Quick Post on Grammar

A reader asks: When you say “He’s not as happy as ______” do you say “me” or “I?” 

Because the verb “to be” never takes an object, the correct answer is “I”; this is called a “predicate nominative.”

The problem with it is that it sounds stilted, and should be avoided if possible.  As an alternative you can say, “He’s not as happy as I am,” which is both correct and doesn’t make you sound like an English teacher from the 1950s.