Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Hamlet]

I wrote the following sentence...

"On the days I was home with my child, particularly when I had to do things like change messy diapers and clean up vomited milk, I was envious of the professional women I knew."

My editor gave me the feedback...

Change the phrase "change messy diapers and clean up" to "changing messy diapers and cleaning up"

With the additional comment...

Don�t they have to be gerunds to come after the preposition �like�?

Is there an exception to the rule that prepositions have to be followed by gerunds, or is my sentence wrong?

Thanks!

[robot]

Your editor is right about the edit, though I'm sure the sentence he gave was "changing messy diapers and cleaning up vomited milk" to keep the parallelism.

What you wrote might be passable (though grammatically wrong) in speech, but it's quite awkward written.

"Things" is a noun. "Clean up" is a verb (a phrasal one).

"I do things like clean up" is awkward -- to compare, this is the same grammatical form as "I do things like change messy diapers".

"I do things like cleaning up" flows much better, since "cleaning up" in this gerund form now functions as a noun.

As for the rule of following prepositions by gerunds, this is a confusing way of looking at it, and not at all the correct way. So just look to "things" as the word that dictates the word form needed.

[Privateer]

"things" is a noun.

"do things" is a verb.

I say the OP's sentence is fine. And if it isn't fine, then I guess the way people normally talk is also not fine.

[Chokse]

The editor is correct and the writer should use gerunds. Furthermore, "the way people normally talk" is very rarely "fine". In conversational English, grammar is often butchered, especially by native speakers. In formal writing, one is expected to follow grammar rules.

[The Cosmic Hum]

[BreakfastInBed]

[T-J]

[Hamlet]

Thanks for the replies everyone. I appreciate the feedback.

I think I got the correct answer, though, from another forum called Word Reference. The key to this sentence is realizing that the word "like" is not being used as a preposition; it's being used in place of "such as." Here is the exact answer I got, in case your interested.

Your sentence is grammatically correct.

Here, 'like' is not functioning prepositionally, and the verb forms are governed by 'had to':

On the days I was home with my child, particularly when I had to do [INFINITIVE] things like (= such as) change [INFINITIVE] messy diapers and clean up [INFINITIVE] vomited milk, I was envious of the professional women I knew.

It's not the same use of 'like' as in:

I felt like (*= such as) throwing up, myself.

If any of you are writers or editors, or just have grammar questions, Word Reference is a great forum.

Cheers

[The Cosmic Hum]