Just like the background in art history needed by an archaeologist in

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Added the tag. Thank you!

Hi,

In a similar usage of just like, I have a confusion on below sentence:

1. researchers have shown that Neanderthals walked upright just like modern humans

are we comparing the clause 'Neanderthals walked'' where 'walked' is an action verb and not a static verb.

Is the usage correct here?

Yes.
"(Just) like xxx" sets up a comparison between the noun "xxx" and the preceding subject. This construction can work for any subject + verb, as long as the intended meaning is that the preceding verb/action applies to both "xxx" and the preceding subject.

In other words,
Yyy does zzz, (just) like xxx —OR— (Just) like xxx, yyy does zzz
means that "yyy" does "zzz" AND that "xxx" ALSO does "zzz".

This usage isn't affected by whether the verb part (which I've written here as "does zzz") is an action or a state. E.g., the above idea can be written either way:
Neanderthals walked upright just like modern humans.
Neanderthals were bipedal like modern humans.


My main complaint about this sentence is that it's a comparison between two observations in different timeframes, so, ideally, it should be written with two verbs in different, individually appropriate tenses—which in turn requires us to replace "like" with "as", since we're now writing a comparison of two whole clauses:
Neanderthals walked upright just as modern humans do.
Neanderthals were bipedal, as are modern humans.

RonTargetTestPrep

Thank you Ron for such a detailed clarification.

I have a few follow-ups to strengthen my understanding.

Is the usage correct? Have I followed you correctly?


1. He had often been ill like a child

2. the student worked as a sketch artist ( 'as' because it describes a role. 'like' can not be used here)

3. Coal burning released as much radioactivity like the three-mile island accident

Sentence 1: What you are trying to say is not clear. If you mean that he had often been ill when he was a child, then the usage is incorrect.

Sentence 2: correct

Sentence 3: Wrong idiom
The proper phrasing is as much as. The sentence should be 'Coal burning released as much radioactivity as the three-mile island accident (did/had done).'

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I think what you mean here is that kids get sick quite often, and so getting sick OFTEN is what's "childlike"? If so, then it's better to write the sentence with a comma: He has often been ill, like a child. ...or, with perhaps even more clarity, He has been ill often, like a child.

The problem with NOT using a comma is that the default interpretation assigns the modifier to the closest and smallest available phrase (as is the case for other no-comma modifiers).
In your original sentence, that would just be "been ill". I.e., the way you originally wrote this sentence, it would be understood by default to mean "Quite often, he has been sick like a child"... whatever that means! At very best it's ambiguous.




100% correct.





Nope. The properly idiomatic phrasing is "as [ADJ/ADV] as ..."
so, here, you'd write "as much radioactivity as..."

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