>>>If it's Palin vs. Obama in 2012 just give her a cigarette and a blindfold. He is about a thousand times smarter than her.
>>
>>Since you are the arbiter of bad writing you know it should be "smarter than she".
>
>Smarter than her is correct - the alternative is smarter than she is!!!!!!!
I don't agree. I do understand that in usage it is common, but "He is smarter than" is then followed by a noun clause in the comparison where the subject cannot be in objective case, no? The "is" is therefore implied.
It is certainly the way I was taught in school ( and taught it in school ). Is there a reason to believe than her is correct ? Perhaps it is one of those things where there is some controversy among grammarians but if there is I'm unaware of it.
Charles Hankey
Though a good deal is too strange to be believed, nothing is too strange to have happened.
- Thomas Hardy
Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm-- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.
-- T. S. Eliot
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.
- Ben Franklin
Pardon him, Theodotus. He is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.
