In a rather humorous new post, Mark Liberman comments on the functional confusion engendered by clauses that present a choice between “as” and “like”, as well as those that ask us for a first-person singular pronoun (“I” or “me”). I can identify! Being a terrible pedant, there has been many a sentence that I have had to tiptoe my way through (which is to say, “through which I have had to tiptoe”) in order to speak in a manner commensurate with my own (admittedly, ridiculous) preconceptions of “correct English”. I was aware that “like” had become substitutable for “as”, but was unaware that it required the accusative pronoun. Goddamit! Just when you think you have attained linguistic superiority…
In other news, Miſiſippi Fred has an interesting post on the diſappearance of the ſ. Not to be confuſed with the f, of courſe.
Echoes from the Ether: