Do you say I will call you no later than 7 pm or then 7 pm?
Would you say the company needs a good accountant more than (or then) ever?
Some examples are trickier than others,
but you can learn to distinguish between these two terms.
Let’s take a look at the differences between them.
How do you use then?
Then and than are homophonesthat sound alike but have different meanings.
Then can function as an adjective, adverb, or noun.
Then indicates time or consequence, as in the following examples:
- Bagels were cheaper back then.
- I poured a glass of juice and then sat down to eat.
- First I’ll drink my orange juice, then eat my bagel.
You’ll also use then in if … then constructions.
- If I drink too much orange juice, then I won’t have room for a bagel.
- (Who wants a bagel now?)
How do you use than?
Than is a conjunction or prepositionused to indicate comparison:
he likes bagels more than I like bagels.
However, things get a little trickier when we consider
how to abbreviate this sentence.
Is it He likes bagels more than I, or He likes bagels more than me?
Traditionalists will argue that than is a conjunction,
and that the pronoun in the subordinate clause should be in the subjective case (I, he, she, we, they): he likes bagels more than I.
In this construction,
the reader is able to effectively and accuratelyfinish the sentence
in his or her mind, “more than I like bagels.”
However, in informal communication,
than is often treated as a preposition,
and the pronouns in the second element are in objective case (me, him, her, them): he likes bagels more than me.
Although you’ll often be able to
get your point across just fine with than me,
be aware that for attentive readers and listeners,
it can introduce ambiguity:
does he like bagels more than I like bagels?
Or does he like bagels more than he likes me?
(One thing is for certain: we’re getting tired of bagels!)
To avoid confusion, your best bet is to use than I
(or than he, than she, than we, than they)
in formal and professional settings,
and reserve than me (along with than her, than him, than us, than them)
for informal speech.
How can I remember the difference?
The best way to remember the difference between the two
is to associate
then with time and order
and than with any form of comparison.
It may also help to note that the word than
doesn’t really have a one-word substitute; it’s one of a kind.
Take a look at this example: Carlos is taller than his brother.
There is no other word that can fill the role of than.
However, in I drove to the bank and then went to the store
the word then can be substituted by subsequently,
to name one example.
Which word is correct in these examples?
- I will call you no later then/than 7 pm.
The answer is than.
Then refers to a specific pointin time.
Than is comparing the time of the phone call to 7 pm
and cannot be substituted with another word.
- The company needs a good accountant more then/than ever.
Again, this is a comparison, so the answer is than.
Here’s one more example for you:
if you paid attention, then you should have no problem handling these words in the future!
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language
then
Usage Note:
Sticklers for grammar sometimes assert that
then is not a coordinating conjunction, and that the sentence
She took a slice of pie, then left is thus incorrect;
it must be rewritten as She took a slice of pie and then left,
in which the
then acts as an adverb and the halves of the compound predicate
are linked by the coordinating conjunction and.
But this use of then as a coordinating conjunction is actually
both widespread and widely accepted; in our 2012 survey,
more than three quarters of the Usage Panel found the sentence
She took a slice of pie, then left completely acceptable.
Note, though, that the punctuation of this conjunctive
use of then differs from the usual punctuation for similar sentences using and.
No comma is needed when and links the parts of a compound predicate,
as in She took a slice of pie and left.
When then joins the halves of the predicate,
a comma is usually required;
only 8 percent of the Panel approved of
She took a slice of pie then left.
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language
Than
Usage Note:
Since the 1700s, grammarians have insisted that
than should be regarded as a conjunction in all its uses,
so that a sentence such as
Bill is taller than Tom should be construed
as an elliptical version of the sentence
Bill is taller than Tom is.
According to this view, the case of a pronoun following than is determined by whether the pronoun serves as
the subject or object of the verb that is "understood."
Thus, the standard rule requires
Pat is taller than I (not me) on the assumption that
this sentence is elliptical for Pat is taller than I am.
But the rule allows The news surprised Pat more than me,
because this sentence is taken as elliptical for
The news surprised Pat more than it surprised me.
But this analysis is somewhat contrived.
Than is quite commonly treated as a preposition
when followed by an isolated noun phrase,
and it often occurs with a pronoun in the objective case:
John is taller than me. In such sentences using the nominative case
(than I) can sound unnatural and even pretentious,
and objecting to the objective case of the pronoun may sound pedantic.
