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Than it was then?

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Okay, some who know me have seen me post my confusion over ‘than’ being replaced with ‘then’.

ie: “It was greater THAN I had expected” is often written as “It was greater THEN I had expected”

or as noticed in Google’s SketchUp tips today, “Looking around Google Earth is more fun then a winning spree of solitaire and it looks more productive to your boss too.”

There’s the use of THEN when THAN should be used again.

From what I recall, THEN is used as a pronoun for time, not as a comparitive remark.

Is this a new example of how English being trashed by those who have never been corrected or is it that so many people make the same mistake that it has now become acceptable English. A real pet peeve…not as bad as saying you COULD care less though (shivers up spine)…that is becoming more and more annoying.

So, what is it?
“Looking around Google Earth is more fun then a winning spree” or is it
“Looking around Google Earth is more fun than a winning spree”

Has than now become then?

Topic

“Has than now become then?”

In reply to Than it was then?

No.

Also, “effects” isn’t “affects”. The first one’s a noun, the other is a verb.

That’s my horror

In reply to “Has than now become then?”

I have always had issues with Effects vs Affects. That’s why I use an editor for copy. 🙂 But I agree it’s a mistake, like how many M’s and S’s to use in commission.

Could of…

In reply to That’s my horror

I could of used correct English and said ‘could have’ instead… 🙂

That’s my horror

In reply to “Has than now become then?”

I have always had issues with Effects vs Affects. That’s why I use an editor for copy. 🙂 But I agree it’s a mistake, like how many M’s and S’s to use in commission.

Experience teaches me

In reply to Than it was then?

The mix up is usually made by those who are not high school graduates. These are simple english that is taught in american high schools. “There” and “their” are the most common I see, but the two you point out are pretty common too. I could cite many more but as long as I get the jist of what’s being said, it doesn’t bother me. The broken english that is common to Indian and Arabic immigrants really makes it difficult to read and harder to understand when spoken. That does steam me, as most are supposed to be citizens and should be able to read and write the language.

Hey, I am not a high school grad

In reply to Experience teaches me

and I know the difference. Also I do not read too much except online and tech books.

Does this mean that I am smarter than most?
I think not, I must have picked this up in school at some point.

Maybe it is due to mixed language students, and others who do not have language skills.
My little bro for example, when in Afghanistan, he used to write every few weeks. We could barely make out what he was trying to write, and he was a high school grad….

I do not think that it really has much to do with if they are dropouts or not, but the quality of education and the will to learn proper English!

Bingo

In reply to Hey, I am not a high school grad

Well said. People learn English from hearing it, not from reading it and payign attention to the root, meaning or context of words.

That’s why people say (my buggest pet peeve again!) “I could care less”. This completely detracts from teh intent of the comment, it s so illogical that it makes me puke. Don’t people THINK about what they say or do they just hear it and parrot it?

From reading many posts here, I’d say parrot is the key, not because of grammar (everyone knows mine is far from perfect) in a forum, but there are so many here who simply parrot what has already been said, often missing the conext and removing validity from their comments.

Why?

In reply to Experience teaches me

Why do you expect today’s immigrants to read and write your version of the English language? Are “Americans” not just immigrants too?

Is it a need for conformity? A fear of disassociation or undetectable wrongdoing? Or is it just another illustration how instead of being mulitcultural (as some Americans feel they are), America is simply a melting pot of culture?

reminds me of a joke

In reply to Experience teaches me

“That does steam me, as most are supposed to be citizens and should be able to read and write the language.”

the question explaimed – “Why cain’t they learn to speak propper Amarican (written for accent)?”

the answer asked politely – “That doesn’t sound like Mohawk, Can’t you speak proper American?”

Poor language skills suck but when it’s a second language, there is room for acceptance along with improvement. It’s the people who grew up speaking and writting the local English dialect that have little excuse. That includes my own poor grammar and spelling after growing up speaking English.

English as a second language

In reply to reminds me of a joke

Hey, as long as you’re making the effort, that counts for a lot with me. Now if you want to become a citizen and expect to the test to be written in a language other then English, we may have a point of contention.

I don’t get it

In reply to English as a second language

You invade a country, kill and repress it’s people and then expect others that come to the country to speak your language?

