I can’t remember hearing anyone use the phrase “so long as” in the past weeks, er, perhaps months or years. We’re all attuned to using “as long as” whenever we want to use a conditional or a comparative.
“A what?” you ask.
A comparative compares things, such as length. For instance, “That trailer is twice as long as mine.” You’re comparing someone else’s trailer to your own, even though it’s a stupid comparison.
Now, say you want to purchase that longer trailer, you might think to yourself, using common daily (mis)grammar, “As long as I keep my job, I can buy that trailer”
However, in this case you should be expressing a conditional. Buying that bigger trailer is conditioned upon your keeping your job and your income –“so long as I keep my job.”
Now, almost no one speaking to another would say “so long as I keep my job.” Almost everyone, probably 9,999 out of 1,000 (or even greater), would say “as long as I keep my job.”
When it comes to everyday spoken English, the misuse of the comparative for the conditional generally poses no problem in being understood.
What I have a beef with are writers, who use English to earn a living, who continually confuse the conditional with the comparative.
So long as these writers continue to misuse English grammar, I have a beef as long as my driveway.
Wow, what a silly, bad statement, but it’s at least using the conditional and the comparative correctly.