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Forgive me if this is not the right sort of question to post here, but I was curious as to the derivation of the above sentence. (Apparently the correct choice is 'we').
Their class has more singers than we [have singers]
or
Their class has more singers than we [ do [have singers] ]
where [] denotes Ellipsis?
Since we do is equivalent to we have singers, there is no test by which it is possible to tell which of these is what is ellipsed.
(The correct choice became we when some grammarian decided a couple of hundred years ago that English grammar was supposed to be Latin grammar. The ordinary English has always been than us. The OED says " With a personal or relative pronoun in the objective case instead of the nominative (as if than were a preposition).This is app. the invariable construction in the case of than whom, which is universally accepted instead of than who. With the personal pronouns it is now considered incorrect.")
The comparison is with their class and not with them; therefore, the parallel for comparison is not ourselves but rather our class. The correct finish, then, is "ours": "Their class has more singers than ours."
