Sonia Jaffe Robbins, Editing Workshop, G54.1123

Date: Sun, 29 Sep 1996 16:30:45 -0400 (EDT)
To: robbinss@is2.nyu.edu
From: susan vavrick
Subject: Re: Can you help with this one?

Sonia, here is the reply I received from Al Siegal [assistant managing editor, The New York Times]:

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>Unaccustomed as I am to citing Webster's Dictionary of English Usage (Merriam), it has a very good discussion of "like" versus "such as," pointing out that authorities are scattered, and concluding thereby that the distinction is without a difference.

>Over the years I've worked for purists who insisted on "such as" when the cited example was a member of the cited class: "writers such as Hawthorne" because Hawthorne himself is among the cited writers. This theory contends that "writers like Hawthorne" excludes Hawthorne and is useless because nobody knows which writers are like Hawthorne, or somesuch.

>In 1986, when Max Frankel became executive editor of The Times, he waged a war against "such as," which he contended was no more than a stuffy synonym for "like." Preparing to challenge him, I researched the question, and was surprised to find that most authorities agreed with him. Since then, The Times has tended to use "like" in all such cases. Interestingly, "such as" becomes unstuffy, and therefore acceptable, when split: "such writers as Hawthorne."

>Let me know if you need a Safire citation.

>Regards.

>ams -------------

Susan "the chick with the three-day workweek" Vavrick
U.S.News & World Report
susanv@erols.com or svavrick@usnews.com
opinions are my own
Better to ask 10 times than go astray once. -- Yiddish proverb