The Little, Brown Handbook (6th ed., HarperCollins, 1995) says: "Strictly, such as precedes an example that represents a larger subject, whereas like indicates that two subjects are comparable. Steve has recordings of many great saxophonists such as Ben Webster and Lee Konitz. Steve wants to be a great jazz saxophonist like Ben Webster and Lee Konitz." Nobody would use "such as" in the second sentence; the disputed usage is "like" in the first sentence.
Opposing it are: earlier editions of The Little, Brown Handbook (which did not use the hedge "strictly"); the Random House English Language Desk Reference (1995); The Globe and Mail Style Book (Penguin, 1995); Webster's Dictionary & Thesaurus (Shooting Star Press, 1995); Fine Print: Reflections on the Writing Art by James Kilpatrick (Andrews and McMeel, 1993); The Wordwatcher's Guide to Good Writing and Grammar by Morton S. Freeman (Writer's Digest, 1990); Word Perfect: A Dictionary of Current English Usage by John O. E. Clark (Harrap, 1987); and Keeping Up the Style by Leslie Sellers (Pitman, 1975).
The OED, first edition, in its entry on "like" (which is in a section prepared in 1903), said that "in modern use", "like" "often = 'such as', introducing a particular example of a class respecting which something is predicated". Merriam-Webster Editorial Department unearthed the following 19th-century citations for me: "Good sense, like hers, will always act when really called upon", Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, 1814; "A straight-forward, open-hearted man, like Weston, and a rational unaffected woman, like Miss Taylor, may be safely left to their own concerns", Jane Austen, Emma, 1816; "[...] to argue that because a well-stocked island, like Great Britain, has not, as far as is known [...]", Charles Darwin, Origin of the Species, 1859.
Fowler apparently saw nothing wrong with "like" in this sense: in the Concise Oxford Dictionary, he gave "resembling, such as" without a usage label as one its meanings, and gave the example "a critic like you", which he explained as "of the class that you exemplify". And he used it himself in the passage quoted under "'less' vs 'fewer'" above. More commonly, though, he wrote "such ... as" when using examples to define the set ("such bower-birds' treasures as au pied de la lettre, a` merveille, [...] and sauter aux yeux"), and "as" or "such as" when the words preceding the examples sufficed to define the set ("familiar words in -o, as halo and dado"; "simple narrative poems in short stanzas, such as Chevy Chase"). This is the same restrictive vs nonrestrictive mentioned under "'that' vs 'which'": "Ballads, such as Chevy Chase, can be danced to" would imply that all ballads can be danced to, whereas "Such ballads as Chevy Chase can be danced to" would not.
"Such ... as" is now confined to formal use, and for informal restrictive uses where the example is not introduced merely for the sake of example, but is the actual topic of the sentence, "like" is now obligatory: "I'm so glad to have a friend like Paul." Guide to Canadian English Usage by Margery Fee and Janice McAlpine (Oxford, 1997, ISBN 0-19-540841-1) rightly points out that "such as" would not be idiomatic here.
Modern American Usage by Wilson Follett (Hill and Wang, 1966) says: "Such as is close in meaning to like and may often be interchanged with it. The shade of difference between them is that such as leads the mind to imagine an indefinite group of objects [...]. The other comparing word like suggests a closer resemblance among the things compared [...]. [...P]urists object to phrases of the type a writer like Shakespeare, a leader like Lincoln. No writer, say these critics, is like Shakespeare; and in this they are wrong; writers are alike in many things and the context usually makes clear what the comparison proposes to our attention. Such as Shakespeare may sound less impertinent, but if Shakespeare were totally incomparable such as would be open to the same objection as like." Bernstein, in Miss Thistlebottom's Hobgoblins (Farrar, 1971), agrees, calling those who object to "German composers like Beethoven" "nit-pickers".
Source: AUE
Opposing it are: earlier editions of The Little, Brown Handbook (which did not use the hedge "strictly"); the Random House English Language Desk Reference (1995); The Globe and Mail Style Book (Penguin, 1995); Webster's Dictionary & Thesaurus (Shooting Star Press, 1995); Fine Print: Reflections on the Writing Art by James Kilpatrick (Andrews and McMeel, 1993); The Wordwatcher's Guide to Good Writing and Grammar by Morton S. Freeman (Writer's Digest, 1990); Word Perfect: A Dictionary of Current English Usage by John O. E. Clark (Harrap, 1987); and Keeping Up the Style by Leslie Sellers (Pitman, 1975).
The OED, first edition, in its entry on "like" (which is in a section prepared in 1903), said that "in modern use", "like" "often = 'such as', introducing a particular example of a class respecting which something is predicated". Merriam-Webster Editorial Department unearthed the following 19th-century citations for me: "Good sense, like hers, will always act when really called upon", Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, 1814; "A straight-forward, open-hearted man, like Weston, and a rational unaffected woman, like Miss Taylor, may be safely left to their own concerns", Jane Austen, Emma, 1816; "[...] to argue that because a well-stocked island, like Great Britain, has not, as far as is known [...]", Charles Darwin, Origin of the Species, 1859.
Fowler apparently saw nothing wrong with "like" in this sense: in the Concise Oxford Dictionary, he gave "resembling, such as" without a usage label as one its meanings, and gave the example "a critic like you", which he explained as "of the class that you exemplify". And he used it himself in the passage quoted under "'less' vs 'fewer'" above. More commonly, though, he wrote "such ... as" when using examples to define the set ("such bower-birds' treasures as au pied de la lettre, a` merveille, [...] and sauter aux yeux"), and "as" or "such as" when the words preceding the examples sufficed to define the set ("familiar words in -o, as halo and dado"; "simple narrative poems in short stanzas, such as Chevy Chase"). This is the same restrictive vs nonrestrictive mentioned under "'that' vs 'which'": "Ballads, such as Chevy Chase, can be danced to" would imply that all ballads can be danced to, whereas "Such ballads as Chevy Chase can be danced to" would not.
"Such ... as" is now confined to formal use, and for informal restrictive uses where the example is not introduced merely for the sake of example, but is the actual topic of the sentence, "like" is now obligatory: "I'm so glad to have a friend like Paul." Guide to Canadian English Usage by Margery Fee and Janice McAlpine (Oxford, 1997, ISBN 0-19-540841-1) rightly points out that "such as" would not be idiomatic here.
Modern American Usage by Wilson Follett (Hill and Wang, 1966) says: "Such as is close in meaning to like and may often be interchanged with it. The shade of difference between them is that such as leads the mind to imagine an indefinite group of objects [...]. The other comparing word like suggests a closer resemblance among the things compared [...]. [...P]urists object to phrases of the type a writer like Shakespeare, a leader like Lincoln. No writer, say these critics, is like Shakespeare; and in this they are wrong; writers are alike in many things and the context usually makes clear what the comparison proposes to our attention. Such as Shakespeare may sound less impertinent, but if Shakespeare were totally incomparable such as would be open to the same objection as like." Bernstein, in Miss Thistlebottom's Hobgoblins (Farrar, 1971), agrees, calling those who object to "German composers like Beethoven" "nit-pickers".
Source: AUE
