| 词组 | regretful, regrettable, regretfully, regrettably |
| 释义 | regretful, regrettable, regretfully, regrettably Fowler 1926 was the first to observe that regretful is sometimes confused with regrettable. Many later commentators have also felt the need to explain the distinction between these words, although the emphasis in recent years has shifted more to the use of the adverbs, regretfully and regrettably. Fowler cited three passages, apparently gleaned from newspapers, in which regretful was used to mean "causing regret" (which is the meaning of regrettable) rather than "feeling or showing regret." Strangely enough, we have no further evidence of regretful used in this way from any other source, including other usage writers, the OED, and our own citation files. If this use of regretful still occurs, it is apparently quite rare. The adverb regretfully, on the other hand, is beginning to show a tendency to be used as a synonym of regrettably, meaning "to a regrettable extent" or "in a manner that causes regret." Our first evidence of this use is from the mid-1960s, which is also when it was first criticized (by Flesch 1964 and Bernstein 1965). It is possible that this use owes something to the similar use of hopefully (which see), which underwent a boom in popularity a few years earlier. Regretfully has never approached hopefully in frequency of use, however. We have only a handful of citations for the disputed sense of regretfully, including the following: • ... seems to have been their last, and regretfully lost, chance to talk with Jenny —Mabel F. Hale, New-England Galaxy, Winter 1965 • ... its regretfully pronounced tendency to obliterate distinctions —Maurice Friedberg, Saturday Rev., 10 Jan. 1970 • ... we regretfully overlooked an announcement — Mort Reed, Springfield (Mass.) Union, 5 Aug. 1972 • Regretfully, that is no grounds for leniency towards him — New Statesman, 20 Aug. 1976 (OED Supplement) Regrettably is still much the more common choice in such contexts: • ... and shows, regrettably, that he is still under their influence —John Kenneth Galbraith, Saturday Rev., 6 Nov. 1971 • None of my uncles, regrettably, was French —S. J. Perelman, N.Y. Times Mag., 15 Jan. 1978 • ... which I regrettably missed —Simon 1980 Note that regrettably functions in these passages as a sentence modifier (see sentence adverb), more or less equivalent to "I regret to say." Regretfully in the passage from New Statesman functions in the same way. |
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