| 词组 | relatively |
| 释义 | relatively Relatively has been subjected to the same strictures as comparatively has been—namely, that it should not be used to modify an adjective when no comparison is stated or implied—and by essentially the same commentators. The first to state the proposition seems to have been Gowers 1948, who later added it to Fowler 1965. It also appears in Bernstein 1958, 1965, Evans 1957, Nickles 1974, Shaw 1975, Phythian 1979, Bryson 1984, and Heritage 1982. The definition of comparatively in the OED might have given Gowers a basis for his assertion, even though he would have had to narrow it considerably (see comparatively 1), but the OED definition at relatively makes no mention at all of comparisons, either stated or implied. The OED examples show that the usage Gowers dislikes has been established since the earliest uses of the adverb to modify adjectives. In current practice, both uses of relatively—without an explicit comparison and with an explicit comparison—are common, and there is no valid reason for you to bother yourself about which way you use the word. Here are a few examples of both: • I had a talk with Armstrong, who was looking quite spick and span in relatively new clothes —The Journals of Arnold Bennett, ed. Frank Swinnerton, 1954 • It apparently made relatively slow progress at the start, but after a couple of years it was in wide and indeed almost general use —H. L. Mencken, The American Language, Supplement I, 1945 • ... the springbuck, the blesbuck, and the black wildebeest, denizens of high, relatively bare, plateau country —J. Stevenson-Hamilton, Wild Life in South Africa, 1947 • ... grew up to be a tall blond youth—relatively unspoiled in spite of his wealth —William Styron, Lie Down in Darkness, 1951 An atomic problem is not absolutely insoluble A • problem is only relatively insoluble; insoluble with given tools —W. W. Sawyer, Prelude to Mathematics, 1955 • ... these two features are amongst the relatively few fundamental ones that distinguish our handling of words and sentences from that of 1611 —W. F. Bolton, A Short History of Literary English, 1967 • Yes, men were relatively fragile —Norman Mailer, Harper's, March 1971 • The relatively few American leaders who understood the military absurdity of this exercise were quickly cowed —Chester Bowles, Saturday Rev., 6 Nov. 1971 • Those who are worried about their status discover in the use of textbook English a relatively easy way to assert their superiority to the masses —Barnard 1979 • By comparison the progress of Leonid Brezhnev ... seems relatively modest —Geoffrey Hosking, Times Literary Supp., 15 Aug. 1980 |
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