It looks like it will rain or It looks like as if it will rain

Question

Which of the following sentences is correct?1) It looks like it will rain.2) It looks as if it will rain.If both are possible, do they mean the same thing?If so, which would you use?Thank you.

Cool Breeze · Accepted Answer

Both are correct. This quotation is from Random House Unabridged Dictionary:

—Usage. LIKE as a conjunction meaning “as, in the same way as” (Many shoppers study the food ads like brokers study market reports) or “as if ” (It looks like it will rain) has been used for nearly 500 years and by many distinguished literary and intellectual figures. Since the mid-19th century there have been objections, often vehement, to these uses. Nevertheless, such uses are almost universal today in all but the most formal speech and writing. In extremely careful speech and in much formal writing, as, as if, and as though are more commonly used than LIKE: The commanding general accepted full responsibility for the incident, as any professional soldier would. Many of the Greenwich Village bohemians lived as if (or as though) there were no tomorrow.
The strong strictures against the use of LIKE as a conjunction have resulted in the occasional hypercorrect use of as as a preposition where LIKE is idiomatic: She looks as a sympathetic person.

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It looks like it will rain or It looks like as if it will rain

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