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assess

“Assess” is a transitive verb; it needs an object. You can assess your team’s chances of winning the bowl game, but you cannot assess that they are playing better than last year. “Assess” is not an all-purpose synonym of “judge” or “estimate.” Most of the time if you write “assess that” you are making a mistake. The errors arise when “that” is being used as a conjunction. Exceptions arise when “that” is a pronoun or adverb: “How do you assess that?” “I assess that team’s chances as good.”

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as such

The expression “as such” has to refer to some status mentioned earlier. “The CEO was a former drill sergeant, and as such expected everyone to obey his orders instantly.” In this case “such” refers back to “former drill sergeant.” But often people only imply that which is referred to, as in “The CEO had a high opinion of himself and as such expected everyone to obey his orders instantly.” Here the “such” cannot logically refer back to “opinion.” Replace “as such” with “therefore.”

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as per

“Enclosed is the shipment of #2 toggle bolts as per your order of June 14” writes the businessman, unaware that not only is the “as” redundant, he is sounding very old-fashioned and pretentious. The meaning is “in accordance with,” or “in response to the request made”; but it is better to avoid these cumbersome substitutes altogether: “Enclosed is the shipment of bolts you ordered June 14.”

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as of yet

“As of yet” is a windy and pretentious substitute for plain old English “yet” or “as yet,” an unjustified extension of the pattern in sentences like “as of Friday the 27th of May.”

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as follow

“My birthday requests are as follows.” This standard phrase doesn’t change number when the items to follow grow from one to many. It’s never correct to say “as follow.”

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as far as

Originally people used to say things like “As far as music is concerned, I especially love Baroque opera.” Recently they have begun to drop the “is concerned” part of the phrase. Perhaps this shift was influenced by confusion with a similar phrase, “as for.” “As for money, I don’t have any,” is fine; “As far as money, I don’t have any,” is clumsy.

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as best as

You can try to be as good as you can be, but it’s not standard to say that you do something “as best as you can.” You need to eliminate the second “as” when “good” changes to “best.” You can try to do something as best you can. You can also do the best that you can (or even better, the best you can).

Unlike asbestos removal, “as best as” removal is easy, and you don’t have to wear a hazmat suit.

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