# EN: Mon frère est moins vieux que moi



## Lacuzon

Hi,

To mean _Mon frère est moins vieux que moi_,

Should I say : My brother 

is less old than I.
is less elder than. I
Or simply is younger than I?

I'm a little confused with less + comparative! Nevertheless I would know if less old ans less elder are correct.


----------



## lachamade

_*My brother is younger than me*_, est je pense bien plus correct que les autres propositions.

Attention cependant, * I =  je      Me = Moi  *
c'est donc bien  *me* qu'on emploie ici.


----------



## Lacuzon

Nevertheless I would like to know if _less old_ ans _less elder_ are correct.

My guess is that less + comparative is incorrect in English. Am I right?


----------



## herma jesty

"less elder than" is wrong, I don't think you can have less + comparitive adjective.

"less old than" is a bit strange, and you would definitely use "my brother is younger than me" in this context. However I think the phrase "less old than" could occasionally be used when comparing two things that are both very old eg. "This part of the castle is less old than the rest." It would tend to emphasise that the rest of the castle is _very old. _Of course, it would still be fine to say "This part of the castle is newer than the rest". 

I searched for "less old than" on google and found this amusing example: 

(Talking about men and women splitting up and finding new partners after they've had a child) "men shift to a much younger partner, women shift to a partner _less old than_ the first."  This implies that whilst the woman's new partner would be younger than her first partner, he would still be pretty old.

I hope some of that makes sense! If in doubt, use "younger than", it's much safer!


----------



## Lacuzon

Thanks a lot for those explanations. 

I didn't know why, "less old" seemed weird to me .


----------



## Rami_111

If you simply mean that your brother was born later than you, say "he is younger than me."

If you and your brother are both old men, but he is younger, you might say "he is less elderly than me."


----------



## Lacuzon

Elderly! That's for what I was looking !

Many thanks!


----------



## moustic

In general, people tend not to use "less" with short adjectives.
Expressions such as : less tall / less fat / less high ... would be avoided and replaced by opposites : "smaller / slimmer / lower ..." or  "not as tall / fat / high  as ..."
With long adjectives -> no problem :  less expensive / less intelligent / less obedient ...


----------



## Blechi

The reason why less older is weird is that it is kind of an oxymoron.
*-er means more*. So if you put *less* and *more* together you will have a weird (and wrong) result. 



Am I clear?


----------



## Chimel

Rami_111 said:


> If you simply mean that your brother was born later than you, say "he is younger than me."
> 
> If you and your brother are both old men, but he is younger, you might say "he is less elderly than me."


It's the same in French, actually. You would only say "moins vieux que" if both are old: a sentence like "mon frère est moins vieux que moi" if they are for instance 25 and 28 can only be ironic...


----------



## Lacuzon

Thank you all especially to moustic, I'll keep it in mind.


----------



## jann

lachamade said:


> _*My brother is younger than me*_, est je pense bien plus correct que les autres propositions.





lachamade said:


> Attention cependant, * I =  je      Me = Moi  *
> c'est donc bien  *me* qu'on emploie ici.


Sorry, no, but "me" is incorrect there. You cannot always draw a direct parallel between me and moi.  In Englihs, we need a subject pronoun here.

My brother is younger than I am. --> My brother is younger than I.

That said, the (erroneous) use of the object pronoun would be extremely common in this sentence... so common, indeed, that it hardly sounds wrong.


----------



## corcovado

lachamade said:


> _*My brother is younger than me*_, est je pense bien plus correct que les autres propositions.
> 
> Attention cependant, * I =  je      Me = Moi  *
> c'est donc bien  *me* qu'on emploie ici.



Not in this case though.  With the verb to be, it's the equivalent of a nominative.  "He's younger than I" is therefore correct even though the much more common usage is "he's younger than me".  

This distinction is important in a sentence such as this one: "I love you more than him".  In this case, the speaker loves one person more than the other.  On the other hand, "I love you more than he" means that the speaker loves more the third party does, an important distinction.


----------



## Pierre Simon

Hullo Lacuzon

Of your three translations of _'Mon frère est moins vieux que moi',_ the one which I would recommend is 'My brother is younger than I', which is by far the most idiomatic. If, however, you want to use a 'negative' construction in the English translation then, rather than using 'less' (which sounds rather clumsy here), I would suggest that you use 'not as... as'.

_'My brother is *not as* old *as* I.'_


----------



## Lacuzon

Thanks Pierre Simon.


----------



## Enquiring Mind

We could argue about this till the cows come home.  I'm afraid I'd have to disagree that "younger than I" is _"by far the most idiomatic"_. 

It's largely a case of how *formal* you want to sound.  I would say most educated people in Britain speaking conversationally would say "younger than me", and no less a person than Lord Byron wrote this phrase in 1804. http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Writing/t.html
And look at this http://ukscblog.com/an-exclusive-interview-with-lady-hale (section 9) from Supreme Court Justice Baroness Hale (quite well educated, I would have thought!)

Corcovado also makes a valid point with the distinction "I love you more than him/I love you more than he".  Even so, in the latter case, many people would say "I love you more than he does".

The preference may also be affected by regional (AmE/BrE) usage, and certainly by the age of the speaker.   

Just to put the cat among the pigeons, we are increasingly hearing in Britain "younger than *myself*" which certainly jars with me (not *myself*!). But who knows, maybe that'll become the norm in the next generation.


----------



## Zahikiel

corcovado said:


> This distinction is important in a sentence such as this one: "I love you more than him". In this case, the speaker loves one person more than the other. On the other hand, "I love you more than he" means that the speaker loves more the third party does, an important distinction.