I thought Americans acually considered themselves multicultural.

Multicultural countries, such as Canada and most of Europe, allow immigration without expecting conformity. Multiculturalism embraces the differences and encourages peopel to retain former customs, language and other cultural adpects of the people.

A melting pot, which most confuse with multiculturalsim, is when you allow people to enter your country on the basis that they assimilate a chosen religion, language and customs.

America is NOT multicultural, just possesive. You can live here if you become one of us.

I think Star Trek had a good exqample of becoming American, BORG.

Not necessarily so

In reply to Experience teaches me

The mix-up is invariably made by those who do paid not attention in English classes in school, because they believed they would never need to know how to express themselves intelligently.

I have seen word mix-ups like then/than, affect/effect, to/too, there/their, and many more in correspondence from generals and colonels and in major magazines like Time and Newsweek. I’ve even seen the NYT confuse its and it’s.

It’s the product of a culture that believes close is good enough. The same mindset contributed to the Challenger disaster, will contribute to the pending Middle East military debacle, and is contributing to the inability of Americans to follow traffic laws and the general decline in common courtesy in American society.

Edit: spull for mating

“It’s the product of a culture that believes close is good enough.”

In reply to Not necessarily so

Well put. I work at a Community College. I never cease to be amazed at how often I hear students say things like “As long as I get a C, I’ll be happy.” A C? So people are happy with mediocrity. Whatever happened to the desire to excel at something?

Excel?

In reply to “It’s the product of a culture that believes close is good enough.”

Isn’t that the spreadsheet program? :^0

I actually heard that question in a high school classroom! X-(

Litteracy levels keep decreasing…

In reply to Than it was then?

….and i blame somewhat the Internet for it.

I was chatting with a kid recently and he asked me how the word “carrot” was spelled (he wrote it “carott”) The kid was 14. I felt like saying; “why don’t you get off the Internet and open a book. You’ll thank me later”

How can a 14 year old kid not be able to write the word “carrot”?

I use to make the mistake mentioned in the original post (confusing then and than) until a nice gentleman pointed out my mistake and showed me the way to properly know the difference, right here on Techrepublic. I truly appreciated the gentleman’s gesture and I’ve been writing it correctly ever since (Note that English is not my native tongue). But I still have issues with “S” at the end of words like it’s and its.

I find it unfortunate that we don’t pay enough attention to proper grammar. But I distinctively remember not giving a rats a** about it when i was younger, so i cannot really blame them. I guess it’s all in the way you point out the mistake. Don’t fall on the person because he or she doesn’t get a simple rule of grammar. Be polite and offer an explanation. After that, if the person still makes the mistake, well, it’s totally their fault.

In general

In reply to Litteracy levels keep decreasing…

An “s” is added to the end of a noun to indicate a plural (one voice/many voices).

An apostrophe-s (‘s) is added to the end of a noun to indicate possession (The pencil box belongs to Steve/That is Steve’s pencil box).

Pronouns like its, theirs, ours, his and hers are already possessive and do not use an apostrophe.

“It’s” is a contraction of “it is”, just like “doesn’t” is a contraction of “does not”. They both use the apostrophe to indicate the missing letter in the contraction.

These are the basic rules, to which there are exceptions too many to list here. For what it’s worth, I use [i]The Elements of Style[/i] (Strunk and White) and [i]The Transitive Vampire[/i] (Gordon) as guidance when writing. Both offer much information on American English grammar, usage and punctuation.

—–

And speaking of punctuation…

Anne went out one winter day
upon the ice to frisk.
Her parents thought her quite insane
her little *

Sometimes it isn’t so much poor grammar as it is poor typing skills. :^0

In reply to Than it was then?

If anyone should be aware of that, I would say it’s you Oz. 😉

When I’m typing, sometimes my fingers seem to take on a life of their own and if I’m in a hurry, I might not take the time to run spell check or perhaps grammar check.

[b]Dawg[/b] ]:)

Well hey there, Dawg!

In reply to Sometimes it isn’t so much poor grammar as it is poor typing skills. :^0

Typos I can accept, of course. I have tried to pay a LITTLE more attention to typos but I don’t really care in forums, it’s not important unless it spells a different word, as in THEN vs THAN. E and A are not exactly side by side so the typo issue is not as common as using U or O instead of I, common typos.

