The Penguin Dictionary of American English Usage and Style : A ...

as and like 27
The phrase becomes merely a drawnout
replacement for and. Sometimes
one cannot tell which meaning was intended.
When as well as is put between two
verbs, the verb form is the same. In this
sentence, from a biography, one word
could well be changed:
In the three days they covered at least
fifty miles as well as climbing two
mountains of around 3000 feet.
To match covered, change “climbing” to
climbed. Besides would go with climbing.
The grammarian H. W. Fowler took it
on himself to “come to the rescue of the
phrase as well as [a conjunction] . . . being
cruelly treated” like the preposition
besides. Among examples: “His death
leaves a gap as well as creating a byelection
in Ross”—make “creating” creates,
or replace “as well as” with
besides. “You were there as well as
me”—make “me” I.
Both should not go with as well as.
See BOTH, 2.
As well, without the second as, can
mean in addition (“He wins the money
and a car as well”) or with similar effect
(“We might as well give up”). It should
not open a sentence, as it did on the radio:
“As well we’ve got another [road]
closure.” Although unnecessary, “as
well” would have been more idiomatic
at the end of the sentence.
AS and LIKE. 1. Confusion. 2. Incomparability.
1. Confusion
Like is proper in this sentence:
“Sometimes I feel like a motherless
child.” Or this one: “He looks like you.”
It conforms to the rule: Like (a preposition)
may be followed by a noun or pronoun
that is not allied to a verb. As (a
conjunction) introduces a clause, a
group of words with a subject and verb.
Like is not acceptable in these sentences,
from radio and daily press:
Tonight it will cool off, like it always
does.
Like they did last week before the
Assembly Judiciary Committee,
judges were expected yesterday to ask
for a delay in legislative action.
. . . He looked like he had put on
some of the weight he had lost.
In the first and second of the three samples,
change “like” to as. In the third,
change “like” to as if or as though.
The “like”—after “likes”—looks
even worse in the sample below, from a
book. Change “like” to as.
At other times, he likes to produce
spectacular effects, like when he puts
an imposing beret made of crumpled
paper onto his picture of The Student
with a Pipe. . . .
Sometimes when like is needed,
people who have become afraid of it
substitute “as.” Comprehension can
suffer: “Harold, as his brother, appeared
in a movie.” If the message is that
both were in movies, not that Harold
portrayed his brother, change “as” to
like.
One may reasonably take issue with
the rule, on grounds of literary history.
Shakespeare and other celebrated, longgone
writers did not avoid like with
verb. Nor do most people in colloquial
speech. Some authorities defend such usage.
But after generations of insistence
by grammarians, editors, and teachers, a
writer or careful speaker today emulates
Shakespeare et al. at the risk of having
his literacy questioned.
2. Incomparability
Simply following the rule will not rescue
an error in logic. When you liken