| 词组 | like, as, as if |
| 释义 | like, as, as if 1. • We hope Sir Winston Churchill, impeccable, old-school grammarian that he is, hasn't chanced to hear American radio or television commercials recently. It would pain him dreadfully, we're sure, to listen to the obnoxious and ubiquitous couplet "Winston tastes good, like a cigarette should." That pesky "like" is a problem for us Americans to solve, we guess, and anyway Sir Winston has his own problems —New Yorker, 26 May 1956 That pesky like seems not to have bothered the impeccable, old-school grammarian as he dealt with his other problems: • We are overrun by them, like the Australians were by rabbits —Sir Winston Churchill (in Longman 1984) So what is the problem with this pesky like? Is it a solecism typical of the uneducated? Some commentators think so: • Like has long been widely misused by the illiterate; lately it has been taken up by the knowing and the well-informed, who find it catchy, or liberating, and who use it as though they were slumming —Strunk & White 1959, 1972, 1979 Let's take a look at the history of conjunctive like and see if Strunk & White's opinion is right. Conjunctive like was for some time thought to have originated in the 16th century, or perhaps earlier, as a shortening of an older compound conjunction like as. But newer information published in the Middle English Dictionary shows that like by itself was used as a conjunction as long ago as like as was—from the late 14th century. It first turned up around 1380 in an anonymous work named Cleanness where it is used to mean approximately "as if." Chaucer used it in about 1385 to introduce a full clause in The Complaint of Mars. Both "as" and "as if uses are attested in the 15th century—by James I of Scotland, Malory, Lydgate—and in the 16th—by Sir Thomas North, Lord Berners, Sir Thomas Elyot. In 1608 or 1609 Shakespeare'(or his collaborator) used it to introduce a full clause near the end of the first scene of Pericles: • ANTIOCHUS. AS thou wilt live, fly after; and, like an arrow shot From a well-experienc'd archer hits the mark His eye doth level at, so thou ne'er return Unless thou say Prince Pericles is dead. Shakespeare also used conjunctive like followed by a nominative pronoun: • And yet no man like he doth grieve my heart — Romeo and Juliet, 1595 So we can say this much about conjunctive like: in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries it was used in serious literature, but not often. Shakespeare's use may be typical: • he uses like as verb, noun, adjective, adverb, and preposition with considerable frequency, but conjunctive like seldom. Evidence from the 17th and 18th centuries is not plentiful either. And in these centuries it comes mostly from nonliterary works, including less formal sources such as letters and journals. This suggests that conjunctive like may be primarily a speech form only occasionally used in print. It might also suggest that the evidence has simply not been dug out yet. Otto Jespersen refers to examples produced by that indefatigable digger Fitzedward Hall in an 1892 article in The Nation; these include additional 16th-century evidence and citations from Dryden and others. In the 19th and 20th centuries conjunctive like becomes much more common; Jespersen 1909-49 (vol. 5) tells us that "examples abound" and lists them from Keats, Emily Brontë, Thackeray, George Eliot, Dickens, Kipling, Bennett, Gissing, Wells, Shaw, Maugham, and others. So we must conclude that Strunk & White's relegation of conjunctive like to misuse by the illiterate is uninformed. Where did the idea that like as a conjunction is an illiteracy come from? The question is not readily answered. Obviously somebody had to be the first to say that like could not be used as a conjunction, but we do not know who that somebody was. We do know that like became a subject of dispute both in England and in America during the 19th century. Jespersen cites an account by the English philologist Frederick Furnivall in his memoirs of an argument Furnivall had with Tennyson on the subject. Tennyson had corrected Prince Albert for using conjunctive like; he thought the use was recent, and incorrect. Furnivall pointed out that it was to be found in Shakespeare. Alford 1866 was an early commentator who also found conjunctive like "quite indefensible." The earliest mention of the subject we have found so far comes from a little grammar published in Boston around 1828: Joseph Hervey Hull's English Grammar, by Lectures. Hull includes the sentence "It feels like it has been burned" in a list of "incorrect phrases." He probably did not originate the dispute, but we have found no one earlier. Other 19th-century American commentators who opposed like for as are Bache 1869, Richard Grant White 1870, and Long 1888. Although 19th-century commentators were in substantial agreement on this