Page 75 - DENG103_English - I

English–I

Notes
The Case of Like and As

Strictly speaking, the word like is a preposition, not a conjunction. It can, therefore, be
used to introduce a prepositional phrase (“My brother is tall like my father”), but it should
not be used to introduce a clause (“My brother can’t play the piano as he did before the
accident” or “It looks like as if basketball is quickly overtaking baseball as America’s
national sport.”). To introduce a clause, it’s a good idea to use as, as though, or as if, instead.
• As I told you earlier, the lecture has been postponed.
• It looks as if it’s going to snow this afternoon.

• Johnson kept looking out the window as though he had someone waiting for him.
In formal, academic text, it’s a good idea to reserve the use of like for situations in which
similarities are being pointed out:
• This community college is like a two-year liberal arts college.However, when you
are listing things that have similarities, such as is probably more suitable:
• The college has several highly regarded neighbors, such as the Mark Twain House,
St. Francis Hospital, the Connecticut Historical Society, and the UConn Law School.

Omitting That

The word that is used as a conjunction to connect a subordinate clause to a preceding
verb. In this construction that is sometimes called the “expletive that.” Indeed, the word is
often omitted to good effect, but the very fact of easy omission causes some editors to take
out the red pen and strike out the conjunction that wherever it appears. In the following
sentences, we can happily omit the that (or keep it, depending on how the sentence sounds
to us):
• Isabel knew [that] she was about to be fired.
• She definitely felt [that] her fellow employees hadn’t supported her.

• I hope [that] she doesn’t blame me.
Sometimes omitting the that creates a break in the flow of a sentence, a break that can be
adequately bridged with the use of a comma:
• The problem is, production in her department has dropped.
• Remember, we didn’t have these problems before she started working here.

As a general rule, if the sentence feels just as good without the that, if no ambiguity results
from its omission, if the sentence is more efficient or elegant without it, then we can safely
omit the that. Theodore Bernstein lists three conditions in which we should maintain the
conjunction that:

• When a time element intervenes between the verb and the clause: “The boss said
yesterday that production in this department was down fifty percent.” (Notice the
position of “yesterday.”)
• When the verb of the clause is long delayed: “Our annual report revealed that some
losses sustained by this department in the third quarter of last year were worse than
previously thought.” (Notice the distance between the subject “losses” and its verb,
“were.”)

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