| 词组 | epithet |
| 释义 | epithet Gould 1870 complained that epithet was misunderstood by "many men who are well educated, and many who are not so." Gould believed that the only proper meaning of epithet was "an adjective denoting any quality, good or bad." He objected in part to its use in denoting a descriptive noun rather than an adjective (such usage was, in fact, called erroneous by both Samuel Johnson and Noah Webster), but his main objection was to the widespread notion that epithet referred only to such negative terms as vile and cowardly and not to such terms of praise as good and honest. The argument that epithet should be applied only to adjectives is no longer heard, but resistance to its use in a specifically negative sense has not entirely died out. In its oldest uses, epithet is a neutral word, derived from the Greek epitheton, "adjective; characterizing term." It has had this sense in English since the 16th century. The point at which it began to develop its more limited negative sense is impossible to determine, but there is reason to believe that it may have been as early as the 1700s. (In 1755, Johnson specifically indicated in his dictionary that it could refer to both good and bad qualities, and his feeling the need to make that point suggests that the word was already being understood—or misunderstood, in Johnson's view—as referring only to the bad.) In any case, the disputed sense was obviously well developed by Gould's time. Its common occurrence in writing, however, is a fairly recent phenomenon: • No one should be afraid to have epithets hurled against him by the enemy —Yale Rev., July 1919 • ...was what we now call a lowbrow; but that epithet had not then been invented —George Bernard Shaw, American Mercury, January 1946 • But this time G.M. and the U.A.W. were not exchanging four-letter epithets —Time, 7 June 1948 • ... forbade the union ... from using epithets or offensive language against the company's employes — Wall Street Jour., 5 Aug. 1948 • ... his name has come to be almost as much of an epithet as that of the late Quisling —Bob Considine, Springfield (Mass.) Union, 26 Nov. 1954 This sense of epithet is now quite common, but it has not displaced the older, comprehensive sense, which also continues in regular use: • ... as worthless as the epithets, "great," "wonderful," or "marvellous" —J. C. Trewin, John O'Lon-don's Weekly, 24 June 1949 • ... earned him the affectionate epithet of "peanut ambassador" —Current Biography, April 1966 • ... their search for the just adjective, the refined epithet —Kathleen Raine, CEA Chap Book, 1969 Recent usage commentators have in general either been willing to acknowledge that the negative sense of epithet is now established as standard (Reader's Digest 1983) or omitted it as something less than a real problem (Phythian 1979, Bryson 1984, Shaw 1985). A notable exception is Sir Ernest Gowers, who in Fowler 1965 describes this sense as a "corruption." No doubt there are some people who continue to regard it in that way, but they are becoming more and more of a minority. Dictionaries now routinely enter "derogatory term" or the like as a sense of epithet. If you feel any unease about its use, the thing to do is to modify it with an appropriate adjective such as insulting or disparaging. Such usage will offend no one. • ... I do not employ the word "bureaucracy" as a disparaging epithet —Robert K. Merton, Columbia Forum, Spring 1968 • Shrilly repeated negative epithets abound —Benjamin DeMott, Saturday Rev., 13 May 1978 |
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