# Then than than then (NT/OT)



## Semper Vaporo (Jan 2, 2008)

I just read about a dozen threads here and found every one of them contained a statement that confused the usage of the words "THEN" and "THAN"... What gives?  

I am not trying to be the "Grammar Police", I just find it troubling that this wrong word usage seems to be proliferating beyond all reason on many different websites and forums (not just MLS).

What is causing it? Is there some Spell Checker that is swapping the "E" and "A" in what people type and we are not noticing it before posting the missive? Or did one person several years ago confuse the two words and others saw what they wrote and are mimicking them, thinking the first person knew what they were doing?


"THEN" means two items sequential in time. "I would rather get my train out, THEN run it for a while."

"THAN" means an alternative between two items. "I would rather run a train THAN get my foot stomped on."


If you think about it, if I swap the use of the two words in those two examples, they would change the entire meaning of what I have written.

Swap the words in the first example, and it means that getting the train out is preferable to running it... It would mean I really don't want to run the train, but would rather just get it out; and then stop. (And that is just NOT true!  As a matter of fact, the exact opposite is true... I'd prefer to run them THAN spend the time and work to get them out!  )

Swap the words in the second example and it would mean that after I run the train I would want my foot stomped on. (I certainly hope that nobody would believe that to be true!  If you really need to stomp something... STOMP OUT VIOLENCE!  )


As an aid to remember which word to use, think of the "A" in "THAN" to mean "Alternative", to choose one thing over another. And maybe think of the "E" in "THEN" to mean one thing "Ends" another, both will be, but one starts and the other Ends.


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## Dwight Ennis (Jan 2, 2008)

Another common mistake is to and too...
TO is a direction - "Going TO the store"
TOO means "also" or "as well" - "I'll go TOO" (i.e. I'll go also)

(and obviously, TWO is numeric - "I have TWO of these")


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## SD90WLMT (Feb 16, 2010)

Spell check recognizes the words...both of them..as being..spelled correctly....

Spell check does not work for gramatical errors in English.....

Journalism today is all about getting your article up first..
Journalists can't spell worth a darn anymore...
And..they don't use spell check..

People have become lazy what with emails and now texting at hand...

And your correct ..I see both interchanged so much...here and else where...

Dirk


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## Garratt (Sep 15, 2012)

Another pair of words that I see misused far more often than not is then and than.
Then what would I know? I just love trains... They're better than TV.

Andrew


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## riderdan (Jan 2, 2014)

I think it's partly down to laziness. I know that I've come to rely on spell check to catch typos, enough that I don't always re-read what I've written when I'm posting to online forums. This means that if I mistype either then or than, it's not called out by the spell checker and if I'm not re-reading, it's going to wind up posted that way. And I'm a writer in my day job  Of course, when I'm publishing a book I'm more careful and it's either peer reviewed or checked by an editor, so they catch my flubs.

I suspect that eventually we'll wind up how things were before spelling was standardized in the early 1800s: as long as you can puzzle it out, it won't be "wrong"--though there's always the possibility that the advantages of standard spellings (speed of reading, improved comprehension, the ability of a computer to check it) may prevent that.


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## Dwight Ennis (Jan 2, 2008)

SD90WLMT said:


> And your correct ..I see both interchanged so much...here and else where...
> 
> Dirk


your = possessive as in "your car" or "your train"

you're = a contraction of "you are" as in "you're correct"

Sorry Dirk - the devil made me do it.


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## Amber (Jul 29, 2011)

Their, they're there...


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## Homo Habilis (Jul 29, 2011)

its and it's
run and ran
and on and on and on . . . . .


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## Garratt (Sep 15, 2012)

They're always pointing out their mistakes over there.

Andrew


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## SD90WLMT (Feb 16, 2010)

Dwight..You R so rite!!!

Thx!!

Dirk. ;-)


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## aceinspp (Jan 2, 2008)

Ok kids pay attention class is now starting. Later RJD


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## Bill C. (Jan 2, 2008)

Just recently CBS Sunday Morning had a piece about "superior" people who use I instead of me, except they get it all wrong.

Here's the link:

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/bill-flanagan-of-the-grammar-police-on-i-and-me/


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## toddalin (Jan 4, 2008)

Dwight Ennis said:


> your = possessive as in "your car" or "your train"
> 
> you're = a contraction of "you are" as in "you're correct"
> 
> Sorry Dirk - the devil made me do it.


