| 词组 | equal |
| 释义 | equal 1. When equal is used with a preposition, it is used most often with to: • ... whether the idea of maximum personal liberty is equal to the idea of maximum personal discipline — Adlai E. Stevenson, Speeches, ed. Richard Harrity, 1952 • He was equal to extended walks by this time — Thomas B. Costain, The Black Rose, 1945 Equal to may also be used with a verbal, in which case the gerund is the most likely form, although there is sporadic evidence for the use of the infinitive: • ... become equal to solving the problems of every conceivable environment —William J. Reilly, Life Planning for College Students, 1954 • She was very equal, therefore, to address Mr. Bingley on the subject of the ball —Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, 1813 Although the use of equal with with occurs more often in older writings, it is still in occasional use in contemporary English: • ... maintain social services in his country on a level equal with those in the rest of the United Kingdom —Current Biography, September 1968 Phythian 1979 cautions against using the preposition for with equal. We have little evidence in our files that the use occurs in edited prose. 2. Equal is one of those adjectives that some commentators (such as Partridge 1942, Bernstein 1965, Shaw 1970, 1987) insist are absolute and incapable of comparison. They therefore disapprove of the combination more equal. As do many other statements about the absolute quality of adjectives (see absolute adjectives), this opinion suffers from two weaknesses. It ignores history—equal has been compared since at least the 17th century—and it fails to recognize the common use of more and most to mean "more nearly," "most nearly." Here are some ordinary uses of more equal in the sense of "more nearly equal": • ... but if we keep edging toward it, American society will become more just, more equal, and more even-handed in the distribution of power —John Fischer, Harper's, March 1971 • ... that the American woman is not the same as other women: that she is freer in her manners and that she is freer because she is more equal —Henry Fairlie, American Scholar, Winter 1976/1977 • So even though income distribution among unmarried individuals grew more equal over the decade, among families it grew less equal —David Osborne, Harper's, January 1983 More equal cannot be allowed to depart without a notice of George Orwell's use of the phrase in Animal Farm. There he used equal in a way not normally compared and put more with it to show the duplicitous ways in which totalitarian regimes use the language for their own advantage. All animals, say the ruling pigs, are equal, but some are more equal than others. Orwell's more equal than has frequently been echoed by later writers: • ... those who are less equal than others must find the power —Tom Hayden, American Scholar, Autumn 1967 • ... in a professional situation where some must by definition be more equal than others —Harold Per-kin, Times Literary Supp., 19 Mar. 1970 • ... a rule of all great egalitarian bureaucracies, as George Orwell pointed out, is that some people are more equal than others —John Hersey, New Yorker, 31 May 1982 |
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