Quote:
Originally Posted by Fat breh
Why is the Smogon standard to use "such as" over "like"? It's an incredibly, incredibly unnatural phrase that, I feel, kills a bit of the sentence's flow. It's irritating when the phrase is injected everywhere in an analysis despite the fact that it does not feel like it should belong.
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"Like" is used for comparisons or meaning that something is similar to another thing, such as "Jolteon's Speed stat is like Aerodactyl's Speed stat, very high." "Such as" is used for examples: "There are many other Pokemon with good Speed stats, such as Alakazam and Starmie." Because the second example wasn't a comparison, "such as" was used instead of "like." I understand that "like" can mean the same as "such as" sometimes, but this definition, despite being used frequently, is not the most common definition and Smogon considers it informal iirc. In most analyses, writers mean to list examples rather than compare Pokemon, so "such as" would be the appropriate phrase.