In comparisons using than and as,
the second element should be phrased to parallel the first,
and faulty parallelism can arise especially
when prepositional phrases are involved.
In the sentence
They felt that the condition of the new buildings
was not much better than the old ones,
the condition of the new buildings is compared with
the old buildings themselves, not with their condition.
The pronoun that must be added to balance the noun condition.
The noun can be repeated instead, but in either case the prepositional phrase
with of must follow: They felt that the condition of the new buildings
was not much better than that (or than the condition) of the old ones.
Similar parallelism should follow as:
I want the photos in our brochure to look as impressive as those in their brochure
(not I want the photos in our brochure to look as impressive as their brochure).
Than and as comparisons pose additional problems
when the noun following than or as is the subject or object of an implied clause.
Does the sentence
The employees are more suspicious of the arbitrator than the owner
mean that the employees distrust the arbitrator more than they distrust the owner
or that the employees distrust the arbitrator more than the owner does?
To clarify this, a verb must be added to the second element of the comparison:
The employees are more suspicious of the arbitrator than they are of the owner or
The employees are more suspicious of the arbitrator than the owner is.
See Usage Note at as1.
Collins English Dictionary
Usage:
In formal English, than is usually regarded as a conjunction
governing an unexpressed verb:
he does it far better than I (do).
The case of any pronoun therefore depends on whether
it is the subject or object of the unexpressed verb:
she likes him more than I (like him);
she likes him more than (she likes) me.
However in ordinary speech and writing than is usually treated
as a preposition and is followed by the object form of a pronoun:
my brother is younger than me
Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary
usage:
Whether than is to be followed by the objective or subjective
case of a pronoun is much discussed in usage guides.
When, as a conjunction, than introduces a subordinate clause,
the case of any pronouns following than is determined
by their function in that clause:
He is younger than I am. I like her better than I like him.
When than is followed only by a pronoun or pronouns,
with no verb expressed, the usual advice for determining
the case is to form a clause mentally after than to see
whether the pronoun would be a subject or an object.
Thus, the sentences He was more upset than I and
She gave him more sympathy than I are to be understood, respectively,
as He was more upset than I was and
She gave him more sympathy than I gave him.
This method is generally employed in formal speech and writing.
In informal speech and writing than is usu. treated like a
preposition and followed by the objective case of the pronoun:
He is younger than me. See also but1, different, me.
COLLINS ENGLISH DICTIONARY
USAGE FOR THAN
In formal English, than is usually regarded as a conjunction
governing an unexpressed verb:
he does it far better than I (do).
The case of any pronoun therefore
depends on whether it is the subject or object of the unexpressed verb:
she likes him more than I (like him);
she likes him more than (she likes) me .
However in ordinary speech and writing
than is usually treated as a preposition
and is followed by the object form of a pronoun:
my brother is younger than me
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Is than a conjunction or preposition?: Usage Guide
Preposition
After 200 years of innocent if occasional use,
the preposition than was called into question by 18th century grammarians.
Some 200 years of elaborate reasoning have led to
these present-day inconsistent conclusions:
than whom is standard but clumsy T. S. Eliot,
than whom nobody could have been more insularly English — Anthony Burgess ;
than me may be acceptable in speech
a man no mightier than thyself or me — William Shakespeare
why should a man be better than me because he's richer than me — William Faulkner, in a talk to students ;
than followed by a third-person objective pronoun (her, him, them)
is usually frowned upon.
Surveyed opinion tends to agree with these conclusions.
Our evidence shows that than is used as a conjunction more commonly than as a preposition, that than whom is chiefly limited to writing,
and that me is more common after the preposition than
the third-person objective pronouns.
In short, you can use than either as a conjunction or as a preposition.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Usage Notes
'Than': What Follows It and Why
'Better than I' or 'better than me'?
Some people think they're better than you
because they say "better than I" instead of "better than me."
They're not, of course.
They're just among the select group of grammar enthusiasts
who think that than can only be a conjunction.
You, on the hand, recognize that it can also be a preposition.
That's right: whether you say "better than me," "taller than I,"
or "more annoying than they"
has to do with grammatical categories
that we typically only consider when a teacher asks us to.
Of course, we in fact rely on these categories
for all of our language-based communication, whether we do so consciously or not.
Than has been a conjunction since before the 12th century.
A conjunction,if you will remember (no judgment here if you don't),
is a word that joins together other words or groups of words.
