Why case is important

rogersgeorge on March 6th, 2016

Here’s a comic I read regularly (link to the original: http://maximumble.thebookofbiff.com/2013/08/13/681-play/). However, the comment underneath is what I’m interested in.

Here’s the comment:

When my first child was a baby we would get him educational toys. This one will be good for dexterity. This one will help learn counting. This one sings the alphabet. Now he’s getting interested in things I liked as a kid. He has a few Transformers that I think I have played with more than him.

Look at the last word, him. It’s in what we call the objective case. That means it has to go with the preposition with. Spelling the whole thing out, the sentence means “…I played with more than I played with him.” Maybe that’s what the commenter meant, but I suspect he meant that he played with the toy more than his son did; in other words “…more than he.” Or slightly better, “…more than he did.” You need the subjective case (other languages call it the nominative case) to be the subject of the verb played.

When you compare things with phrases such as more than, less than, and as much as, be sure you say what you’re really comparing.

Okay, I have to add a postscript. Look at the last sentence in the comic itself. it should be “You bought this for whom…”! harrumpf.

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