 

Of couse there is always an exception to the rule.

For example:

Your bad!

You're bad!


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## chuck n (Jan 2, 2008)

There is know way we will always get it correct. I just no it.

I do wish posters would proof read their posts. No matter how many times I read a post of mine, before I hit "submit", I invariably find a mistake in the posted version. That is why I'm so familiar with the edit tab.

Chuck


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## vsmith (Jan 2, 2008)

Just be glad you don't live in China


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## Dave Meashey (Jan 2, 2008)

Oh Dear!

I'm a terrible transgressor. I grew up in Pennsylvania Dutch Country, where we "Throw the cow over the fence some hay." "Make the lights out." and when watching a freight train "Here comes the little red house, so the train is all."

Pray for me,
David Meashey


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## Semper Vaporo (Jan 2, 2008)

aceinspp said:


> Ok kids pay attention class is now starting. Later RJD


How much later is it now starting?


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## Semper Vaporo (Jan 2, 2008)

Bill C. said:


> Just recently CBS Sunday Morning had a piece about "superior" people who use I instead of me, except they get it all wrong.
> 
> Here's the link:
> 
> http://www.cbsnews.com/news/bill-flanagan-of-the-grammar-police-on-i-and-me/


Oh yeah? Well, if the Queen can say "We are not amused" and get away with it, then ME can too.


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## Dwight Ennis (Jan 2, 2008)

toddalin said:


> Of couse there is always an exception to the rule.
> 
> For example:
> 
> ...


Not really an exception Tod...

"Your bad" is usually used to say "your mistake."

"You're bad" uses the contraction for "you are" = "you are bad."


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## Amber (Jul 29, 2011)

When consoling a grammar nazi, just pat them on the back and say "there, their, they're"


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## John J (Dec 29, 2007)

The Problem is there aint enough Catholic School Nuns any more to beat the crap out of you when you use these words in the wrong context. 

Remember the Benefit of Texting. With the youth of today texting as much as they do , you don't have to listen to them speak... 

Speaking? That is a whole other thread. 

JJ


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## riderdan (Jan 2, 2014)

Eye want to sea if ewe no who one the spelling pries over spring brake. Wheel go aweigh wen wee no witch words their using (I herd its in the passed tents).

None of the above nonsense raises any spell check flags


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## Scottychaos (Jan 2, 2008)

One I see a lot, "advice" and "advise"

"Can you give me some advise on this?"
No, but I can give you some advice.

Scot


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## DKRickman (Mar 25, 2008)

I'll add another little peeve to the list. The misuse of an apostrophe in a plural amuses and annoys me. Or perhaps, in today's gooder English, that should be "[It] amuse's and annoy's me."

And don't even get me started on a furniture "suit." "Suite" is pronounced like "sweet," people!

There are so many little (or not so little) grammatical errors that one hears daily, it gets old trying to find and correct them. I have decided to let them go, and to make a mental note of the relatively few people who at least make an effort to use our language correctly. I feel that, if you want to be taken seriously by an educated person, you will make an effort to speak the language like an educated person. If you don't care, knok yerself out!


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## Semper Vaporo (Jan 2, 2008)

Honestly, I was not trying to be a Grammar Policeman... I was asking the question as to WHY it seems to be occurring more often than it was a couple of years ago.

A few years ago, another language problem cropped up in forums (and eventually newspapers and magazines and at least one book that I have!) where "you" is used instead of "your"... As in, "Do you run *you* trains at night?"

I even found that I was doing it! I began to pay close attention to that particular problem in my proofreading before I posted a missive. It really bothered me when I would find that I had done it. But I would fix it and then post the message and later find yet another of the same error in what I had proofread and thought I had fixed!

Now, understand, I wouldn't be so paranoid if everybody wasn't out to get me, but I began to wonder if some background program was making changes on purpose.

I started to save my missives to a file, then proofread/correct and save it again and then post it. Later I would compare all 3 versions to each other. I could prove that I had made corrections, but, although I would find more errors in the posted text, the posted text matched the last saved text, so it is not something that happens outside of my computer and at present I am pretty well convinced that if there is any "malware" involved, it is a biologic kind resident in my own brainstem, and not in my computer (or maybe my fingers are rebelling!).

