Grammar errors?

Question

I'm reading an English translation of a Latin text by a native speaker. I don't know if it's only my impression or there really are some mistakes in the following sentences:

1) "Since you are a great friend as well as a few years younger than me...".

2) "He will tell me that my vision is sharper than that of the fish who can no more be seen by us, although they are now no doubt right under our eyes, than our presence can be detected by them.

3) "We don't even know our own bodies or the locations or capacities of their various parts. That's why the doctors whose business it was to know them opened up bodies so their parts could be seen".

Cheers,

Sextus

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

I'd say "that" or "which" instead of "who" with a nonhuman antecedent. But the other two are fine.

Sextus · Answer

Shouldn't the first one be "than I (am)"?

Anonymous · Answer

"than me" sounds much more normal to me than "than I".

http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Writing/t.html

Than, as used in comparatives, has traditionally been considered a conjunction; as such, if you're comparing subjects, the pronouns after than should take the "subjective case." In other words, "He's taller than I," not "He's taller than me"; "She's smarter than he," not "She's smarter than him." If, on the other hand, you're comparing direct or indirect objects, the pronouns should be objective: "I've never worked with a more difficult client than him."

There are some advantages to this traditional state of affairs. If you observe this distinction, you can be more precise in some comparisons. Consider these two sentences:

He has more friends than I. (His total number of friends is higher than my total number of friends.)
He has more friends than me. (I'm not his only friend; he has others.)
The problem, though, is that in all but the most formal contexts, "than I" sounds stuffy, even unidiomatic. Most people, in most contexts, treat than as a preposition, and put all following pronouns in the objective case, whether the things being compared are subjects or objects. "He's taller than me" sounds more natural to most native English speakers.

This isn't a recent development: people have been treating than as a preposition for centuries. Consider the following from big-name English and American writers:

Matthew Prior, Better Answer: "For thou art a girl as much brighter than her,/ As he was a poet sublimer than me."
Samuel Richardson's Clarissa, 1.10.58, "I am fitter for this world than you, you for the next than me."
Lord Byron's letter of 2 November 1804, "Lord Delawarr is considerably younger than me."
Robert Southey, Well of St. Keyne, 51: "She had been wiser than me,/ For she took a bottle to Church."
William Faulkner's Reivers, 4.82: "Let Lucius get out . . . He's younger than me and stouter too for his size."

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