SC doubt: No one but him could have told them that the thief

[Guest]

No one but him could have told them that the thief was I.

A) him could have told them that the thief was I
B) he could have told them that the thief was I
C) he could have told them that the thief was me
D) him could have told them that the thief was me
E) he could have told them the thief was me

OA is A.

My answer is C, because "he" is used for subjective case pronoun and "me" is for objective case.

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

source of the problem: Barron software.

thanks

[JonathanSchneider]

Interesting question. I agree with your analysis.

I did a bit of research on this, and I'd have to say I agree it should be "he." Google the following: ["no one but him" grammar] for a list of interesting results. Or check this page for some notes: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/but

My take is that the word "but" functions as a conjunction (like "and") and so the pronoun "he" should be in the subjective case, as you claim.

As for "me" vs. "I", the term "was" here does NOT indicate that we need an object. Instead, we have a correlation between two things: "the thief" and "I." (Note the title of the grammar book: "Woe is I")

I've seen this problem discussed elsewhere online, generally poorly. Not sure this would fly as a real GMAT problem.