 

Thanks a lot for this explain !!


----------



## The Prof

_My brother isn't as old as I am_. 

I am another person who would use "_me_" at the end of these sentences, so my alternative version of this sentence would be "_my brother isn't as old as me_".  
To my BE ear, "I" sounds _so_ out-dated/formal as to be wrong!!!

I have just found this, which might be of interest:

_*She ran quicker than me.†* | She ran the quickest._
† Many educated English speakers prefer to use the *nominative plus a verb* rather than the *accusative* in such comparative sentences, especially in formal situations. They say, for example, _My sister is taller than I am._ or _She ran more quickly than I did._
*The alternative, omitting the verb as in the following examples, is considered to be even more formal and is avoided by most British English speakers:*_ My sister is taller than I_. or _She ran more quickly than I_.
http://esl.fis.edu/grammar/rules/comp.htm


----------



## Pierre Simon

Enquiring Mind said:


> I'm afraid I'd have to disagree that "younger than I" is _"by far the most idiomatic"_.


 
Hullo Enquiring Mind,

If you have another look at my post (#14), what I actually said was that "_Of [Lacuzon's] three translations_ [...] 'My brother is younger than I' is by far the most idiomatic. I don't want to put words into your mouth, but I'd be very surprised if you disagreed with that !!


----------



## Enquiring Mind

Ooops!  Yes, sorry Pierre Simon - I got caught up with the "I/me" thing  . I would agree that of L's three translations, the third IS the most idiomatic.


----------



## Keith Bradford

On this matter of I/me, I can't agree with Jann's statement that: _"me" is incorrect there... In English, we need a subject pronoun here._
_My brother is younger than I am. --> My brother is younger than I_.

This is a very old-fashioned grammatical dogma; most modern writers would conclude that "_than_" acts as a preposition and prepositions take the accusative.  _My brother is shouting at me._ _My brother is sitting on me._ _My brother is younger than me._

The over-frequent and over-precious use of "I" instead of "me" is one of the curses of half-educated English speakers.  I'm thinking here of cases like: "He came to meet my wife and *I*."  Jann's recommendation of the old grammar rule will only encourage them


----------



## corcovado

I hate to beat a dead horse but I think it's important to make a distinction between correct grammar and common usage.  Keith is right that "younger than I" sounds precious which is why many people add "younger than I *am*".  Still, it may be precious but it is correct which is not the case of "he came to meet my wife and I" which is precious and 100% wrong.

The flaw in  Keith's examples is that, while "me" is the object of shouting and of sitting, it is not the object of "is" since "to be" is an intransitive verb.  Since declension in English is irrelevant (as opposed to German), it's more of a question of subject/object, exactly as it is for "who" and "whom".    In the last example, "meet my wife and I", both my wife and I are OBJECTS: the use of "I" is therefore terribly wrong and embarrassingly precious.


----------



## The Prof

To quote from Chambers Guide to Grammar and Usage:

_John is taller than I. (John is taller than I am)_ ... (etc)

_In informal English, such forms sound pedantic and over-precise, and it is normal to use the objective forms in all cases:_
_She is as good as me._
_John is taller than me._
_*Many people would accept the use of objective forms of pronouns after than and as in formal English also nowadays:* He seems taller than me. He runs faster than me._


In England, I think that we could safely replace the words "many people ..." with "the vast majority of people". 
Even "grammatically correct" language is only correct if it is used appropriately. Here in England (I sense that the same is not yet true in the US), it would probably be fair to say that this renders those sentences ending in "I", "he" etc incorrect some 99% of the time (unless you add the verb after them)!!!

But that's just my personal opinion.


----------



## Keith Bradford

The Prof said:


> ...In England, I think that we could safely replace the words "many people ..." with "the vast majority of people".
> Even "grammatically correct" language is only correct if it is used appropriately. Here in England (I sense that the same is not yet true in the US), it would probably be fair to say that this renders those sentences ending in "I", "he" etc incorrect some 99% of the time (unless you add the verb after them)!!!
> 
> But that's just my personal opinion.


 
...which you share with the 99% of English people!

Unless you have an Academy (which Britain doesn't), "correct" grammar is decided by the majority of educated writers.

I don't buy the argument that "to be" isn't a transitive verb. It has a subject, it has an object, therefore it's a transitive verb. This is English, not Latin (which is where the old grammar rule came from). You would have to be insufferably precious to knock on a door and say, in reply to the question "Who is it?" - "It's I!" or "It's we!"


----------



## Chimel

Keith Bradford said:


> I don't buy the argument that "to be" isn't a transitive verb. It has a subject, it has an object, therefore it's a transitive verb. This is English, not Latin (which is where the old grammar rule came from).


I would rather say than transitiveness is neither English, nor Latin or what so ever, but a general linguistical concept.

So I fully agree with your point that in modern English it's ".. than me" or "It's me", no problem about that. But taking this as an argument to infer that "to be" is a transitive verb is a bridge too far, to me.

That English speakers nowadays take the freedom to say "... than me" instead of "... than I" is their own business. It's a development we certainly must take into account. But do they therefore change the very concept of transitiveness, which, I think, is common to all (?) languages?

But perhaps we should open a new thread on this?


----------



## Keith Bradford

The point, Chimel, is that some grammarians have tried to argue that the verb "_to be_" is a special case - it is neither transitive nor intransitive because it doesn't have an object, it has a "complement". This works in Latin (where "_esse_" is followed by a nominative) but not in modern English.


----------

