A strange crisis has befallen like. It had long been an object of obloquy and vilification in two functions. The first was as a filler, of the same kind as you know: ‘He was, like, my favourite guy.’ Then it evolved into a formula for reporting; so, in place of ‘I was surprised’, we find: ‘I was like, “That’s amazing!”’
Naturally, we sensitive speakers of English do not fall into such annoying habits. But I have recently seen examples of a baffling construction that substitutes similar to for like in a way that can surely never have tempted any of us. For example, the Sun recently asked ‘Who is Jennifer Carnahan?’ and gave the answer: ‘Similar to her late husband, Jennifer Carnahan is a Republican politician from Minnesota.’
Anyone, you might think, would have said: ‘Like her late husband.’ Here, to give a simple grammatical account, like is being used as a preposition.
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