"A fool such as I"

Picture of Elvis from Biography.com

When my students of English have trouble using "such as" correctly, I use a pool of fish as an analogy. Such as refers only to some of these fish; the rest stay in the pool. The pool represents the category, and the fish are examples -- an INCOMPLETE LIST.

We cannot talk about the sexes such as men and women, as those are the only two. Nor can I refer to my nephews such as Lee, Len and Irem, because those are all the nephews I have.

I've begun to feel like a broken record, going over my standard fish story again and again. [Meanwhile, the metaphor of the broken record is outdated -- we now listen to Ipods and CDs and suchlike. Nobody -- except maybe Stewart Maclean's protagonist Dave, of the Vinyl Cafe, has records any more.]

Looking for a new way to remind my students how to use "such as" correctly, I thought of Elvis Presley's song. Elvis sang these romantic lyrics back in 1961, to the accompaniment of screaming teenage fans.

"I'm a fool but I'll love you, dear, until the day I die;

Now and then, there's a fool such as I."

You can hear the whole song here on

YouTube.

At the risk of sounding unromantic, let me paraphrase the meaning of the second line quoted above.  Only occasionally is there a fool like the singer. He is one among many who are not fools.

Previous
Previous

Such a long journey

Next
Next

When commas and pandas go rogue