| 词组 | epoch |
| 释义 | epoch Bernstein 1965 considers the proper meaning of epoch to be "the beginning of a new period, a turning point." That is, in fact, one of the oldest senses of the word, but it is now rarely seen: • The adherence of the United States to such a convention would mark an epoch in the international copyright relations of this country —Arthur Fisher, Annual Report of the Librarian of Congress, 1952 Far more common is the use of epoch to mean "an extended and distinct period of time." Bernstein contends that only era properly has this sense, but he acknowledges that "probably the distortion of epoch has gone too far to be reversible." A look in the OED sheds some interesting light on this subject. Epoch has actually been used in the sense disliked by Bernstein since the 17th century, while era has had this sense only since the 18th. Era originally, like epoch, referred to a point marking the beginning of a period rather than the period itself. In other words era has undergone exactly the same "distortion" that epoch has undergone, but more recently. The "period of time" sense of epoch is entirely proper: • ... the leading international lawyer of his epoch — Times Literary Supp., 25 Jan. 1974 • In the Cartesian epoch ... man conceived of the universe as a watch —Robert Penn Warren, Democracy and Poetry, 1975 |
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