In particular, than has been and continues to be a subordinating conjunction.
That means that it introduces a subordinate clause,
which is a clause (aka, a group of words that includes both a subject and predicate) that does not form a simple sentence by itself.
As a subordinating conjunction, than joins a subordinate clause to a main clause, which is a clause that can be used as a simple sentence by itself.
Here is an example of the subordinating conjunction than doing what it does:
The cat is more determined than I am to sleep through the cacophony.
"The cat is more determined" is a main clause because it contains a subject
and a verb, and it can function as a standalone sentence;
"than I am to sleep through the cacophony" is a subordinate clause
because it contains a subject and a verb but can't function as a standalone sentence.
We can modify our example to something much simpler that still demonstrates than as a subordinating conjunction:
The cat is more determined than I am.
The main clause is unchanged,
but the subordinate clause is the much more succinct "than I am."
And we can modify it still further too:
The cat is more determined than I.
Again the main clause is unchanged, but the subordinate clause is shrunk to almost nothing: it's than I, with the verb am understood but not explicitly present.
Now here's where things get strange. All we have to do is change that I to me and—voilà—the word than has become a preposition:
The cat is more determined than me.
There is no longer an invisible but understood verb; there is instead a grammatically very simple comparison.
Any time you see than followed by me or any of the other pronouns
that would follow the verb see
(such as them, him, her—these are pronouns that function as the object of the verb),
it's functioning as a preposition.
The use has existed since at least the mid-16th century,
but two centuries into English speakers' prepositional than habit,
those 18th-century grammarians began to weigh in on the matter,
and the most influential of them—one Bishop Lowth
—said than was a conjunction and only a conjunction.
If than is only a conjunction,
then any pronoun that follows it must be the kind of pronoun
that typically starts sentences (and clauses) off
—that is, it must be functioning as the subject in the clause it introduces:
I, he, she, they.
And this is in fact what's been prescribed by those who would tell you to use your language better:
"taller than I," "slower than she," "older than he,"
"more annoying than they" are, we're told, superior to "taller than me,"
"slower than her," "older than him," "more annoying than them."
But there's another weird twist: the same grammarians who would have than only be followed by pronouns like I, he, she, and they also asserted that the pronoun whom—and not who—should follow than. "But whom is on the other team!!" you say. To which we say, "Right??"
Whom is used (albeit rarely) as the object of the verb,
as in "I wasn't sure whom to ask."
Like the other object-of-the-verb pronouns,
it's also used as the object of a preposition,
and that's where it's most often encountered these days:
"I wasn't sure for whom the gift was intended."
Someone clarifying for our poor would-be gift-giver would answer with an object pronoun—"It's for them," not "It's for they."
These days whom is so stuffy sounding as to be close to archaic, but to those 18th century grammarians it was one of the go-to pronouns. And good old Bishop Lowth believed that whom and not who should follow than. His explanation—which was that who has reference only to its antecedent and not to an understood verb or preposition—doesn't have much substance. We suspect that the real reason he wanted "than whom" is because John Milton, literary sensation who lived in the preceding century, used it in Paradise Lost. Lowth quotes the text:
Which when Beelzebub perceived, than whom,
Satan except, none higher sat, with grave
Aspect he rose, and in his rising seem'd
A pillar of state...
Another 18th century grammarian was, we can only assume, muttering to himself. William Ward identified than as both conjunction and preposition in his text a mere three years after Lowth's assertion about it being only a conjunction. And Mr. Ward is right: than is both a conjunction and a preposition, and its prepositional pedigree is unimpeachable: it was employed as such by the likes of Shakespeare, Swift, Johnson, and Boswell—and Milton with his "than whom." Competent writers of more recent centuries have used it as a preposition too.
What this means for you, our persevering reader, is that you can use than as either also. Go now, with our blessing. And of any who may criticize your use of than we wish only this: may you prove yourself better at justifying your pronoun use than them. Or, than they because both are in fact totally fine.
One last tip: if you want to follow the rule set up by an 18th century stickler because his opinions about than have been repeated for centuries without real justification, imagine a verb following the pronoun you want to put after than. It's not "more annoying than them (are)"; it's "more annoying than they (are)." You're welcome.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Usage Notes
When To Use Then and Than
People get tripped up on them all the time. Here’s how to keep them straight.
What to Know
Than and then are different words.
