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A. He is tall as I am.

B. He can run fast as I can.

C. He can sing as She can.

Are the sentences above grammatical? I used as instead of as...as construction. What are the meaning of these sentences? I think A means I'm tall and so is he. B means that I can run fast and so can he.Here how fast we can run aren't compared,it simply means we both can run fast. C means either He can sing the way/how she can sing or She can sing and so can he.I can't understand the meaning clearly. I'm so confused. Please clear my confusion.

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  • Didn't you already ask this question?
    – Michael Harvey
    Feb 16 at 10:55
  • Not in my dialect you can't. Though I've heard English dialects (as in from England) where this sort of structure is common. I'm not a big fan, though. I'm not sure any native speaker would use the structure shown in sample sentence C.
    – Jaime
    Feb 16 at 11:12
  • Sentence C could be acceptable if you added a complement or an adverb, e.g. He can sing as well she can.
    – Mari-Lou A
    Feb 16 at 11:46
  • I would say these are very close to being grammatical and meaning what you intend, but it is a rather formal way of saying this. B is especially ambiguous, and sounds a bit like an informal way of saying "as fast as me". In the kind of usage you're describing, we usually use a comma and the inverted word order "..., as am I/as can I/as can she." I'm trying to find a reference for that.
    – stangdon
    Feb 16 at 12:35
  • Possible reference: english.stackexchange.com/questions/280371/…
    – stangdon
    Feb 16 at 12:35

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These aren't comparisons. The first would be better punctuated "He is tall, as I am" and means "He is tall and I am also tall" It is not a particularly idiomatic way of expressing that fact.

Similarly the second mean "He can run fast and I can run fast too." Or more idiomatically, "We can both run fast."

The phrasing of these is so close to the common structure for making comparisons that they seem to be deliberately confusing. Avoid making sentences like this, even if they are grammatically well formed.

It might be worth also noting that small unstressed words like "as" do sometimes get deleted in speech, this would result in someone saying "He can run () fast as I can", having deleted the first "as". That's not really a grammar rule, but rather a general observation about rapid speech. The listener would almost unconsciously re-insert the "as".

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  • The sentence She sings as I do means "She sings the way I sing" or "She sings and I sing too"?
    – Sahil Laskar
    Feb 16 at 17:38
  • And also the sentence She sings like me means "She sings the way I sing" or "She sings and I sing too"?
    – Sahil Laskar
    Feb 16 at 17:40

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