In this October 2008 blog post I said that together with is usually a roundabout way of saying, depending on the circumstances, and or with or plus.
Well, it just crossed my mind that a related usage is as well as—you should be able to use and instead.
Often together with and as well as contribute to a long-winded recitation of the elements of a class:
The Borrower hereby grants a security interest to the Lender in, and pledges, assigns and sets over to the Lender, all of the Collateral, together with any certificates representing the same, and all substitutions therefor, proceeds thereof and therefrom, and all cash dividends in respect thereof, as well as all stock or other securities at any time and from time to time receivable or otherwise distributable in respect thereof, exchanged therefor, derived therefrom, substituted therefor, or otherwise issued pursuant to stock split, recapitalization, stock dividend or similar corporate act affecting the Collateral and all distributions, whether cash or otherwise, in the nature of a partial or complete liquidation affecting the Collateral (all of which Collateral, dividends, cash, property, securities, and liquidating distributions are herein called the “Pledged Collateral”).
Using instead enumerated clauses linked with and would be conducive to greater discipline.
“As well as” and “and” are not freely substitutable, though, because “as well as,” although it sounds like a conjunction, is a preposition, and so must take a noun as its object. That’s why “Souter as well as Roberts attended Harvard Law School” sounds all right [Roberts is a noun and can be the object of the preposition], and “My son likes surfing as well as running” sounds so much better than “My son surfs we well as runs,” since “running” is a gerund, i.e. a verb form functioning as a noun, so it can be the object of a preposition, which “runs” can’t.
I agree that “and” can often replace “as well as.” However, I do not believe the shorter choice is always preferable. See, e.g. “He was interested in Dungeons and Dragons as well as Cloak and Dagger.” It’s a silly example, but I think it makes my point.
Christopher: Understood, but your analysis doesn’t preclude replacing as well as with and, which is what I’m suggesting.
S: Point taken, so use and instead of as well as unless semantics require otherwise.
Ken
Ken: As long as what follows “as well as” is a noun or pronoun and not some other part of speech.
“As well” was once a short form–“you know as well (as I do)”. Today it has become padding, a staple in our multimedia diet of supersized, anguished English. For Newspeakers, less is not more. Additional is more! You can find the formula in every t.v. and radio broadcast. Rule 1: Sprinkle sentences with falsely eloquent words (literally, actually, absolutely, opportunity); Rle 2: dazzle listeners by leaving out niggling one syllable words (“is”, “in”, “by”–“brought to you CNN!!”). Want to know the rest?!