| 词组 | atop |
| 释义 | atop Use of atop as a preposition is called "well established journalese" by Evans 1957; he has some doubts about its use in literary English. G. V. Carey, in American Into English (1953), says the preposition is frequent in American prose but rare in British prose. Copperud 1970 says other criticisms of the preposition are sometimes heard, but we have not seen them. The organization of Murray's definition in the OED suggests that he thought atop was first an adverb, which came to be used with of for an object, and then became a preposition by omission of of. This explanation is plausible enough (it is similar to the development of alongside), but the earliest citation for the preposition is a year or two older than the earliest for the adverb. It seems equally possible that adverb and preposition developed concurrently. Except for his use of the pejorative journalese, Evans seems to have been on the right track essentially. Our evidence shows that the preposition became established in American journalism during the first quarter of the 20th century. The preposition is now the prevalent use and is no longer confined to journalism. The adverb atop and the compound preposition atop of, which Evans suggested avoiding as too literary, are simply not often used any more. We have nothing very recent for atop of: • A top of the great hill she stopped for breath —Maurice Hewlett, Halfway House, 1908 The adverb pops up once in a while: • He [a horse] had a heart murmur, a deformed front foot, and his fifteen hands were almost all taken up by legs, with a reedy, angular body atop —R. C. Rodgers, Northeast Horseman, February 1980 The preposition prevails in American use, and it even turns up now and then in British: • ... a small church with timbered bell cote and a high timbered porch sits atop a hill —Sheila Green, Country Quest (Wrexham, Wales), May 1975 • ... sits atop the nonfiction best-seller list —Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, N. Y. Times, 2 Aug. 1983 • ... commemorated in stone atop a monumental column in Mountain Grove Cemetery —E. L. Docto-row, Ragtime, 1975 • ... material of varying shapes and sizes piled atop one another —Philip Roth, Reading Myself and Others, 1975 |
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