Lately, I have seen fewer occurrences where someone 'forgot' the "r" so it seems to be less of a problem than it was 3 or 4 years ago. But I have to ask, "why?". Did enough people notice the error occurring and start making a concerted effort to not let it happen in their writings, or has something else happened?


As for whether someone would produce a malware program to do such a silly thing; someone did do something similar many, many years ago. There was an early "virus" back in DOS days that would toggle a random bit somewhere on a hard drive a few times per day. I think the virus was called "BitFlicker". The bit might be in an unused sector and thus cause no problem at all. Or it might change the letter "A" to the letter "C" in a text file and someone might wonder about the silly "Typo" in the document. Or it might change a bit in a program in some obscure subroutine that never gets used by the user of that computer and thus go unnoticed. Or it might be in the main part of the program and it suddenly doesn't work anymore. The changes were so subtle that it would appear to the user that the harddrive was going bad. But the fear was that if some Doctor's computer had that malware running on it, a patient's prescription might get altered in dosage, such that it could be life threatening.


Is this present spate of "Then"/"Than" confusion something you have noticed and are you making a concerted effort to avoid the error yourself? 

What about the other silly grammar and typographical errors? 
Do you proofread? 
Do you care? 
What errors do you find yourself fixing in your own writings?

And what ones bother you that others are making but you are either too kind to point out, or too intimidated to mention because you fear being labeled as the "Grammar Police"? (And which is it, "Kindness" or "Fear" that keeps you from speaking up?)


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## vsmith (Jan 2, 2008)

Amber said:


> When consoling a grammar nazi, just pat them on the back and say "there, their, they're"


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## toddalin (Jan 4, 2008)

Semper Vaporo said:


> What about the other silly grammar and typographical errors?
> Do you proofread?
> Do you care?
> What errors do you find yourself fixing in your own writings?
> ...


You can proof read until you are blue in _*teh*_ face and never see the error if you, or your fingers, have dyslexia or a world of other problems.


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## chuck n (Jan 2, 2008)

Semper:

It is very difficult to proof read your own prose.

As a geologist, I have had to write a number of scientific papers. Over the years I have discovered that when proof reading, my mind sees what I meant to write, not what I actually wrote. It is easier to see my goofs if I wait a while before proof reading. That is a luxury we don't have here.

Chuck


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## toddalin (Jan 4, 2008)

chuck n said:


> Semper:
> 
> It is very difficult to proof read your own prose.
> 
> ...


 
I know what you mean. I've written literally hundreds (maybe over 1,000) air quality and noise studies for CEQA and NEPA compliance (EIR's, EIS's, MND's, etc.), and _I know what I mean to type and read_ even if my fingers and eyes don't.


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## Semper Vaporo (Jan 2, 2008)

Make one pass in proofreading by reading backwards (right to left, bottom to top) and you will find many errors that you miss reading forward when you already know what you wrote. It will make you think about the grammar and usage trying to "put it right" in your mind.


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## BigRedOne (Dec 13, 2012)

We all need a secretary, obviously. Problem solved!


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## Semper Vaporo (Jan 2, 2008)

A secretary? A department I worked in had one of them once... the only thing she could type was the type of guy to date. The only thing she could file was her fingernails. Even though she was a dictator, she could not take dictation. You needed an appointment to make an appointment with her boss. Her greatest talent was trying to influence people with her looks, but she was not all that good at it, since she was working in that department when I got there and was still there when the department was dissolved.


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## Dwight Ennis (Jan 2, 2008)

I don't think talking about this in a separate thread started for that purpose constitutes being a "grammer nazi." Pointing out other people's grammatical errors in any and every thread constitutes being a "grammer nazi." None of us are doing that so far as I know.

I do proofread (that's a weird looking work right there... "proofread" or "proof-read" or "proof read." I had to look it up to be sure). I also check spelling (as with "proofread"). I still make occasional mistakes.


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## redbeard (Jan 2, 2008)

(that's a weird looking work right there... "proofread" or "proof-read" or "proof read." I had to look it up to be sure).

Oh I don't know....it kind of "works for me! hehe


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## Totalwrecker (Feb 26, 2009)

What's bugging me more is the laziness of texting ..
night = nite, might = mite, a bug?
just saw that recently, instead of assuming ignorance I put it back on being lazy...
John


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