单词 | 标准用法 |
释义 | 〔transpire〕Transpire has been used since the mid-18th century in the sense "leak out, become publicly known,” as inDespite efforts to hush the matter up, it soon transpired that the colonels had met with the rebel leaders. This usage was objected to as a Gallicism when it was first introducedbut has long been standard.The more common use oftranspire to mean "occur" or "happen" has had a more troubled history.Though it dates at least to the beginning of the 19th century,it has been the object of critical opprobrium for more than a hundred years,charged with being both pretentious and unetymological.There is some signthat resistance to this sense oftranspire is abating, however. In a 1969 survey the usagewas acceptable only to 38 percent of the Usage Panel;in the most recent surveyit was acceptable to 58 percent in the sentenceAll of these events transpired after last week's announcement (though many of the Panelists who accepted the usage also remarked that it was pretentious or pompous).Transpire 这个词从18世纪中叶开始一直有“泄漏,为公众所知”的意思, 如尽管竭力掩盖事实真相,但人们很快就得知军官们已经与反叛者的领导人会晤。 当这种用法一开始出现时,有人把它当作法国式用法而提出异议,但现在它早已成为标准用法。Transpire 更为普通的用法是“发生”或“碰巧发生”的意思, 这个用法的历史更为复杂。尽管这种用法至少可以追溯到19世纪初期,但一百多年以来它一直遭到批评反对,人们认为这个用法不仅矫饰而且在词源上毫无根据。但是有迹象表明,对transpire 的这个词义的异议正在消失。 在一次1969年进行的调查中,用法委员会成员中只有38%的人接受这种用法。在最近进行的一次调查中,有58%的人认为象在所有这些事件都发生在上个星期的宣告之后 这样的句子中,这个词的用法是可以接受的 (许多接受这种用法的使用者也指出这种用法很矫柔造作)〔ax〕Ax, a common nonstandard variant of ask, is often identified as an especially salient feature of African American Vernacular English. While it is true that the form is frequent in the speech of African Americans, it used to be common in the speech of white Americans as well, especially in New England. This should not be surprising since ax is a very old word in English, having been used in England for over 1,000 years. In Old English we find both āscian and ācsian, and in Middle English both asken and axen. Moreover, the forms with cs or x had no stigma associated with them. Chaucer used asken and axen interchangeably, as in the lines "I wol aske, if it hir will be/To be my wyf" and "Men axed hym, what sholde bifalle,” both from The Canterbury Tales. The forms in x arose from the forms in sk by a linguistic process called metathesis, in which two sounds are reversed. The x thus represents (ks), the flipped version of (sk). Metathesis is a common linguistic process around the world and does not arise from a defect in speaking. Nevertheless, ax has become stigmatized as substandard—a fate that has befallen other words, like ain't, that were once perfectly acceptable in literate circles. ask 的一般非标准变体 ax 常被认为是美国黑人英语极为显著的特色。尽管美国黑人在交谈中的确使用ax这种形式,但美国白人也在口语中普遍使用它,尤其是新英格兰的白人。不必对此表示惊奇,因为 ax 是个很古老的英语词汇,在英语中至少使用了1000年以上。古英语中有 āscian 和 ācsian, ,中古英语中有 asken 和 axen 。而且,带 cs 或 x 的形式同不好的含义无关。乔叟在下文中交替使用 asken 和 axen :"I wol aske, if it hir will be/To be my wyf(我问道,这是真是幻/将成为我的妻子)”和"Men axed hym, what sholde bifalle(人们问他,会降临什么)”,这两句话都出自 《坎特伯利故事集》 。带 sk 的形式经由 换位 的语言过程产生带 x 的形式,换位就是将两个音位置颠倒。因此 x 表示(ks)的发音,即(sk)的翻转发音。换位是世界通用的语言过程并且不会造成交谈中的欠缺。但 ax 已被记作非标准用法──同样降临在曾一度被知识界完全接受的其它单词(如 ain't )的命运 〔escape〕This usage is well establishedand should be regarded as standard.这个用法很有可能被确定下来,将来也许会被看作是标准用法 |
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