| 单词 | 很流行 |
| 释义 | 〔equal〕It has been argued thatequal is an absolute term— two quantities either are or are not equal—and hence cannot be qualified as to degree.Therefore one cannot logically speak ofa more equal allocation of resources among the departments. However, this usage was accepted by 71 percent of the Usage Panel in an earlier survey.What is more, objection to the usage betrays a widespread but questionable assumptionthat it is in mathematics and logic that we find the model of accuracy most appropriate to the everyday use of language,a supposition that also underlies traditional grammatical discussions of words such asunique, parallel, and center. According to this account,the "precise" or "literal" meaning ofequal is realized in the use of the equal sign in an arithmetic expression such as 5 + 2 = 7; and the ordinary-language uses of the term,though they may be permissible,represent "loose" or "imprecise" extensions of that sense.But in fact the mathematical concept of equality is a poor model for using the wordequal to describe relations between things in the world. As applied to such things,statements of equality are always relative to an implicit standard of tolerance.When someone saysThe two boards are of equal length, we assume that the equality is reckoned to some order of approximation determined by the context;if we did not,we would be required always to usenearly equal when speaking of the dimensions of physical objects. What is more,we often want to predicate equality of things that do not admit of quantitative measurement,as when we sayThe college draft was introduced in an effort to make the teams in the National Football League as equal as possible, orThe candidates for the job should all be given equal consideration. In all such cases,equality is naturally a gradient notionand so is amenable to modification in degree.This much is evident from the existence of the wordunequal. The prefixun- attaches only to gradient adjectives: we sayunmanly but not unmale; and the worduneven can be applied to a surface (whose evenness may be a matter of degree) but not to a number (whose evenness is an either-or affair). ·The adverbequally is generally regarded as redundant when used in combination with as, and the following examples employingequally as were termed unacceptable by 63 percent of the Usage Panel in an earlier survey: 单词equal 一向被认为是一个很绝对的词语—— 两个数量要么相同要么不同——这样就不能有程度上的差别。所以，如果有人说在各部门间对资源更公平的分配 ，那么就不合逻辑了。 但是这种用法在早先的用法调查中被百分之七十一用法使用小组的人接受。而且，对这种用法的反对体现出了一种很流行但却值得怀疑的假设，那就是我们从数学和逻辑中得出适用于日常语言准确性的实例，而这种假设也可从我们对一些词，如unique，parallel 和 center 传统的语法讨论中体现出来。 根据这个解释，equal “准确”或“书面”的意思则是由在算术表达式，如5+2=7中所运用的相同的符号而表达清楚的； 而该词在日常语言中的用法，虽然被允许，但却代表了其含意“松散”或“不严谨”的引申。但是实际上用数学概念上的相等来运用equal 这个词描述世上各种事物之间的关系是一个很差劲的例子。 当该词应用于生活中的事物时，相等的观念往往与暗含的容忍相关联。当有人说两块木板同样长 时， 我们会认为由于上下文的关系，相等可以被看作大约近似；如果我们不这样想，那么当我们谈到物体的尺寸时，就要经常使用nearly equal 。 另外，我们常常会预测和数量无关的事物的相同性，比如我们会说，引入大学的要求是为了使全国足球联合会中的各队尽可能平等 ， 或者应给予该项工作的应征者同等的考虑 。 在所有这些例子中，相等是个可变化的概念，所以可在程度有所不同。Unequal 这个词的存在就是很好的证明。 un- 这个前缀只附加于有程序变化的形容词， 我们说unmanly 但不说 unmale ； 而uneven 这个词只能用于某物的表面（其平坦可有程度上的差别）， 而不能用于数目（数目只能说相等或不相等）。Equally 这一副词在与 as 连用时通常被认为是多余的， 在早先的用法调查中，以下这些使用equally as 的句子遭到百分之六十三使用小组的人反对： 〔kind〕This kind of films is popular (compare This species of spider is found only in the New World ). 这种电影很流行（与 这种蜘蛛只在西半球界发现过 比较）。 〔masque〕A dramatic entertainment, usually performed by masked players representing mythological or allegorical figures, that was popular in England in the 16th and early 17th centuries.假面剧：一种戏剧性娱乐，由代表神话或寓言中人物的佩戴面具者表演，该娱乐形式在16世纪和17世纪早期的英国很流行〔kind〕These kind of films are popular. 这种电影很流行。 〔fizzle〕In Philemon Holland's 1601 translation of Pliny'sNatural History, we are surprised by the use of the wordfizzle in the statement that if asses eat a certain plant,"they will fall a fizling and farting.” Fizzle was first used in English to mean,in the decorous parlance of theOxford English Dictionary, "to break wind without noise.” During the 19th centuryfizzle took on a related but more respectable sense, "to hiss, as does a piece of fireworks,”illustrated by a quotation from the November 7, 1881, issue of theLondon Daily News: "unambitious rockets which fizzle doggedly downwards.”In the same centuryfizzle also took on figurative senses, one of which seems to have been popular at Yale.TheYale Literary Magazine for 1849 helpfully defines the word as follows: “Fizzle, to rise with modest reluctance, to hesitate often, to decline finally; generally, to misunderstand the question.”The figurative sense offizzle that has caught on is the one with which we are most familiar today, "to fail or die out.”在腓利门荷兰1601年对普林尼的博物志 中， 我们对fizzle 一词的用法感到很惊讶， 它说如果驴吃了某种植物，“他们就会放屁。” Fizzle 首先在英语中指“无声地放屁，”是在牛津英语字典 的高雅用语中出现的。 在19世纪，fizzle 有了一个相关的但更文雅的含义， “发嘶嘶声，如同烟火那样，”这个词义是通过1881年11月7日的伦敦每日新闻 的引文说明的： “抱负不大的火箭，它们顽固地嘶嘶下坠。”同一世纪，fizzle 还赋与了比喻义， 其中的一个比喻义似乎在耶鲁大学很流行。1849年的耶鲁文学杂志 给这个词下了一个有益的定义： “Fizzle， 不十分情愿地上升，常犹豫不决，最终放弃； 通常是弄错问题。”人们已接受的fizzle 的比喻义， 即今天我们最为熟悉的“失败或消失”〔cohort〕The use ofcohort to refer to an individual rather than a group has gained considerable currency in recent years, and seems now to be the predominant usage.Seventy-one percent of the Usage Panel accepts the sentence 使用cohort 来指个别的而不是一群的在近年已很流行， 现在似乎已大量地使用。百分之七十一的用法专题使用小组成员接受这个句子 〔partlet〕A collared, usually ruffled covering for the neck and shoulders, popular in 16th-century Europe and worn especially by women.打褶乡花小衣：位于颈部或肩部，上了领子且通常打了褶的覆盖小衣，16世纪的欧洲很流行，妇女尤爱穿着〔prevailing〕"The drinking of tea . . . now . . . became very rife" (John Galt).“饮茶…现在…变得很流行” （约翰·高尔特） |
| 随便看 |
|
学习网英语词汇栏目收词371507余条，连同派生词、复合词、词组和习语等。每个词条提供了音标、词性、释义、用法、搭配和同（近）义词等多项功能，对所收词汇进行全方位的解释和说明，内容丰富，功能全面。