We continue our tour of After Deadline’s favorite grammar gaffes. (In case you missed it, we already covered who vs. whom and agreement problems.) This week: the many misuses of “like.”
As a starting point, here’s the explanation from our sadly neglected stylebook entry:
like. The word plays many grammatical roles. The one that raises a usage issue is its sense as a preposition meaning similar to. In that guise it can introduce only a noun or a pronoun: He deals cards like a riverboat gambler. If in doubt about the fitness of a construction with like, mentally test a substitute preposition (with, for example): He deals cards with a riverboat gambler. If the resulting sentence is coherent, like is properly used.
But when like is used to introduce a full clause — consisting of subject and verb — it stops being a preposition and becomes a conjunction. Traditional usage, preferred by The Times, does not accept that construction: He is competitive, like his father was. Make it as his father was, or simply like his father. If the as construction (although correct) sounds stiff or awkward, try the way instead: He is competitive, the way his father was.
In other cases, if like fails the preposition test, as if may be needed: She pedaled as if [not like] her life depended on it.
When like is used correctly as a preposition, it faces another test. The items linked by like must be parallel, and therefore comparable. Do not write Like Houston, August in New York is humid. That sentence compares August to Houston, not what its author meant. Make it Like Houston, New York is humid in August.
And here are a few of our most recent slips:
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This month, in the midst of tense labor negotiations with city teachers and a standoff with a school bus drivers’ union, Mr. Cardozo reported to the courthouse at 111 Centre Street in Manhattan for jury service, just like so many other New Yorkers do. And just like so many others do, he waited.
Avoid this use of “like” as a conjunction introducing a full clause. Easy fixes in this case: make it “like so many other New Yorkers,” without the verb; or use the conjunction “as” instead of “like.”
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Or, if someone begins exercising but then stops, does the brain revert to its former state, much like unused muscles slacken?
Again, use “as” or perhaps “the way” in place of “like.”
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[Caption] In the Sierra Nevada, Lake Tahoe sits on the California-Nevada border. A bistate compact made in 1969, and updated in 1987, clamped down on runaway development, with the result that much of the infrastructure looks like it did in the early ’70s, when Elvis Presley was a regular.
Ditto. Make it “the way it did …”
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Yet, like always, Armstrong could not help fighting. …
A different problem. In careful usage, the preposition “like” should be followed by a noun or pronoun — not an adverb, as here. Simply make it “as always.”
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[Caption] When people and cars share streets, like on Ninth Avenue, in Manhattan, a honk can be essential.
Ditto. Make it “as on Ninth Avenue …” or rephrase.
In a Word
This week’s grab bag of grammar, style and other missteps, compiled with help from colleagues and readers.
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Mr. Thompson, a Democrat and a member of the centrist Blue Dog Coalition, supports banning the kind of assault weapons used in the Connecticut shootings. … On Thursday, gun rights advocates here rejected any attempts to restrict access to high-powered guns.
In the latest debate over gun laws, even the terms used to describe firearms are sometimes in dispute, as we have reported. Whenever possible, be specific. A broad, ill-defined term like “high-powered guns” is too vague to be of much use.
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His comments, recounting a laundry list of past Soviet violations, including the 1979 invasion in Afghanistan and the 1981 imposition of martial law in Poland, angered Soviet delegates.
The cliché doesn’t add anything; just say “list” or perhaps “long list.”
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While losing the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections, the flaws of this mentality have become apparent.
A dangler; the flaws were not “losing the popular vote.” Rephrase.
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JERUSALEM — Israel’s departing defense minister, Ehud Barak, said that the Pentagon had prepared sophisticated blueprints for a surgical operation to set back Iran’s nuclear program should the United States decide to attack — a statement that was a possible indication that Israel might have shelved any plans for a unilateral strike, at least for now.
This lead of this news article is missing a time element. Said when?
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The court rejected the Justice Department’s argument in brief but scathing language.
“An interpretation of ‘the recess’ that permits the president to decide when the Senate is in recess would demolish the checks and balances inherent in the advice-and-consent requirement, giving the president free rein to appoint his desired nominees at any time he pleases, whether that time be a weekend, lunch, or even when the Senate is in session and he is merely displeased with its inaction,” wrote Judge David B. Sentelle. “This cannot be the law.”
The stylebook calls for naming all three judges on a panel in a story about a court ruling; this story named only the judge who wrote the opinion. (The online version rightly linked to the ruling, which identifies all three judges, but that doesn’t help the print reader.)
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A brand new conservative group calling itself Americans for a Strong Defense and financed by anonymous donors is running advertisements urging Democratic senators in five states to vote against Chuck Hagel, President Obama’s nominee to be secretary of defense, saying he would make the United States “a weaker country.”
“Brand-new” should be hyphenated, according to the stylebook and the dictionary.
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Any list of the leading novelists of the 19th century, writing in English, would almost surely include Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Mark Twain.
“Writing in English” is awkwardly detached from what it describes.
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[Caption] Boris Sandler, left, editor of the newspaper Forverts, with his associate editor, Itzik Gottesman, are preparing to unveil a revamped Yiddish Web site on Feb. 4.
The subject is singular and the verb should be, too. The prepositional phrase “with his associate editor …” does not make the subject plural.
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In a study published in October scientists asked heel-striking recreational runners to temporarily switch to forefoot striking, they found that greater forces began moving through the runners’ lower backs; the pounding had migrated from the runners’ legs to their lumbar spines, and the volunteers reported that this new running form was quite uncomfortable.
We needed a semicolon or (better) a period after “striking,” not merely a comma. Also, a comma after “October” would help.
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The share sale, which was begun on Monday, is the second time in less than a year that Goldman has reduced its holdings in the lender after acquiring its stake before the Chinese bank’s initial public offering in 2006.
A sale of shares is not a time, so this phrasing is awkward. Also, “second time in less than a year” is maddeningly imprecise.
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Instead of returning to a haven, it is far likelier that at least one family member if not more would feel compelled by duty to enforce Pashtun tribal law and kill her to regain the family’s standing in the community, women’s advocates say.
Another dangler; there is nothing for “returning” to go with.
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The divisive matter of whether ultra-Orthodox Jews and Arab citizens should go into the military or perform national service, punted by Mr. Netanyahu last summer, is also looming.
Considering our global audience, we should remember that American sports jargon is no slam-dunk for comprehension.
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Williams said the one miss [of a free throw for the Nets] would bother him more than the six he made.
Why would the six he made bother him at all? Rephrase.
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The family receives $1,442 monthly in disability for Rusty and Brianna, and their rent is partly subsidized.
“Their” seems to refer to Rusty and Brianna, presumably not what we meant. Rephrase.
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Fresh from persuading a $5 billion pension fund in Chicago to divest from companies that make firearms, the city’s mayor, Rahm Emanuel, on Thursday urged the chief executives of two major banks to stop financing companies “that profit from gun violence.”
In precise usage, the construction is “divest oneself of,” not “divest from.”
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But given how so many Romney supporters had fled town, observations about the brittle state of current statesmanship were as plentiful as the pigs in blankets, deviled eggs and corn beef canapés.
It’s “corned beef,” not “corn beef.”
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The byzantine politics, scale and bureaucracy of the Paris Opera is worlds away from Mr. Millepied’s professional experience.
“Are,” not “is.”
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[Caption] Bobby Leone, a Gerritsen Beach, Brooklyn, resident, worked on his home, damaged from Hurricane Sandy, with heat only from a couple small space heaters.
Make it “a couple of small space heaters.”