Kirk Mahoney . com

I heard a caller say this yesterday on “The Dave Ramsey Show” radio program.

Problem:
The pronoun “him” should not go after “more than” in this sentence.

Explanation:
This sentence is of the form “She makes more than X.”, where ‘X’ defines some amount of money (and optionally when).

The pronoun “him” is not a suitable substitution for ‘X’ because “him” does not define some amount of money.

Suitable substitutions for ‘X’ include:

• “$100,000″;
• “$50,000 annually”;
• “what he makes”.

I believe that the speaker’s use of “him” in place of “what he makes” is consistent with my “Devolution toward Simpler” linguistic hypothesis. It’s simpler to say one monosyllabic pronoun than to say three words.

Solution:
“She makes more than what he makes.”