So there I was, thinking about posting about the site, when I was distracted by this sentence:
This raises the print price slightly, but now the artist, as well as their favorite charity, benefit from each piece sold.(Yes, even a scrawny, mangy kitten can sometimes trigger my Look! a kitten! reflex.)
How do you read that sentence? What's the status quo ante? Before the event that raised prices slightly, who, the artists or the charities, was benefitting from sales, and who was not? Am I the only one who's bugged when someone places the objects on either side of as well as in the wrong order? Or perhaps am I the only one who thinks there is an order: does the rest of the world think as well as is commutative?
To me, the entire purpose of that idiom is to assert that the novel or unexpected works as well as the established or expected. People only seem to have trouble understanding this with the as well as idiom, not with the general case of as <property> as. Consider
- Tom is as strong as an ox.
- His eyes are as green as a fresh pickled toad.
- Bill Gates as rich as Croesus.
- An ox is as strong as Tom.
- A fresh pickled toad is as green as his eyes.
- Croesus is as rich as Bill Gates.
</flame>
