The Difference Between Nominative and Objective

English Doesn’t have case the way many other languages do. We don’t name dative case and accusative case, we just say “objective case.” We also don’t say “nominative case” (but that’s changing). I remember my teacher calling it the “subjective” case because the word was the subject of the sentence. Just the same, we do have some inflectional endings; perhaps the most notorius is the “m” in “who-whom.” Hence the comic:

The owl is correct—”who” is for subjects (and predicate nominatives), “whom” is for direct objects and objects of prepositions.

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Lots of languages use word endings (called inflections) to indicate things like possession, movement, and non-movement. English pretty much doesn’t, though we do use apostrophe-s to indicate possession. Some of the time. Here’s a good example of English not using an inflection to indicate movement or not.

In this case we just use a different word.

• “In” means no movement (called dative in other languages).
• “Into” means movement (called accusative in other languages).
• English just uses the two words.

So, did he jump in the pile of leaves or did he jump into the pile of leaves?

Two of the cases we use in English are nominative, used for subjects of sentences and clauses; and objective, (a combination of accusative and dative used in other languages). We use the objective case for direct and indirect objects. This comic is rather low-brow, but I approve of the title.

“Who” is nominative. It’s the subject of the sentence. “Whom” is objective; its the direct object.

In a lot of languages, when you put an adjective with a noun, the adjective has to agree with the noun. Feminine nouns get feminine endings on their adjectives (gender), plural nouns get plural adjectives (number), and so on. If you know other languages, you know what I mean by the “and so on,” such as the effect of case.

English (with a few exceptions, such as court martial, poet laureate, secretary general) puts the adjective right in front of its noun, and it doesn’t matter much what kind of noun. Here’s an example of getting it wrong:

The New York Times (and others) reported on Plimpton 322, a famous four-millennia-old Babylonian tablet featuring a table of Pythagorean triples.

You might argue that it’s a compound adjective (hyphenated correctly, by the way), but it should still be “millennium.” The whole thing is an adjective, so it shouldn’t show number. An example of correctness:

He drives a four-door car and a sixteen-wheel truck.

That incorrect usage, by the way, is from an interesting and well-written site called Math with Bad Drawings. Even if you’re not much on math, give it a look. The bad drawings are actually pretty good, even. Here’s one:

If you’re a native English speaker, you probably do this without thinking; this post is so you’re aware of what you’re doing already, and so you don’t stumble.

The conversation in this Mr. Lowe comic illustrates two mistakes. Let’s take them one at a time. Here’s the comic:

Some idioms for comparing things in English are”as good as” and “better than.”  That second one can be “less than” “more than” “colder than” and so on. Those compare two things. When you have more than two, it’s “best of” “least of” “most of” “coldest of” and so on. I don’t hear people get this wrong very often, mostly by people inexperienced in English, such as young kids.

Can you tell what the other mistake is? Lots of people get this wrong. The comparison hinges on what you’re comparing; you can compare subjects and you can compare objects. When it’s  an object, “them,” “me,” him,” or “her” is correct. When you compare subjects, you need to use “they,” “I,” “he,” or “she.” An illustration might help.

Correct: I could do a better job than they. (The second verb is assumed. The full sentence is “I could do a better job than they do.”

Incorrect: “I could do a better job than them.” Say the whole sentence: “I could do a better job than them do.”

Correct: I like you more than her. (Filling in the missing words: “I like you more than I like her.”)

Incorrect: I like you more than she. (Actually, this can be correct if you mean that I like you more than she likes you. But the meaning is different!)

Why is it so hard to get this correct? Because “than” feels a lot like a preposition, which takes objects, and the subjuct of a sentence is usually clear up at the beginning, where it doesn’t have much attraction.

My advice: put the missing words in the sentence.