whether 'as' should be there ...

[MeyaN]

A: Give me that ball.
'B' gives doll. 'A' says I asked for ball and asks B, "what did you hear it (as)?"
B: I heard it as doll.

Please tell me whether 'as' should be there in the above conversation.
Is it just optional?

 

[Raymott]

"I heard it as doll."
"I heard doll."
You can say either of those. You can't leave out 'as' in the first.

 

[emsr2d2]

You can't leave it out in the question. Use either:

- What did you hear?
- What did you hear it as?

You can't say "What did you hear it?"

(Edit: Apologies. I appear to have basically repeated Raymott's reply. Inexplicably, his response wasn't visible to me when I posted mine even though it was posted two hours ago!)