Write Better At Work

Should I Use Like or As to Compare? Part 2

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One way to decide whether to use like or as is to apply grammar rules, as explained in Part 1.

Another strategy is to think about what you mean. To include what you’re comparing in the group to which you’re comparing it, use such as: Dementias such as Lewy body disease and Alzheimer’s cause progressive mental decline. In this case, both Lewy body disease and Alzheimer’s are part of the same category: dementias.

If you want to exclude the topic of your comparison from the category to which you’re comparing it, use like. For example, Symptoms of Lewy body dementia are much like those of Alzheimer’s. Using like distinguishes between these two forms of dementia.

If you’re a visual learner, you might find Edwin Markham’s description of circles in “Outwitted” helpful:

He drew a circle that shut me out–
Heretic, a rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in!

Like draws a circle that shuts out. In the example above, Alzheimer’s and other dementias would be inside the circle; Lewy body disease would be shut out.

Such as creates a circle that takes in everything in the comparison, including Alzheimer’s, other dementias, and Lewy body disease.

What should you remember? Like excludes; such as includes.

Notes:

Geoff Pope summarizes experts’ opinions on like and such as in this Grammar Girl post: http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/like-versus-such-as.aspx

Writer’s Block distinguishes between like and such as based on meaning:  http://www.writersblock.ca/tips/monthtip/tipjun98.htm

Learn more about Edwin Markham at Modern American Poetry: http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/m_r/markham/markham.htm

Should I Use Like or As to Compare? Part 1

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If you make decisions about grammar based on what sounds right, you can blame the William Esty Ad Agency for any confusion over using like or as. Esty developed a slogan that became one of the top 10 jingles of the 20th century: Winston tastes good like a cigarette should.

The problem? Like is a preposition. Prepositions are useful little words that connect nouns, pronouns, or phrases to a sentence. Examples include of, to, and in, which rank among the ten words most commonly used in English. If you’re not sure whether a word is a preposition, try the squirrel test. Use the word to complete this sentence: The squirrel ran ________ . If the result makes sense, it’s probably a preposition: The squirrel ran after the bird, through the fence, up the tree, over the branch, across the wire, and into its nest.

Notice that none of the phrases that complete the squirrel sentence has a verb. A verb is a word that shows action or a state of being. Consider the phrase after the bird. If we ask, What did the bird do?, the answer is nothing. This group of words has no verb.  Grammarians will not object if you use like to connect groups of words without a verb to a sentence; for example, My face burned like fire.

The problem, for purists, comes when like is used to connect a clause, a group of words that has a subject and a verb. In that case, the conjunction as should be used. Conjunctions are more powerful than prepositions; they can connect not only phrases, but clauses and whole sentences. In conversation, someone one might say Her jeans fit like a glove clings. However, in formal writing, as is preferred: Her jeans fit as a glove clings.

How can you tell whether you’re using like correctly?  Look at the words that follow like. Are they just a word or phrase (a glove), or do they contain a subject and verb (a glove clings)? Use like to connect words or phrases; use as to connect clauses in formal writing.

Notes:

For a more detailed explanation of prepositions, see “Prepositions for the Perplexed”: http://www.dailywritingtips.com/prepositions-for-the-perplexed/

“English 101: Conjunctions” explains different types of conjunctions: http://www.dailywritingtips.com/english-grammar-101-conjunctions/

Charles Darling explains the grammatical differences between like and such as: http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/conjunctions.htm#like

A list of the top 10 advertising slogans of the 20th century is available at http://adage.com/article/special-report-the-advertising-century/ad-age-advertising-century-top-10-jingles/140154/

The 500 words most commonly used in English are listed on World-English: http://www.world-english.org/english500.htm

Jody Bruner summarizes the controversy over Winston’s use of like as a conjunction: http://brunerbiz.com/grammar/winston-tastes-good-like-a-cigarette-should/

Tina Blue explains why she thinks the distinction between like or as matters in formal writing: http://grammartips.homestead.com/like.html

Would You Hire Someone with Poor Grammar Skills?

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Kyle Wiens, CEO of iFixit and founder of Dozuki, gives a grammar test to every job applicant. “Grammar signifies more than just a person’s ability to remember high school English,” he writes. “I’ve found that people who make fewer mistakes on a grammar test also make fewer mistakes when they are doing something completely unrelated to writing — like stocking shelves or labeling parts.”

Predictably, Wiens took a lot of heat. Commenters called him arrogant, fixated, rigid, and foolish for giving so much weight to just one qualification. However,  the research bears him out.

