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today i stumbled upon 2 different sources of information

  1. like/as though/as if
  2. look, seem and appear

and these got me confused, because look like + clause sounds so natural to me and bbc has always been my favorite page for learning english.Howerver as a true learner i simply cannot turn a blind eye to a piece of information because it's unpopular.

So, the bottom line question is : is it possible to have a clause following the look like structure? EX "It looks like it will rain" .

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    Your first link (to grammarerrors.com) is just outdated/pedantic tosh. Ignore it. If it looks like you need convincing, look at an estimated 12,000 written instances in that link.
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Sep 28, 2017 at 13:19
  • I'd never heard of a rule that you can't use a clause after "look like" - certainly it's very common to do so. So it looks like I'm agreeing with the BBC.
    – PMV
    Commented Sep 28, 2017 at 13:21
  • I'm familiar with that rule. I've seen it in the style guides of last century. The problem with publishing grammar, usage and style all under the same cover is that a number of students never learn to distinguish between the three. For example, the same guides might recommend "among the three" over "between the three" -- where no difference in grammar exists.
    – Gary Botnovcan
    Commented Sep 28, 2017 at 14:02
  • I just find something like this dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-grammar/common-verbs/… And it state that it look like can be follow by noun phrase but they do not include a simple clause case.So is the whole "a clause can follow it look like" thing is just too common for it to list or something's missing here. I've been using this dictionary as a source of reference lately, it's crecible right?
    – Jessi
    Commented Sep 29, 2017 at 8:55
  • A similar point is made by bigwords101.com/2013/uncategorized/… and this was widely considered a "rule" of grammar through the 1960s. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/… mentions the uproar when the descriptivist Webster's 3rd edition refused to condemn this usage.
    – David Siegel
    Commented Jan 26, 2021 at 23:22

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If you mean in the context of

it seems as though it will rain

or

it appears it will rain

Then absolutely you can say, "It looks like it will rain". I don't know where the "grammar errors" site is getting its information, but (at least in American English) this is used all the time.

She looks like she's about ten years old.

It looks like there are going to be a lot of people at the conference.

It looks like that site is offering grammar "rules" without sources to back them up.

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  • i knew something was off with that site cause i've been hearing "it looks like it's gonna rain" my whole life.Imagine knowing for sure that 1+1=2 and someone comes in and says otherwise.Thanks for you clarification gents/ladies. P/S: is it safe to assume that bbc is a good and reliable source of english material ?
    – Jessi
    Commented Sep 29, 2017 at 8:53

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