Word Mix-Ups: "Looked Like" vs. "Appeared As"

“Appeared as” is not a synonym for “looked like.”

And there you have it. Have a nice day, folks!

I suppose I could elaborate a bit.

We all know how to use looked like—we do it every day. Here’s some examples:

     He looked like a construction worker.

     That cloud looks like a porcupine.

     My girlfriend’s uncle looked like an angry honey badger.

Pretty simple, right? Looked like is used to indicate that two objects have similar appearances. I’ve seen quite a few people try to use appeared as in the same way, but it just doesn’t work:

     He appeared as a construction worker.

In this sort of usage, appeared as seems to indicate that the person we’re discussing has the ability to alter their appearance at will and has chosen this form to appear to our characters. Like this:

     The angel appeared as a construction worker.

     God appeared to Moses as a burning bush.

The genie appeared as a bee. Because he literally changed his form and appeared out of nowhere.

Many an author has created unintentional hilarity through the misuse of appeared as. This can be particularly confusing if you’re writing speculative fiction of some sort—if your story is already full of magic or might-as-well-be-magic levels of technology, then your audience won’t always know just what you meant. For all they know, the dimension-hopping monster or planet-eating alien can actually appear as whatever they want.

    My girlfriend’s uncle appeared as an angry honey badger. He is a wizard, you see.

Now, there is a situation where looked like and appeared as can be interchanged a bit more freely. In all of the examples above, looked like was used to create similes—to imply visual similarity. But it can also be used to describe the literal nature of a person or object—to describe what something is. For example:

     The room was in shambles, furniture in pieces, window shattered, blood on the floor; it looked like a nasty fight happened there.

     The room was in shambles, furniture in pieces, window shattered, blood on the floor; it appeared as though a nasty fight happened there. (Appeared that would work even better, but I wanted to keep the as in the phrase.)

The distinction between visual simile and literal description of nature is important in these situations. Looked like can be used in either scenario, but appeared as cannot.

Phrases to Avoid: "Walked Leisurely"

I see the phrase “walked leisurely” with surprising frequency. It falls under more than one category of poor word choice: it uses an unnecessary adverb and uses two words where one would do.  Instead of “walked leisurely,” any of these words would work better:

     Stroll: to walk in a leisurely or idle manner.

     Amble: to walk slowly in a free and relaxed way (generally carries a more aimless and leisurely connotation than stroll).

     Saunter: to walk along in a slow and relaxed manner (implies a cockier attitude than stroll or amble).

     Meander: to walk slowly without a specific goal, purpose, or direction.

     Ramble: to move aimlessly from place to place or to explore idly (usually indicates a more widespread area of movement than meander—for instance, you might meander around a store or maybe a town, but ramble around a country).

This seems to be a common phenomenon with verbs of motion—rather than finding one word that fits a character’s movement best, writers use a common verb with an adverb. Here’s some other examples that I’ve seen:

     “Ran hard”—usually better as sprinted

     “Jumped up and down repeatedly”—bounced or hopped.

     “Quickly moved out of the way”—dodged, evaded, or sidestepped.

Modified Meaning: "Afford" vs "Can Afford"

Today we begin the first in a series of small posts, much like the “Punctuation Problems,” “Word Mix-Ups,” and “Phrases to Avoid” series; these will be called the “Modified Meaning” posts. There are certain verbs that are frequently used with modifying words and phrases that change their meaning. Many new authors leave off the modifying phrases, however, and thus end up using the verb incorrectly. Our example today is the verb afford versus the phrase can afford (or the varieties could afford, couldn’t afford, and can’t afford.)

The verb afford is most often used in the second manner above, which means to be able (or unable) to bear a certain cost. For example:

     We wanted to buy a new computer, but we can’t afford it right now.

     I couldn’t afford to move to a larger apartment.

     The company could afford to pay all of us more.

Many beginning writers, however, might write a sentence like this:

     We afforded new clothing for the dance.

Without the modifying can or could, the verb afford means something different, rendering this sentence a bit nonsensical. When used thusly, afford means to make available, to give forth, or to provide naturally and usually requires a direct and indirect object (something affords something to something else). So our above example means “we made clothing for the dance available,” not “we were able to bear the cost of clothing for the dance.” Here are some examples of afford used correctly:

     These machines have automated the process, which affords our workers a lot of time to work on other things.

     Juan’s relationship with the coach afforded us a lot of courtside tickets.

If you're using afford on its own, you generally need both a direct object and an indirect object. Otherwise, your sentence probably won't make sense.

Usually, when using afford, you’ll mean can or can’t afford. Don’t drop the modifiers unless you’re certain you’re doing so correctly.