I am wondering why distinctions that were not difficult for my rural 
seventh-grade
English students in the early '60s (e.g., like~as, who~whom) and quickly 
mastered
are now too difficult or unnecessary.   Having taught/tutored English off 
and on
from 1959 to 1995, I had not noticed such a decline.  I did notice that 
fellow teachers
who began teaching English after beginning college in the '60s and 
afterwards often
seemed to have more problems explaining English usage to their students and 
tended
to be far more slangy in conversing, even on academic topics.  "He was, 
like, you know,
way out in his try to diagramming a sentence. " This was a sentence that I 
actually recall
hearing from someone hired to teach English.   In his defense, he had 
majored in Modern
American literature with a specialty in cinema at a prestigious NE school.

I only use 'mustn't' and 'needn't' in casual speech; otherwise, I use 'must 
not' and 'need not.'
I am not understanding the problem; will someone please elucidate?

Scott Catledge
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From: "ATEG automatic digest system" <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, November 28, 2011 12:00 AM
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: ATEG Digest - 25 Nov 2011 to 27 Nov 2011 (#2011-209)

> There are 2 messages totalling 299 lines in this issue.
>
> Topics of the day:
>
>  1. Like/as
>  2. Mustn't/needn't
>
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> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Date:    Sun, 27 Nov 2011 18:07:20 -0800
> From:    Cynthia Baird <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: Like/as
>
> --1133740435-1987235596-1322446040=:9968
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
>
> great thread and very relative to teaching. Thanks to all who offered 
> comments.
=A0As a high school English teacher (or should I have said "like"?), I=
> try to prepare students for college writing, so it's very helpful to hear 
> =
> from so many college and university instructors =A0I try to teach a 
> differentiation
between "like" and "as" or "as though" when using subordinating clauses (and 
it's not
that hard to do if previous groundwork in clauses and phrases has been 
laid), and I
try to teach students that one level of language might be fine for informal 
but that
another level might be expected for formal or academic language. The 
distinction
between "like" and "as" would definitely be harder for ELL students and 
might just be
plain unnecessary for most students. 

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