| 词组 | disinterested, uninterested |
| 释义 | disinterested, uninterested Copperud 1970 says the following (among other things) about these words: "The umpire, ideally, would be disinterested; one who did not care about the game would be uninterested. A useful distinction is being blurred. Flesch concludes the battle is already lost, and Fowler wistfully wonders whether rescue is still possible Despite the critics, the battle does seem lost " Dozens of other commentators on the subject echo the same sentiments. So far from being lost or blurred, however, the ethical sense of disinterested makes up more than 70 percent of the citations for the word gathered by Merriam-Webster from about 1934 to the 1970s. It constitutes more than 72 percent of the citations gathered so far in the 1980s. The "beautiful older sense of the word" (to quote John Wain, N. Y. Times Book Rev., 20 July 1980) is alive and well, as it has been throughout the 20th century; reports of its demise have been shamefully exaggerated. The discovery that disinterested and uninterested were differentiated in meaning seems to have been an American one, and it was made at nearly the same time as the discovery that disinterested was being used to mean "uninterested." Our earliest evidence is from Utter 1916, who states, "Disinterested in the sense of uninterested is now obsolete." But MacCracken & Sandison 1917 are at pains to distinguish between a disinterested judge and an uninterested one, which suggests that Utter was wrong. (MacCracken & Sandison, incidentally, appear to be the first to use the illustrative phrase "a disinterested judge," which is reused with considerable frequency by usage writers right into the 1980s, notwithstanding that, as far as we can tell, it is almost never used by writers employing disinterested in ordinary discourse. The Merriam-Webster collection of 20th-century citations shows but a single occurrence of the combination, and that one negative: "The concern that lawyers and judges are not sufficiently disinterested"—Thomas F. Coon, Police, March-April 1968.) Several commentators distinguish disinterested and uninterested in the 20s, 30s, and 40s; lament for the lost distinction does not appear to have begun until about 1950: • ... the noble word "disinterested" is thus being lost, because so few writers (and virtually no journalists) will write the word "uninterested" any longer — Ruth Shepard Phelps Morand, letter to the editor, American Scholar, Winter 1949-50 • We are always a little sad when we see a word losing a pristine meaning that is still useful. We feel that way about "disinterested," for example —The Pleasures of Publishing, July 1953 • More people seem to be saying disinterested when they mean uninterested.... If the Linguistic Scientist found the whole world writing and speaking so, that would only mean that a noble distinction, hard to replace, had been lost —I. A. Richards, Confluence, March 1954 The sense of loss continues unabated today: • ... she must be—to use a good old word that is rapidly losing its usefulness—disinterested —Wayne C. Booth, in Introduction to Scholarship in Modern Languages and Literatures, ed. Joseph Gibaldi, 1981 The notion that the ethical sense is older (as expressed by John Wain, above, and numerous others) is erroneous. The OED shows that the earlier sense of disinterested is the simple negative of interested; it is dated before 1612; the earliest attestation of the ethical sense is 1659. Curiously, the earliest uses of uninterested are for ethical senses (both 17th century); the modern use is not attested until 1771. The OED editor, James A. H. Murray, was uncertain of the status in his time of the simple negative sense of disinterested, marking it "? 0fo[olete]." The 1933 Supplement removed the label and presented, without comment, three modern citations, all British, all dated 1928. This evidence refutes the assertion of Anthony Burgess, quoted in Harper 1985, that this use of disinterested is "one of the worst of all American solecisms." On the contrary, it is the discovery of the usage problem that is American. The issue was unknown to Fowler 1926 (the Fowler mentioned by Copperud 1970 is, in fact, Sir Ernest Gowers in his 1965 revision of Fowler), and it is unremarked in the 1933 OED Supplement. Treble & Vallins 1937 make the distinction; Partridge 1942 calls the use of disinterested for uninterested a mistake; the 1972 OED Supplement notes that it is "Often regarded as a loose use." The vehemence of opinion directed against the earliest sense of disinterested appears to have increased over the years with American leadership. Harper 1985 for example, shows 100 percent rejection of the use; in 1975 it had only been 91 percent. We have mentioned the OED evidence. What of other dictionaries? Samuel Johnson in 1755 recognizes both the ethical and the simple negative senses of disinterested; he lists the ethical sense first—it was his own use: • Sir, you have a right to that kind of respect, and are arguing for yourself. I am supporting the principle, and am disinterested in doing it, as I have no such right —quoted in James Boswell, Life of Samuel Johnson, 1791 Noah Webster in 1828 also recognizes both senses, and he adds this comment: "This word is more generally used than uninterested.'''' Webster's observation still holds true, and it is likely that the relative infrequency of uninterested has contributed to the continued use of disinterested in its place. What of actual usage, historical and modern? As with many issues of English usage, when much heat of opinion is generated, the subtleties of genuine use by purposeful writers are frequently overlooked (compare, for instance, enormity, enormousness). The evidence shows a marked distinction between the way in which the ethical sense is used and that in which the simple negative sense is used. The ethical sense is applied more than 60 percent of the time to nonhuman nouns: • Disinterested intellectual curiosity is the life-blood of real civilization —G. M. Trevelyan, English Social History, 1942 • ... because a disinterested love of learning is here first implanted in its students —Nathan M. Pusey, "A Program for Harvard College," 8 Oct. 1956 • ... the old man was tripped up by a gaily-colored hoop sent rolling at him, with a kind of disinterested deliberation, by a grim little girl —James Thurber, Fables for Our Time, and Famous Poems Illustrated, 1940 Jane Austen uses the term with a suggestion of being free from selfish sexual motive: • He was now the Mr. Crawford who was addressing herself with ardent, disinterested love; whose feelings were apparently become all that was honourable and upright —Mansfield Park, 1814 This use finds an occasional