Question by Wentfor10, new Forum member (June 18, 2013):Hi, sir.
I want to know if there is any difference between “like” and “as.”
For example:
“He speaks English
like an Englishman.”
“He speaks English
as an Englishman.”
Do these two sentences have the same point or not?
My reply to Wentfor10:The sentences “He speaks English
like an Englishman” and “He speaks English
as an Englishman” mean two different things altogether.
Depending on context, the conjunction “like” can mean “as if” or “in the same way that” or “in a way or manner that.” In the first sentence you presented, “He speaks English
like an Englishman,” “like” is used in the sense of “as if,” so the sentence is synonymous with “He speaks English
as if he is an Englishman.” Aside from this sense, “like” can also be used in the sense of “in the same way that,” as in the sentence “They detest each other
like children do bad-tasting medicine”; and also in the sense of “in the way or manner that,” as in the sentences “He negotiates deals
like an old entertainment impresario should” and “She testified unconvincingly in court
like you told me.”
In contrast, in the sentence “He speaks English
as an Englishman,” the conjunction “as” is used in the sense of “in the way or manner expected of”—meaning in this particular case that the speaker is, in fact, an Englishman and speaks English in the way or manner expected of an Englishman. This sense is entirely different from that of the sentence “He speaks English
like an Englishman,” which means that the speaker is, in fact, not an Englishman but can speak it as well as an Englishman does.
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Not being clear enough doesn’t necessarily mean being wrongQuestion by Miss Mae, Forum member (July 2, 2013):Working online, I had to explain to my boss why I could only do two articles during weekdays for him. “I have to take a nap every afternoon, Sir. But if necessary, you can assign 3-4 articles to me every Wednesdays and Thursdays. Only that I would ask that what I would do for Wednesdays are for Thursdays and that what I would do for Thursdays are for Fridays.”
“Huh? Can you make it simple? I will assign articles for you on a Wednesday but you can write them Thursday, the following day?” my boss replied.
I repeated what I had said in our country’s standard native language. What I asked was that if I could start working on Wednesdays what I had to submit on Thursdays, and on Thursdays what I had to submit on Fridays. Why did he think that I just want to know a day earlier what I would do a day after? What have I said wrongly?
My reply to Miss Mae:I agree with your boss that you could have made your request simpler. I must admit that I myself couldn’t figure out what you meant by saying “Only that I would ask that what I would do for Wednesdays are for Thursdays and that what I would do for Thursdays are for Fridays.” It just seems to me that although you didn’t say anything wrong, you didn’t make yourself clear enough to your boss. In short, what we have here is a failure to communicate.