My main issue is with ‘carriage returns’ (remember those? LOL)orphaned letter sare an issue and revresed letters are my most commomn typos.

Do you really think Google had a typo in their instructions or do you think some moron in southern California simply doesn’t understand the difference? I’d put money on the latter.

the problem is basically laziness, and the worst offenders

In reply to Than it was then?

are the media people using the wrong words in written and spoken stories.

As to which of the then / than is appropriate.

Then can be a passive past tense noun, as in he did it back then. Or it can be future tense active as in go to the chemist, then go to the fruit store. this is more a verb adverb type situation.

In a comparison situation it’s always than, like Fred is bigger than Harry. this is as action neutral situation set in the present tense, or the present tense of what’s being mentioned. Most often used for comparisons, like an either / or type situation; that’s the sentence will make reasonable sense if replaced with one of the words – either or.

Eg Fred is bigger or Harry – still carries the same basic intent. Go to the chemist or the fruit store doesn’t carry the same sense.

basically then is past tense or future tense, than is present tense.

Yeeeeeah

In reply to the problem is basically laziness, and the worst offenders

Although there are always exceptions, I see THEN as a common relation to time.
THAN would be relative or comparitive.

Every now and then and Went here then there as being time related.

Bigger than him and Holier than thou. as being comparitive.

TYPOS

In reply to Than it was then?

A lot of the hacker sites prey on those typos. They intentionally register web sites using common typos of popular web sites and use them to insert trojans and viruses into unsuspecting surfers. They even go so far as mimicing the look and few of the web site that users were looking for, just to fool them long enough to get those nasty bits into your machine.

It’s Inconceivable!

In reply to Than it was then?

– that I spelled that word right before I checked it in spell check! It’s a conspiracy I tell you!! :o)

Hey Oz – I bet you wouldn’t be so upset if they ended their sentences with an “eh?”.

The ‘EH ‘myth

In reply to It’s Inconceivable!

Not all Canadians say EH all the time, it’s a myth.

I have heard just as many British, American and other dialects of English that commonly use ‘EH’ to end a sentence as if lseeking approval or understanding.

One thing you don’t hear outside of the USA though is ‘know what I’m sayin’?” after every other sentence though or that shoe gazing, slack jawed, UuuuH-HUuuuu, reply that you get from too may people.

Yes, many Eastern Canadians have a stronger, typically Canadian, drawl but it’s pretty much isolated to the Atlantic provinces.

Most others across the country speak without much of an accent at all, especially when compared to some regions to the south.

Anyhow, the fact that foreigners get hung up on ‘eh ‘ is simply amusing to most Canadians, as they notice it coming more from other countries than in Canada.

Know what I’m sayin’?

Eh?

In reply to The ‘EH ‘myth

Hey Oz – how ya doin’? Good to see you around these parts again. I really thought “eh” (pronounced “A” right?)in Canada was the equivalent of “know what I’m sayin'” in the US.

When “eh” (pronounced just like its spelled) is used between people from the US, it is usually by someone (an old coot) that can’t hear what you said or when you think something was so-so.

Uh-Huh and Unh-Unh really mean yes and no in the US. Why bother with words when you can just make sounds, know what I mean (another variation of know what I’m sayin’). The younger generation has devised many shortcuts to improve communication.

Then there is sign language – like flipping the bird. One finger is worth a thousand words here – I’m not sure if you do this in Canada – but in certain parts of the US, flipping the bird can get you in a whole heap of trouble with those that don’t appreciate your gesture. I don’t think we can give the young’uns credit for this expression though.

How are we ever going to have a North American union if we can’t understand each other in the most basic of ways?

In New Jersey we have a perfect phrase that answers that very question – fuhgeddaboutit.

AV :^0

Well done

In reply to Eh?

I agree, though I do hear EH being used in teh US more and more these days, as simple confirmation of a statement, just as it is here. I as surprised to hear it so much in the UK last time I was back, almost moreso than in Canada but not the drawl our easterners put into it. You’ll notice more slang and drawl from Eastern Canada than the west.

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