Grammar Sounds Good Written by Ear

I feel it is time again to answer some of the many criticisms from readers about my alleged errors in grammar. Naturally, I choose to answer only those that I can offer authoritative arguments against.

Harriett Sprague takes me to task for this sentence (speaking of faraway places): “I know they won’t look any different than they do in the movies and pictures I’ve seen. . . .”

She circles the word than and comments: “ From , Jack, from .”

The notion that from , not than , should follow different has many advocates, but the consensus of modern grammarians is that than is proper when from would have to be followed by an awkward phrase.

(I might have used simply than , and dropped they do , to avoid the more awkward from the way they looked .)

Bergen and Cornelia Evans are eloquent on the point in their Dictionary of Modern American Usage, noting that different than is found in Addison, Steele, Defoe, Richardson, Goldsmith, Coleridge, De Quincey, Carlyle and Thackery, among others, and that John Maynard Keynes, “another master of clear and beautiful prose,” wrote, “How different things appear in Washington than in London.” (His alternative to than would have been to write from the way they appear .

The Evans conclude that different from is established usage and may be used in any construction; “But no one has any grounds for condemning others who would rather say different than , since this construction is used by some of the most sensitive writers of English and is in keeping with the fundamental structure of the language.”

In “American Usage and Style: The Consensus,” Roy H. Copperud reports that different than is accepted as standard by his panel. The Harper Dictionary of Contemporary Usage concludes that several leading grammarians agree that “the use of different than is becoming more popular among careful writers when the object of the preposition is a clause, as in “Please inform us if your address is different than it was in the past.”

T. G. Stafford of Ojai deplores my use of the objective me in the clause “the daylong plunk of tennis balls struck by those more energetic than me.”

“Since you seem to put yourself forward from time to time as a grammarian,” he says, “I felt that this occasional error should be brought to your attention. The correct pronoun, of course, should be I , as in ‘He is shorter (or taller, thinner, fatter, smarter) than I (am short, tall, thin, fat, smart),’ the latter part of the clause being understood rather than stated.”

First, I have never put myself forward as a grammarian. I write by ear, and usually in the vernacular. Though I have 18 feet of bookshelves devoted to the English language, in all its maddening perversity, I am merely a student of the language; I am constantly guided by reference to those works, and often misled into error by my ignorance.

Second, the Evanses say: “If one says it is me , one would also say is she taller than me ? But if one says it is I , he should also say is she taller than I ? The objective form is generally preferred. “

A point of diction is raised by Carl G. McIntire, a speech consultant. He says I have misued the word bemused in the sense of amused , when it means “thoughtful--to muse.” I have never used bemuse to mean amuse . (Why would I?) I use the word bemused ironically, and perhaps McIntire is misled by the fact that I am often bemused by things that others find merely amusing.

McIntire also complains about the general use of insignia as a singular noun, and insignias as a plural. In fact, he says, the singular is insigne and the plural insignia .

Copperud notes that “both major dictionaries, as well as American Heritage, recognize insignia as the singular and insignias as the plural.” He adds: “This may be regarded as the consensus.” The Evanses, by the way, note that “in the U.S. Army insignia is used officially as a singular and is given a regular English plural insignias .”

Finally, memorandums is standard as the plural of memorandum.