participle forms. Let’s. This contraction of let us is not normally used in standard English writing. Lie, lay, lain. An irregular verbmeaning lie down, in its main, past tense, and past participle forms. The verb that means to speak falsely has a regular conjugation: lie, lied, lied. See lay. Like. Like has several functions and is commonly misused in many of them. Besides having once been a common interjection in a style considered out of the mainstream (Like, wow, man, that is awesome and groovy, like is still resorted to when thought fails and some sound must be made or letters put on paper This painting is, like, sensational In informal speech this use of like is probably unavoidable, just as one is forced to mumble ya know or “ummm” sometimes while the brain catches up with the mouth. But like in these usagesshould never appear informal, standard English documents unless it is accurately quoted as such. Proper uses of the preposition like involve comparisons: That tree looks like a scarecrow Such a construction is called a simile calling attention to similarity between things. Like is used when comparing two or more nouns or nouns and their modi ers (adjectives or adjective phrases). It can be replaced by such as in many cases, but it can never be substituted for “as,” which links verbs or verb and adjective complement or adverb (or phrases I worked as a sailor This example means held a job as a sailor. I worked like a stevedore means my work was hard, like a stevedore’s work, not that I held the position of stevedore. WRONG I worked hard, like I should have RIGHT I worked hard, as I should have. As is correct because it links verbs or verb phrases, not nouns.