matter, grammarians of the time largely ignored it, and dictionaries were no quicker to take it up. The conjunctive use of like was not controversial in the 18th century, and Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of 1755 had like as under the adverb entry; there was no preposition or conjunction. Webster 1828 and Worcester's Dictionary simply followed Johnson. The conjunction was unrecognized until the Century Dictionary entered it in 1889, with quotations from Shakespeare and Darwin and commentary from James Russell Lowell, who ascribed its use to Henry VIII and Charles I of England. Webster 1890 had no entry for a conjunction, but noted that one sense of the adverb was regarded by some grammarians as a preposition. Funk & Wagnalls 1890 entered the conjunctive use as sense 2 of the adverb, labeled it Colloq., and added a quotation from Colonel John S. Mosby of Civil War fame. Webster 1909 recognized the conjunctive use in a synonymy note, calling it a provincialism and contrary to good usage. The objection to conjunctive like, then, appears to be a 19th-century reaction to increased conjunctive use at that time, and the objectors were chiefly commentators on usage rather than grammarians or lexicographers. After World War I all three of these groups got in step to present a united front on the issue: it was incorrect to use like for as or as if; like was a preposition, not a conjunction. Webster's Second 1934 includes a thorough condemnation (Strunk & White's "illiterate" may have come from this source), which appears to be a digest of a number of heated opinions. It was inserted, we are embarrassed to say, in spite of copious evidence of standard use then in our files. It might be useful here to give some examples of conjunctive like in typical contexts. Most of these are 20th-century examples, with a few earlier ones thrown in as a reminder of the historical dimension of this usage. They typify the chief constructions in which we find conjunctive like—and some of them seem to have eluded the commentators. Since the "as if sense seems to be the earliest attested and the earliest condemned, we will start with it. It is mostly used to introduce a full clause: • ... the bustle and confusion of a railroad, where people are whirled along slam bang to eternal smash, like they were so many bales and boxes of dry-goods —William Tappan Thompson, "The Hoosier and the Salt Pile," 1848, in The Mirth of a Nation, ed. Walter Blair & Raven I. McDavid, Jr., 1983 • Seemed like I'd die if I couldn't scratch —Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn, 1884 • But we soon felt like we knew each other —Will Rogers, The Illiterate Digest, 1924 • When they worked she looked like she had moles burrowing under her hide —Jessamyn West, Atlantic, July 1944 • ... it sounded like something came for the dog through the brush —Conrad Richter, Atlantic, January 1946 • ... and it looked like we were a pretty good combination —Harry S. Truman, quoted in Merle Miller, Plain Speaking, 1973 • ... looking like it aimed to run right through the shed —William Faulkner, The Town, 1957 • His face looked like it had been slicked down the middle and not put together right —Flannery O'Connor, letter, 20 Mar. 1961 • ... middle-aged men who looked like they might be out for their one night of the year —Norman Mailer, Harper's, November 1968 • She felt like I was talking to her —William L. Shirer, The Nightmare Years, 1984 • ... the back wheels spinning, stones flying like they were shot from guns —Garrison Keillor, Lake Wobegon Days, 1985 • ... you wake like someone hit you on the head —T. S. Eliot, "Sweeney Agonistes," 1932 (in OED Supplement) • Her voice sounds like it could have levelled buildings and parted the waters —Robert Palmer, Rolling Stone, 12 Oct. 1972 • I remember that scene like it was yesterday —Tip O'Neill with William Novak, Man of the House, 1987 This sense of like seems especially common after verbs like feel, look, and sound. Like "as if is also used in a few common short idiomatic phrases where it is followed by an adjective, especially mad or crazy, and the phrase is used adverbially: • Thence by coach; with a mad coachman, that drove like mad —Samuel Pepys, diary, 13 June 1663 • And other writers were in the library studying like mad —William Stafford, Writing the Australian Crawl, 1978 • ... Brooks and friends are horsing around like crazy —Stanley Kauffmann, Before My Eyes, 1980 Like in the sense "as" occurs in four constructions, three of which are closely related. The first—this is the single most heavily criticized use of like—is to introduce a full clause: • Nobody will miss her like I shall —Charles Dickens, letter, 7 Jan. 1841 (in Jespersen) • Do you still recite, like you used to? —Arnold Bennett, Hilda Lessways, 1911 • Just like you used to be —Willa Cather, O Pioneers!, 1913 • ... I can go