Sexing butterflies
Grammar Girl spends some time today on the distinction some writers and editors maintain between like and such as. She generally supports the distinction, but I must, with regret, dissent.*
In fact, she undermines her own argument by presenting sentences exemplifying the distinction and then adding two in which it is impossible to determine which sense is intended. Or see how the meaning is altered.
Perhaps you have ever so much more time than I do in editing and can enjoy the leisure of maintaining gossamer distinctions. Or of sexing butterflies. For my part, I consider like and such as to be interchangeable, and I leave them as I find them.
*Quoting Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage in a previous post, I challenged readers to mark the distinction in a set of sentences. Predictably, they could not agree.
Comments
I like (meaning "have a preference for") using both interchangeably to avoid situations when I might use one or the other twice in a paragraph.
Posted by: Kevin | October 1, 2010 2:56 PM
Shouldn't the art of editing allow for things like/such asc ommon sense and the way people speak? I seriously doubt there is much sexing of butterflies going on in newsrooms nowadays. When it comes to this, nor should there be.
Posted by: Mike Jarboe | October 1, 2010 4:04 PM
The discordance caused by the sound of a valley girl using "such as" instead of "like" is all that came to mind upon reading this post.
Posted by: rusty | October 1, 2010 4:17 PM
As with this, sometimes sexing butterflies is downright simple (as with tiger swallowtails, for instance), sometimes calls for a sharp eye (monarchs), sometimes can't be done without a DNA sequencer (mourning cloaks or red admirals).
When it matters, I really doubt people err. When it doesn't, I really doubt it's an error.
Posted by: The Ridger | October 1, 2010 6:48 PM
I think the distinction must remain. Can you imagine today's teens saying, "But, such as, he was saying, such as, he *such as'd* you!
Posted by: jo | October 1, 2010 9:00 PM
Since I respect your opinion (and we often agree), I always take your criticism to heart.
Your position seems to be that not all style guides make a distinction between "like" and "such as," time is short when editing, and there are instances where it doesn't matter which one you use--so it makes sense to let this one slide.
My position is that some style guides and people make a distinction between "like" (similar to) and "such as" (inclusive), so it's worth using the most precise words.
With the sentences you say undermine my argument, I was actually trying to make the point that there are instances where it doesn't matter, but obviously, I failed to make the point clearly.
I view "like" and "such as" much the same way I view "further" and "farther": use the right one when there's a clear choice and use the one you like best when the sentence is ambiguous. We did start the article by saying "Either is acceptable to many grammarians and veteran writers," so I hope you won't accuse me of prescriptivism.
Finally, I found your "sexing butterflies" analogy amusing since I spent quite a few years in graduate school sexing fruit flies. Maybe I just have a higher tolerance for tedium than most people.
Posted by: Mignon Fogarty | October 3, 2010 10:59 PM