Since 1981, several studies have found that people who make certain errors in grammar and usage are judged to be uneducated and unintelligent. Of course, that judgment can be wrong. Someone who says “Me and Mike calibrated the nuclear density gauge” might have outstanding technical skills. Nevertheless, serious grammar errors can make even a highly skilled professional seem less credible.

Which mistakes matter most?
Maxine Hairston  wondered whether mistakes that outraged teachers also mattered to business people and professionals. She surveyed reactions to various errors and categorized the errors according to how much they bothered people.

Some mistakes did not seem to matter to those who took the survey. In other words, an employer who noticed an error like “the most unique” or “the data is” would probably overlook the lapse. Some errors, however, were considered serious enough to be made only by those who were ignorant or unintelligent. Errors like I don’t need none or he brung it  were judged so negatively that Hairston called them status-marking errors.

Hairston’s study was done in 1979. Are her results still valid? While a few errors are not considered quite as serious today, several studies have confirmed that some errors are considered more serious than others and that those who make the most serious errors are perceived as unprofessional. You’ll find those studies in the Notes below.

Would you like to know if your grammar meets professional standards? Take a self-scoring grammar quiz: www.writebetteratwork.com/grammar-diagnostic/

Notes:
Kyle Wien’s “I Won’t Hire People Who Use Poor Grammar. Here’s Why” is a  July 20, 2012, post on HBR Blog Network: http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/07/i_wont_hire_people_who_use_poo.html

Hairston’s categories of error are described in “What Business People Think About Grammar and Usage”: http://www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/troufs/comp3160/Hairston.Business_People.html She published the results of her study in a 1981 article “Not All Errors Are Created Equal: Nonacademic Readers in the Professions Respond to Lapses in Usage” in College English,  43(8), 794-806: http://www.jstor.org/stable/376679

Kantz and Yeats (1994) found that “a hierarchy of error does exist.” Their conference presentation, “Whose Judgments? A Survey of Faculty Responses to Common and Highly Irritating Writing Errors,” is available at http://www.ateg.org/conferences/c5/kantz.htm

In 1999, Dr. Johanna Rubba’s linguistics students replicated Hairston’s study and found that respondents still reacted strongly to nonstandard usage. Their results are discussed in “Usage Matters: A Comparative Study of Judgments of English Usage Errors”:  http://cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba/390/survey/Usage.matters.html

Beason’s 2001 study found that “the extent to which errors harm the writer’s image is more serious and far-reaching than many students and teachers might realize.” See “Ethos and Error: How Business People React to Errors,” published in College Composition and Communication, 53(1), pp. 33–60, available at  http://faculty.winthrop.edu/kosterj/writ465/samples/beason.pdf

Gilsdorf and Leonard (2001) found that executives were most bothered by errors in sentence structure, such as run-ons and dangling modifiers. “Big Stuff, Little Stuff: A Decennial Measurement of Executives’ and Academics’ Reactions to Questionable Usage Elements” appeared in the Journal of Business Communication,  38(4), 439-475.

A nationwide survey sponsored by the Business Roundtable in 2004, Writing: A Ticket to Work … or a Ticket Out, found that 80% of employers consider writing skills when making promotion decisions: http://www.nwp.org/cs/public/print/resource/2154

Affect/effect

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Like many things in life, using affect and effect correctly seems simple at first. Then complications develop. However, if you follow one basic guideline, you’ll be right most of the time. Affect usually means “to influence.” Effect usually means “result.”

Affect is most often used as a verb; that is, to show action. If something changes, people might ask, How will that affect me?

Effect is often used as a noun; that is, to name something. If something changes, people might ask, Will that have a good or bad effect?

That’s fairly straightforward. To  test whether you’re using affect correctly, replace with influence. For example, the question Can lack of sleep affect performance? becomes Can lack of sleep influence performance? The result makes sense, so affect is correct.

The problem is that both words can be used as either verbs or nouns. Although affect is rarely used as a noun in everyday conversations, clinicians use the term to describe a person’s level of emotional response: The diagnosis is based on the patient’s flat affect. If you replace affect with influence here, the result is nonsense: The diagnosis is based on the patient’s flat influence.

When effect is used as a verb, it means “to cause”: The drug effected a complete cure. To test whether effect is correct, replace it with cause: The drug caused a complete cure. The result makes sense, so this usage is correct.

Want more examples? You’ll find several, along with clear explanations, at Professor Malcolm Gibson’s Wonderful World of Editing site: http://web.ku.edu/~edit/affect.html