I've got a week long workshop starting tomorrow, so I feel like a kid the night before school starts.
I got mowing and weeding done today, shopped for groceries, played with the neighbor's dog. I still have some reading to do to prep for the workshop (I'm a student, not the leader).
Still, it feels like the end of summer, come early. I'm a bit frustrated, because I feel like I've spent a lot of time this summer doing stuff for other folks rather than doing my own stuff. I have done a fair bit of my own stuff, of course.
The workshop should be good, and useful, and I'm happy about it, except that it feels like the end of summer.
To change the topic, slightly, I noticed recently that I get cranky when I think someone doing formal writing has used "like" where I think s/he should use "as." Then I thought a bit about how I would explain the difference, and it's tough. So I looked it up. And the "rule" is totally not what I would have thought, though I'm pretty sure I reliably use "like" and "as" according to it. How strange is that?
Without looking it up, can you explain the rule about when to use "like" and when to use "as"?
Like is a preposition, as I learned from Winston ads in the late 1960s. Need I know anything else, like what a preposition is?
ReplyDeleteBeing honorable and not looking it up, I would say that generally it's "like a [noun/pronoun]," "as a [noun/pronoun verbing]." So Madonna felt "like a virgin," but she would have described herself "making love as a virgin makes love." So we say "As I've told you a million times" and consider "Like I've told you a million times" to be informal, if not incorrect. And if I've told you a million times, I tell you that you are acting "like an idiot" or "as an idiot acts." :-) Off to look it up.
ReplyDeleteWhy, use it as your please--whenever you like!
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