Funny Pic Thread VII - No swearing. No sex. No complaining. (READ FIRST POST)

  • Thread starter Max Powers
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trailmix.jpg

Yet, when you put it all together, it just works :P


Jerome
you're disgusting season 1 GIF by BBC
 
I'll definitely go with the Swedes, Danes and Dutch speaking better English than us. The Portuguese I've met aren't that bad, either.
 
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** speaking better English than we **

Kidding!!! Kidding!!!! Technically and strictly speaking, this is correct (as in "... speaking better English than we do,") but in common everyday usage, either is acceptable. As long as everyone around you is just as much an ignorant slob. :lol:

Don't want to start a fight!
 
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I've met my fair share of ignorant slobs but I don't tend to use "we" as the object of a verb. It sounds a bit archaic to me. "Than we do" is fine.
 
It's not the object of the verb. It's two phrases, they speak better than we, and they're both subjects, and the verb after we is implied. Not actually saying the verb doesn't change the we to us.

(Says the guy who didn't want to start anything...)
 
I thought it was one phrase and that speaking was the verb. Who are they speaking better than? Us. Expecting us (we?) to refer to verbs which aren't in the sentence is a bit of a stretch to me. "Better than we" just sounds weird to me (not I). It may or may not be grammatically correct but I think it risks turning people off (just as this conversation is no doubt turning a lot of people off). This discussion agrees with me:
And so does this dictionary site which says it's about whether "than" can only be a conjunction or can also be a preposition: https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/than-what-follows-it-and-why

If they and I are all wrong though, it just proves the point of the cartoon about British English speakers like me not knowing our own language. But I don't think "us" is incorrect even if it's less correct to some people. It's just the way people speak.
 
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