hungry again like I have gone hungry before —Carl Sandburg, Smoke and Steel, 1920 • ... instead of being embarrassed by the waiter, like he used to be —Sinclair Lewis, Babbitt, 1922 • "... He threw dust into your eyes just like he did in Daisy's, but he was a tough one. He ran over Myrtle like you'd run over a dog and never even stopped his car." —F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, 1925 • ... second-rate people like we are hang about afraid of the plain conclusions of our own brains —H. G. Wells, Mr. Blettsworthy on Rampole Island, 1928 • ... and seemed agreed, like I was, to suffer her dissertation in silence —Sacheverell Sitwell, All Summer in a Day, 1926 • Sir Oswald played bridge, like he did everything else, extremely well —Agatha Christie, The Seven Dials Mystery, 1929 • ... "you little know how surprised you ought to be to see me here" as Robert Bridges said (just like Bernard Haggin does) —Randall Jarrell, letter, November 1947 • I expected him to look a little haunted, like Humphrey sometimes used to —Angus Wilson, Death Dance, 1957 • ... just scratches him off like the old dog does fleas —William Faulkner, 15 Feb. 1957, in Faulkner in the University, 1959 • ... he's only just now hitting twenty, like we all are —Colin Maclnnes, Absolute Beginners, 1959 • He has dark black-Irish good looks like a poet should —Herbert Gold, Los Angeles Times Book Rev., 23 May 1971 • Well, as I told you, I did that just like I did everything else —Harry S. Truman, in Merle Miller, Plain Speaking, 1973 • ... she might not be an early riser, like he is —Jay Mclnerney, Bright Lights, Big City, 1984 • As parents you may be wondering, like I do on frequent occasions —Charles Prince of Wales, quoted in N. Y. Times Mag., 28 Sept. 1986 The second construction is the sneakiest one. It is the one in which like introduces a clause from which the verb—and sometimes even more—has been omitted. The verb is usually to be understood from the preceding clause. This like is often taken to be a preposition because there is no following verb. The classic example of this construction is "He takes to it like a duck to water." Here are some more: • ... as if it followed like the night the day, that "language is a living thing " —Simon 1980 • It is intended to stop all debate, like the previous question in the General Court —Oliver Wendell Holmes d. 1894, The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, 1857 • They let him die like a cat up an alley —H. L. Mencken, quoted in Evergreen, August 1967 • I've had my share of criticism, but for the most part it has rolled off me like water off a duck —Tip O'Neill with William Novak, Man of the House, 1987 • ... so I stared at it, like Kant at his church steeple, for half an hour —F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, 1925 • ... are related to those of Africa, like those of the Galapagos to America —Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, 1859 • ... until it sat like a walnut in icing —E. L. Doctorow, Ragtime, 1975 • Such wits as he are, to a company of reasonable men, like rooks to the gamesters —William Wycherly, The Country Wife, 1675 • About nine o'clock the fog began to rise and seemed to be lifted up from the water like the curtain at a playhouse —Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography, 1788 In the third construction, all of the following clause is omitted except its subject. If the subject is a noun, it is hard to tell whether like is a conjunction or only a preposition. In these three examples you might argue either way: • Philip d'Arteveld then kept a great stable of good horses like a great prince —Lord Berners, translation of Froissart's Chronicles, 1523 • ... she fries better than she did, but not like Jenny —Jane Austen, letter, 7 Jan. 1807 • Like tuna, halibut are large fish —John E. Warriner, English Grammar and Composition (Second Course), 1982 But when the subject is a pronoun, the nominative case may tip off the use of the conjunction: • ... there are still a few who, like thou and I, drink nothing but water —Tobias Smollett, translation of Gil Bias, 1749 • ... the poet, like you and I, dear reader —W. H. Auden, quoted in Time, 2 Feb. 1948 • ... she, like they, was one of the last of that Anglo-American cultural aristocracy —John Henry Raleigh, New Republic, 5 Apr. 1954 • ... [the Russians] like we, have a common interest in avoiding war —Prime Minister Harold Macmil-lan, quoted in Springfield (Mass.) Union (UPI), 20 Mar. 1959 • ... even if they, like we, have a few problems with electronic processing equipment —Los Angeles Times, 28 Sept. 1983 The fourth use of conjunctive like is another one that is often overlooked by the critics; it is the construction in which like is followed by a prepositional phrase: • The color was awful, like in bad MGM musicals — Pauline Kael, Harper's, February 1969 • Like on most boats, there was a multitude of concealed storage places —Jimmy Sangster, Blackball, 1987 • "... It's a backdrop of L.A., like on the Johnny Carson show." —New Yorker, 14 Nov. 1983 • ... just like under the present scheme —The Age (Melbourne), 25 Apr. 1975 • ... like in a Charlton Heston movie —George Vec-sey, N.Y. Times, 1 May 1983 • ... just like in the movies —Michael Walker, Metropolitan Home, March 1984 These examples should suffice to show that conjunctive like is widely used in standard English prose, and that it is used in some constructions where it goes unnoticed—as it is in the citation from Simon 1980; Simon in the same book takes another writer to task for using conjunctive like. They also show that although it occurs in many literary sources, it is almost always used where a construction that is primarily a speech form may be used appropriately. If you keep that in mind, you are not likely to go wrong. To summarize the controversy: like has been in use as a conjunction for more than 600 years. Its beginnings are literary, but the available evidence shows that it was fairly rare until the 19th century. A noticeable increase in use during the 19th century provoked the censure we are so familiar with. Still, the usage has never been less than standard, even if primarily spoken. The belief that like is a preposition but not a conjunction has entered the folklore of usage. Handbooks, schoolbooks, newspaper pundits, and well-meaning friends for generations to come will tell you all about it. Be prepared. • Never mind those purists who can't stand the way America talks —Flesch 1983, at like It is an amusing reflection on the repugnance that conjunctive like can evoke that almost from the beginning of the controversy, some commentators have theorized that the usage was characteristic of a particular region—almost always a region other than their own. As long ago as 1836 the Boston Pearl (a newspaper presumably) ascribed "like you do" to Southerners. In 1867 James Russell Lowell in the Introduction to the Biglow Papers, second series, commented, "Like for as is never used in New England but is universal in the South and West." A respondent to the survey of Crisp 1971 said the conjunction like was standard in the South but not in the North. Brander Matthews 1901 described conjunctive like as a Briticism, "very prevalent" among both the educated and the uneducated. W. Nelson Francis, in The English Language (1963), called it standard in England and the American South. British observers have disagreed. Mittins 1970 reported a British commentator, G. H. Vallins, calling the usage an Americanism. A British writer in the New York Times (7 May 1978) thought that like and as were hopelessly muddled in the minds of most Americans. Sellers 1975 says "It may be acceptable as colloquial American, but it is still not accepted as English." Swan 1980 describes it as "Informal American." On the basis of our evidence, we believe the usage to be widespread on both sides of the Atlantic. 2.Preposition. The frequent adjuration against conjunctional like is believed to have frightened some people into using as for all purposes, even for a preposition. This sort of overreaction is called hypercorrection, and it has given the commentators an additional usage to condemn when they have finished with conjunctive like. Here are a couple of samples drawn from handbooks: • He was built as a swordfish —Ernest Hemingway (in Fennell 1980) • ... the Basenji is the size of a fox-terrier and cleans itself as a cat —Natalie Winslow, Providence Sunday Journal, 17 Jan. 1971 (in Perrin & Ebbitt 1972) Like is what the handbooks prescribe for these. Here are a few from our files: • Delicate problems as this are pivotal factors in establishing enduring leadership —Joseph A. Jones, Exporters' Digest and International Trade Rev., October 1951 • New York, as most major cities, has found that the general public is very apathetic —N.Y. Times, 12 Oct. 1970 • ... beaches do not naturally smell as rotten eggs — Massachusetts Audubon News Letter, April 1971 You could argue plausibly that each of these is a hypercorrection, but what could you say about the following? Golden lads and girls all must, • As chimney sweepers, come to dust...—Shakespeare, Cymbeline, 1610 • O God, I thanke thee, that I am not as other men — Luke 18:11 (Geneva Bible), 1560 Prepositional as, then is not a modern phenomenon, born in holy terror of using like. As has been used prep-ositionally, in one way or another, since the 13th century. But it probably is used hypercorrectly some of the time. In all of the examples from our files, we would recommend like—and especially for the passage about the beaches that smell "as rotten eggs." Like would eliminate speculation about the olfactory apparatus of rotten eggs. |
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