Than is used in comparisons as a conjunction,
as in "she is younger than I am,"
and as a preposition, "he is taller than me."
Then indicates time.
It is used as an adverb, "I lived in Idaho then,"
noun, "we'll have to wait until then," and
adjective, "the then governor."
There's nothing more embarrassing then correcting someone's language only to realize that your correction contains its own error. Like maybe the one in our first sentence. Did you see it? That harmless little four-letter word then. It should have been than.
People get tripped up on then and than all the time—and why not? They look and sound so similar, and both words function as linguistic workhorses—then is most often an adverb, while than is usually a conjunction—which means that we mostly use them to connect more obviously significant nouns, verbs, and adjectives.
The way to keep the pair straight is to focus on this basic difference: than is used when you're talking about comparisons; then is used when you're talking about something relating to time.
Than is the word to choose in phrases like smaller than, smoother than,
and further than. And it's the word that follows other, rather, less, and more.
Then—the option to choose when time is involved
—fits in the phrases just then and back then,
and after words like since and until.
It's also in the phrases and then some, every now and then, and even then.
In a handful of cases, though,
than is used to say that something happens immediately after something else
—that is, it's used when you're talking about something relating to time.
So in "No sooner had I explained the rule than an exception came to mind,"
it's than not then that's required.
And also in hardly had I explained it than and scarcely had I explained it than. (Sorry…)
So, when did this pair get so confusing?
Turns out they've always been that way.
Linguistically speaking, they're identical twins.
In Middle English, they were the same word; both spellings were used for all the various meanings.
It's been a few hundred years, however, since English has treated them as distinct, which means we have to too. We could go back to Middle English, but we think that would be harder then—um, that is, harder than—mastering these.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Than & then
Question:
Is this room hotter than or then a sauna?
Answer:
than
How to remember it:
Use then only when you're talking about sequences and time,
e.g., "First we'll go here, then we'll go there."
When you're comparing things, as in the example above, use than.
(If it helps, consider that than, like compare, has an "a.")
Collins COBUILD English Usage
Than
1. 'than' used with comparatives
Than is mainly used after comparative adjectives and adverbs.
I am happier than I have ever been.
They had to work harder than expected.
If you use a personal pronoun on its own after than,
it must be an object pronoun such as me or him.
My brother is younger than me.
Lamin was shorter than her.
However, if the pronoun is the subject of a clause,
you use a subject pronoun.
They knew my past much better than she did.
He's taller than I am.
2. 'than ever'
You can also use ever or ever before after than.
For example, if you say that something is 'bigger than ever'
or 'bigger than ever before',
you are emphasizing that it has never been as big as it is now,
although it has always been big.
Bill worked harder than ever.
He was now managing a bigger team than ever before.
Be Careful!
Don't use 'than' when you are making comparisons using not as or not so.
Don't say, for example, 'He is not as tall than his sister'.
You say 'He is not as tall as his sister'.
See as ... as
3. 'more than'
You use more than to say that the number of people
or things in a group is greater than a particular number.
We live in a city of more than a million people.
There are more than two hundred and fifty species of shark.
See more
You can also use more than in front of some adjectives
as a way of emphasizing them.
For example, instead of saying 'If you can come, I shall be very pleased',
you can say 'If you can come, I shall be more than pleased'.
This is a fairly formal use.
I am more than satisfied with my achievements in Australia.
You would be more than welcome.
4. 'rather than'
You use rather than when you want to compare something
that is the case with something that is not.
The company's offices are in London rather than in Nottingham.
She was angry rather than afraid.
See rather
Common Errors In English Usage Dictionary
Than & then
“Than” is the word you want when doing comparisons.
But if you are talking about time, choose “then“:
“First you separate the eggs; then you beat the whites.”
Alexis is smarter than I, not “then I."
Dictionary of Problem Words and Expressions
Than & then
These words are often confused in writing
and sometimes in pronunciation.
Than is a conjunction in clausesof comparison:
“He worked better today than he did yesterday.”
Then is an adverb of time:
“We then went to a restaurant.”
Think of than only as a conjunction;
it will then be easy to remember that
a following pronoun should have the same case as its antecedent.
Say “Everyone knows more about the situation then he.”
Say “The supervisors counted on no one more thanhim.”
“Someone then remarked:
“It is better to remain silent and have some people think me stupid than to say something and remove all possible doubt.”
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