"As with"

[Arnold Zwicky]

On Aug 9, 2011, at 5:21 PM, Jon Lighter wrote:

>> ...so unless you're completely spooked by "like", there's no reason to
> avoid (2).
>
> I can't prove it, but such people may exist. I can remember several freshman
> themes (admittedly out of thousands) in which perfectly correct
> prepositional _like_ was replaced with awkward-sounding and uncalled-for
> _as_.
>
> That was twenty and more years ago, which only means that the practice,
> limited though it may be, has had plenty of time to spread.  My guess is
> that it is more likely to be spreading than retreating.
>
> I'm not saying that people who write "as with" are necessarily "spooked by
> 'like.'"  Merely that the phrase may gained ground through the agency of
> people who are.
>
> Assuming they exist.

i'm pretty sure they do exist.  but many of the examples with "as with"    can't be seen as avoidances of "like", and they come from people who are very unlikely to have been spooked by "like" or influenced by those who are; several LLoggers (Ben Zimmer and me, for example) seem to be fond of framing "as with".

arnold

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org