feel as if/ feel like / feel

[optimistic pessimist]

Hi all

1.When I met Jim for the first time, I felt as if I had known him for decades.

2.When I met Jim for the first time, I felt like I had known him for decades.

3. When I met Jim for the first time, I felt I had known him for decades.

Are the sentence above all correct with the same meaning?

OP

 

[emsr2d2]

[STRIKE]Hi all.[/STRIKE] Unnecessary. Just go straight in with your question please.

1. space here When I met Jim for the first time, I felt as if I had known him for decades.

2. space here When I met Jim for the first time, I felt like I had known him for decades.

3. When I met Jim for the first time, I felt I had known him for decades.

Are the sentence above all correct [STRIKE]with[/STRIKE] and do they have the same meaning?

[STRIKE]OP[/STRIKE] Unnecessary. We can see your username.

They're all correct and they mean the same thing to me.

 

[GoesStation]

A few people may tell you number two is grammatically incorrect. It has something to do with a definition of "like" from a hundred years ago or so. Don't pay any attention; "like" and "as if" (or "as though") are equivalent to nearly every English speaker.

 

[GoesStation]

I am one of those who dislike 'like' used in this way. I refrained from saying anything before because you are right.

In future I'll economize and say "every English speaker except Piscean".

 

[emsr2d2]

Well, Piscean does love to be in a minority of one. ;-)

 

[GoesStation]

When I was in high school, an American brand of cigarettes ran an ad campaign* mocking their own slogan, "Winston tastes good like a cigarette should," by crossing out "like" and writing in "as". One day my grandmother, who had learned English as a fourth or fifth language and spoke with a thick Polish accent, complained bitterly to me about the "ungrammatical" ad. She'd learned English in formal classes where the old distinction was taught. "Like" and "as" sounded equally natural and correct to my native Anglophone ears.

*(Advertising cigarettes was legal in those antediluvian days.)

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

Well, Piscean does love to be in a minority of one. ;-)

This Pisces prefers being a majority of one. One man, one vote — as long as I'm The Man.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

When I was in high school, an American brand of cigarettes ran an ad campaign* mocking their own slogan, "Winston tastes good like a cigarette should," by crossing out "like" and writing in "as". One day my grandmother, who had learned English as a fourth or fifth language and spoke with a thick Polish accent, complained bitterly to me about the "ungrammatical" ad. She'd learned English in formal classes where the old distinction was taught. "Like" and "as" sounded equally natural and correct to my native Anglophone ears.

*(Advertising cigarettes was legal in those antediluvian days.)

My dad hated that "like" commercial. For him, it signaled the collapse of Western civilization. With which no problem have I.

PS: For years, he was an ad copy writer. Something else that annoyed him was that he could use once and twice but not thrice — more proof of the tyranny of Philistines — as if more were needed.

PPS: One of his proudest achievements was when a Cadillac dealer he wrote ads for let him run a pre-New Year's Eve ad headed "Eschew the Wassail!"

 

[Phaedrus]

1.When I met Jim for the first time, I felt as if I had known him for decades.

2.When I met Jim for the first time, I felt like I had known him for decades.

3. When I met Jim for the first time, I felt I had known him for decades.

Are the sentence above all correct with the same meaning?

To me, although (1) and (2) mean the same thing, (3) means something stronger.

In (3), there is an omitted "that," and "felt" basically means "believed." Consider this:

When I met Jim for the first time, I felt [that] I had known him for decades, and thus doubted whether I was really meeting him for the first time.