# Question regarding proper usage of "he" and "him" **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 31, 2015, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-regarding-proper-usage-of-he-and-him/729535 "2015-08-31T20:02:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![davidmich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e56c9b/32.png) [@davidmich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidmich)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2015, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-regarding-proper-usage-of-he-and-him/729535/1 "2015-08-31T20:02:45Z")
Hi, I have a question regarding the use of “he” and “him” as a direct object. Are the following sentences correct? Would both be grammatically correct? The first one sounds a little but is it wrong? I look forward to your feedback. davidmich “The school has had few such gifted students as he”. “The school has had few gifted students such as him” ---
**Author:** ![barbitu8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/839c29/32.png) [@barbitu8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/barbitu8)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2015, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-regarding-proper-usage-of-he-and-him/729535/2 "2015-08-31T20:20:49Z")
If it is a direct object, the objective case is necessary. A better constructive sentence would be: “The school has had few gifted students like him.” ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2015, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-regarding-proper-usage-of-he-and-him/729535/3 "2015-08-31T20:35:42Z")
The first sentence is elliptical. It finishes with a subordinate clause that omits the verb. Its full rendering is: “_The school has had few such gifted students as he is_”. ---
**Author:** ![barbitu8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/839c29/32.png) [@barbitu8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/barbitu8)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2015, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-regarding-proper-usage-of-he-and-him/729535/4 "2015-08-31T20:47:46Z")
I thought of that, and that may be correct. It is the problem with the Winston commercial: " Winston tastes good like a cigarette should" or “Winston tastes good as a cigarette should.” The latter is correct because it is a simile and not a metaphor. (Winston is a cigarette.) So, I guess by the same reasoning you are correct, as he is a student. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_T](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Gary\_T](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_T)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2015, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-regarding-proper-usage-of-he-and-him/729535/5 "2015-08-31T20:59:28Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > The first sentence is elliptical. It finishes with a subordinate clause that omits the verb. Its full rendering is: > > “_The school has had few such gifted students as he is_”. Correct. The phrasing (word order) here seems a bit awkward. I would normally expect something like “He’s remarkable – the school has had few such gifted students” or “The school has had few students as gifted as he.” The latter makes it a bit easier to see the complete construction “The school has had few students as gifted as _he is gifted_,” which normally leaves out the _is gifted_ as being understood and thus redundant. ---
**Author:** ![OldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/3bc359/32.png) [@OldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2015, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-regarding-proper-usage-of-he-and-him/729535/6 "2015-08-31T21:26:10Z")
> [@barbitu8](#): > > I thought of that, and that may be correct. It is the problem with the Winston commercial: " Winston tastes good like a cigarette should" or “Winston tastes good as a cigarette should.” The latter is correct because it is a simile and not a metaphor. (Winston is a cigarette.) So, I guess by the same reasoning you are correct, as he is a student. It is neither a simile nor a metaphor. It is a direct statement. A simile is “a figure of speech involving the comparison of one thing with another thing of a different kind”. A metaphor is “a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable.” So they both are comparisons to things they are not literally like. It’s difficult for me to imagine either not having a noun in them – a noun describing the dissimilar thing. Here as you point out, Winston is a cigarette. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2015, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-regarding-proper-usage-of-he-and-him/729535/7 "2015-09-01T12:19:08Z")
You will never get any agreement on such questions. I am happy to treat “as” as a preposition in the first sentence and use “him”, but if you want to call it an ellipsis and use “he”, go right ahead. The second just sounds dreadful, but that doesn’t mean it is ungrammatical. The kind of sentence that really grates on me is something like: “It is time for John and I to leave”. It doesn’t matter whether you treat “I” as the object of the preposition or the subject of the infinitive, it has to be “me”. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2015, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-regarding-proper-usage-of-he-and-him/729535/8 "2015-09-01T20:42:13Z")
FWIW, googling “one such as I” returns 21 million results, while “one such as me” returns 98,000. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2015, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-regarding-proper-usage-of-he-and-him/729535/9 "2015-09-01T21:10:21Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > The kind of sentence that really grates on me is something like: “It is time for John and I to leave”. It doesn’t matter whether you treat “I” as the object of the preposition or the subject of the infinitive, it has to be “me”. Infinitives do not have subjects. If John is not there, the sentence becomes “_It is time for me to leave_” (or _For me, it is time to leave_), not “_It is time for I to leave_.” ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2015, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-regarding-proper-usage-of-he-and-him/729535/10 "2015-09-02T16:47:27Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > You will never get any agreement on such questions. I am happy to treat “as” as a preposition in the first sentence and use “him”, but if you want to call it an ellipsis and use “he”, go right ahead. The second just sounds dreadful, but that doesn’t mean it is ungrammatical. See, to my ear, “as he” is the one that sounds dreadful. I’ve grown up with people saying “You’re not as good as me!” and even “That’s him!” Putting a subject pronoun at the end of a sentence just sounds wrong to me. I know it isn’t, but it grates. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2015, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-regarding-proper-usage-of-he-and-him/729535/11 "2015-09-02T17:00:13Z")
Once upon a time the nominative would have been considered the proper usage, whether by agreement with the subject of the verb, or because a verb is assumed to have been elided, and you will find plenty of examples recorded until well into the 20th century. But usage has made the accusative more or less the norm. I’d have recast the sentence simply as “The school has had few students so gifted”, if only to avoid nitpickers like me. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2015, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-regarding-proper-usage-of-he-and-him/729535/12 "2015-09-02T17:06:09Z")
As far as I am concerned, unless there is lack of clarity or great aural dissonance, it is plain wrong to correct uttered grammar, or, really, even to object to it. People talk the way they talk and usually make a fair effort to be understood. If you are hard-pressed to parse and comprehend what a person says, you have the option of asking for clarification. Written language is where the rules of grammar need to be applied more strictly, because the writer may not be available to explain what the ever loving fuck that is supposed to mean. I know I often speak right on the edge of unintelligible, mashing words together, sometimes relying on cadence and intonation to support my spoken slop (though I do speak with textbook clarity when I need to), but my writing is almost always fairly precise, to the point of rigidly avoiding contraction’s. ---
**Author:** ![davidmich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e56c9b/32.png) [@davidmich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidmich)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2015, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-regarding-proper-usage-of-he-and-him/729535/13 "2015-09-03T17:52:21Z")
Thank you all. Very helpful. davidmich ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2015, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-regarding-proper-usage-of-he-and-him/729535/14 "2015-09-03T17:57:06Z")
> [@barbitu8](#): > > I thought of that, and that may be correct. It is the problem with the Winston commercial: " Winston tastes good like a cigarette should" or “Winston tastes good as a cigarette should.” The latter is correct because it is a simile and not a metaphor. (Winston is a cigarette.) So, I guess by the same reasoning you are correct, as he is a student. “Whaddaya want, good grammar or good taste?” ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_T](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Gary\_T](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_T)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2015, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-regarding-proper-usage-of-he-and-him/729535/15 "2015-09-03T18:57:19Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > …my writing is almost always fairly precise, to the point of rigidly avoiding contraction’s. But not avoiding apostrophes? 🙂