modern echo: • Usually it was just the three of us, but we would often end the evening with a friend of his. These junkets were in all ways delightful and disinterested. Lewis had a serious interest in a classmate of Elaine; and at that time neither Elaine nor I had any serious interests whatever —Katherine Hoskins, "Notes on a Navy Childhood," Prose, 1974 You will perceive that these two uses are not far from the simple negative sense, except that the underlying interested is in these cases more heavily charged with meaning than it usually is at present. The word interested, indeed, was a more intense word in the past than now: • No day has passed ... without my most interested wishes for your health —Samuel Pepys, letter, 4 Sept. 1665 (OED) Here interested is close in meaning to modern uses of concerned. It is the greater intensity of interested that makes earlier simple negative uses of disinterested hard for us moderns to distinguish from uses of the ethical sense. Here is Jane Austen again; the interest must be chiefly monetary: • His choice is disinterested, at least, for he must know my father can give her nothing —Pride and Prejudice, 1813 The ethical sense is also applied to people: • ... in which we see the best side of the people and their most disinterested selves —Roger N. Baldwin, Civil Liberties, March 1955 • ... to insure that all work is well evaluated ... by knowledgeable yet disinterested referees —Eugene Wall, American Documentation, April 1967 • Don't you think that priests make more disinterested rulers than lay politicians? —Wilfrid Sheed, People Will Always Be Kind, 1973 It is when the ethical sense is applied to people that its meaning can be understood as the simple negative sense, especially if the construction and context are not unmistakable: • A clergyman cannot be disinterested about theology, nor a soldier about war —Bertrand Russell, Education and The Good Life, 1926 The construction in which disinterested is followed by a preposition creates some ambiguity and raises the possibility of misinterpretation, especially when the moral sense is the one intended. The modern simple negative sense is followed by a preposition just about half the time, but it is almost always in: • Unsocial, but not antisocial. Contemptuous of other people. Disinterested in women —Dr. James A. Brüssel, profile of a so-called "Mad Bomber," reprinted in Rolling Stone, 15 Nov. 1979 The simple negative sense, in its earlier uses, carries the stronger senses of interested, which are now largely out of use. Here is an example of it in a context where lack of financial interest is the underlying meaning: • But they are far from being disinterested, and if they are the most trustworthy ... , they in general demand for the transport of articles, a sum at least double to what others of the trade would esteem a reasonable recompense —George Borrow, The Bible in Spain, 1843 By the early 20th century, our weakened sense of interested is detectable in the use of disinterested: • The only discordant note now is the services conducted perfunctorily by ignorant or disinterested priests —William Roscoe Thayer, letter, 26 Oct. 1906 • ... an editor who in a disinterested voice sat issuing assignments for the day —Ben Hecht, Erik Dorn, 1921 • The inquiry was answered in a vague and disinterested manner—The Spectator, 1 May 1926 In most recent citations, the weakening is patent: • Although Sister Bear is anxious to learn baseball, Papa Bear forces lessons on her disinterested brother —TV Guide, 2 May 1985 Lamberts 1972 makes the point that in English many pairs beginning with dis- and un- are differentiated: unarmed, disarmed; unengaged, disengaged; unproved, disproved; unable, disable; unaffected, disaffected; unconnected, disconnected. He notes the dis- in each case means "was once but is no longer," "From here," he says, "it is only a short jump to uninterested, disinterested." This meaning of dis- does, in fact, color many uses of disinterested, beginning early in the 20th century: • When I grow tired or disinterested in anything, I experience a disgust —Jack London, letter, 24 Feb. 1914 • What often happens in such cases is that husband and wife become disinterested in each other —Theodore Isaac Rubin, Ladies' Home Jour., September 1971 • Those spotted are usually taught so slowly they grow disinterested and quit —N. Y. Times, 25 June 1967 • ... I can recall that I was becoming increasingly disinterested in physical exertion and exercise —Mort Diamond, Scouting, April 1966 The simple negative sense of disinterested, then, has lost, with the weakening of interested, the more highly charged meaning that it had in the 17th to 19th centuries, but it has gained a subsense with the meaning "having lost interest." Uninterested is, of course, in use, although with not so great a frequency as disinterested in the same sense. Here are a few examples: • ... but the greater part of the young gentlemen having no particular parents to speak of, were wholly uninterested in the thing —Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby, 1839 • ... seems totally uninterested in Manhattan, its bright lights, glamour, style —Curry Kirkpatrick, Sports Illustrated, 26 Nov. 1984 • My fear of deep water left the Navy simply uninterested —Russell Baker, Growing Up, 1982 Conclusion: The alleged confusion between disinterested and uninterested does not exist. Nor has the ethical sense of disinterested been lost—to the contrary, it is used more than twice as often (in published writing) as the other senses. Disinterested carries the bulk of use for all meanings; uninterested is much less frequently used. In current use, disinterested has three meanings: an ethical one, "free from selfish motive or bias"; a simple negative one, "not interested"; and a slightly more emphatic one, "having lost interest." Of these the simple negative is the oldest, the ethical one next, and "having lost interest" the most recent. The ethical sense of disinterested is applied both to human and nonhuman subjects, but more often to the latter; the simple negative sense is usually applied to human subjects. About half the time it is used in the construction disinterested in—this construction is not used for the ethical sense. Uninterested originally had ethical senses (its earliest), which appear to be dead, although a Harper 1975 usage panelist noted getting a letter from a lawyer referring to "uninterested witnesses." A single citation, however, is not sufficient evidence to attest to a survival of the older meaning. For another contributor to the disinterested/uninterested problem, see disinterest, disinterestedness, uninterest. |
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