The English language has many complexities but still is one of the popular languages among everyone. English grammar comprises of many rules, theories, and concepts, etc., which must have to be followed. So, do Homophones are one of the parts of it. These are the two or many words that are spelled differently but are pronounced similarly. Some of the examples of homophones are accept-except, then-than, dye-die, addition-edition, haul-hall, heal-heel, hear-here, heard-herd, and many more.
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She is smaller than Riya.
Amanda has more money than Rahul has.
Raghav runs faster than Mehul.
Main Differences Between Then and Than
- The word Then is used in a sentence relative to time, while the word Than is used to make comparisons between the two things in a single sentence.
- The word Then is an adverb, while the word Than is conjunction.
- The word Then means afterward, next, or sometimes just in case, etc., whereas the word Than is used to indicate the second element of the comparison.
- The word Then has many synonyms, just like – afterward, subsequently, next, etc., whereas the word Than doesn’t have any synonym to replace it; thus, it is irreplaceable.
- An example for the word Then is – I poured a glass of water and then sat down to drink it while considering the example for the word Than it is as followed – I like chocolates more than cakes.
Conclusion
The words pronounced similar despite being spelled differently creates a misconception sometimes. The English language has many words which are pronounced similarly, but individually they have a different meaning of their own. Such are the above two words ‘then’ and ‘than.’ They have a difference of just a single letter ‘e’ and ‘a’ in them. But this single letter changes the whole meaning of the word.
Then is used when anything has happened (past tense) or happening (present tense) or will happen (future tense) relative to time, while on the other hand, Than is used when two or more entities are compared in a single sentence.
Then signifies something which will happen afterward or next, while Than signifies any second entity in a comparison. Then is used as an adverb or adjective (words that help in describing any verb or noun) in a sentence, while Then is used as a conjunction (joins two incomplete sentences to form one meaningful one) in a sentence.
References
- http://web.cs.iastate.edu/~sbasu/course/Sem-Web-Seminar/slides.pdf
- https://www.bmj.com/content/326/7382/219.full.pdf+html