Saturday, 27 April 2013

then or than

I've just read yet another example of someone writing 'then' instead of 'than'. It's in an article in news.com.au about a soon-to-be published book of dog photos. The article quotes the photographer, Carli Davidson:
"I shot [photographed] over 100 dogs, but some chose not to shake, so I scheduled a lot more then I needed."
Presumably this was a spoken quote, so whoever wrote it down decided on the spelling. I wonder if Ms Davidson said 'then', or whether she actually said 'than'. 

As I've posted previously, I believe that in the next few years the word 'then' will replace the word 'than' in this context.

2 comments:

Mary said...

I've noticed this and just thought it was a typo - by someone who relies a bit on spell checker. I don't like it and hope you are wrong about it taking over.

parlance said...

Mary, I think you are wrong. I think people are using the newer form of the word, and historically it may not be surprising, because in the past the two words had similar usage.