For example, which of the following is considered correct?:
- Don't be like him
- Don't be like he is
There are other examples I can't think of right now where people use him instead of he, or her instead of she etc. It's frustrating!
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Mari-Lou A
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Patty DeVore
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Are you thinking of sentences such as He is not as clever as her / she (is)? – Shoe Jan 29 '19 at 07:57
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See also [ell.se] This may have already been answered there. – Kris Jan 29 '19 at 09:16
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Please see our help on multiple accounts. You need to fix the account issue so that you can edit this post. – Andrew Leach Jan 30 '19 at 08:00
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This comes down to the as vs. like rules. Since like is a preposition, it takes the objective pronoun. However, if what follows is a clause, then as is appropriate, not like. The second example should have as. – Mar 03 '19 at 03:39
2 Answers
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Both sentences are correct because LIKE can be both a preposition ('like him') and a conjunction ('like he is').
After the preposition we should use the object pronoun (him, her, me, us, them).
After the conjunction we should use the subject pronoun (he, she, I, we, they) which is followed by the personal verb form.
See Merriam-Webster's Dictionary (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/like):
LIKE
Conjunction
: in the same way that
: AS
// they raven down scenery like children do sweetmeats
— John Keats
Preposition
: typical of
// was like him to do that
user307254
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Dictionaries are wrong about this. "Like" is neither a preposition nor a conjunction, but an adjective in the OP's examples. – BillJ Jan 29 '19 at 10:20
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I'd have trouble believing some random user over an authoritative source like American Heritage Dictionary. – Mar 03 '19 at 03:36
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1@BlackandWhite FYI. My grammar is based entirely on that of the award-winning Cambridge Grammar of The English Language (Huddleston & Pullum, 2002). Huddleston is the finest grammarian of English alive today. Dictionaries should never be used for matters of grammar. – BillJ Mar 03 '19 at 06:45
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[1] Don't be like him.
[2] Don't be like he is.
"Like" is an adjective in both your examples. The difference between them is that in [1] the pronoun is direct complement of "like", and since adjectives take accusative case pronouns as complement, it must be "him".
But in [2], the pronoun is subject of a finite comparative clause, and since finite clauses take nominative case subjects, it must be "he".
BillJ
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If like is an adjective in don't be like him, why isn't over an adjective in I'm not over him? I'd call them both prepositions. – Peter Shor Jan 29 '19 at 14:50
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This is completely wrong. In the first example, like is a preposition. The second example is a common grammatical error in which people use like when they should use as. – Mar 03 '19 at 03:32
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@BlackandWhite Nonsense. In [1] "like" is in predicative complement function. Unlike prepositions, but like many adjectives, "like" freely accepts modification by "very", as in "Ed is very like his father", and sometimes by "too". And unlike preps, adjectival "like" is related to a predicand in the same way that other predicative AdjPs are. Further, "like" is one of only four transitive adjectives -- the ones that license NP complements. As far as "as" is concerned, it may be in competition with "like", but in no way is it preferable. The prep "like", by contrast, occurs as head of an adjunct. – BillJ Mar 03 '19 at 12:08