21 October 2016

Then or Than?

I have always had trouble knowing when to use the words 'then' or 'than'.  Sometimes it is easy to figure out, but other times I struggle.  Well, today I came across a sentence where the person used 'then' and I was pretty sure it should have been 'than', but wasn't positive.  Rhymes like the following have always helped me like:

- 30 days has September, April June and November, all the rest have 31 excepting February, which has 28 days clear, 29 days each leap year
 
- 'i' before 'e'  except after 'c' (but there are exceptions)

- or what a school teacher I worked with taught me about when to use 'I' or 'me' in a sentence.  If you can change the sentence around and use 'we' then you would use 'I' in the sentence, if you can change the sentence around and use 'us' then you would use 'me' in the sentence.  For example: "We went to the store."  Because you used 'we' it would be 'Robert and 'I' went to the store'.  OR "Darlene walked to school with us."  Because you used 'us' it would be Darlene walked to school with Robert and 'me'.
 
Well, thanks to Google Search, I have found a little trick about using the words 'then' and 'than' that I thought was worth sharing to help remember when to use these two words.  I hope you find it helpful.  It worked for me!!
 
"A good trick to keep track of these words is that then is usually used to indicate time. Both then and time have a letter “E” in them. Than is used to make comparisons. Both than and comparison have a letter “A” in them.


Then vs. Than: What's the Difference? - Writing Explained

writingexplained.org/then-vs-than-difference"