| 词组 | expect |
| 释义 | expect 1. We have collected over 40 comments and admonitions about expect from the past century or so, and all of them discuss the same issue: using expect to mean "suppose" or "think" in sentences such as "I expect you were sorry to hear that." Criticism of this usage has more often than not been based on such reasoning as that used by Richard Grant White in 1870: "Expect refers only to that which is to come, and which, therefore, is looked for We cannot expect backward." Many commentators echoed White's opinion during the late 19th and, in particular, early 20th centuries. The OED shows that the "suppose" sense of expect is actually quite old, dating back to the 16th century. But the OED's editors, writing in 1894, were evidently no more fond of this sense than was Richard Grant White; they described it in the following terms: • Now rare in literary use. The misuse of the word as a synonym of suppose, without any notion of'anticipating' or 'looking for', is often cited as an Americanism, but is very common in dialectal, vulgar or carelessly colloquial speech in England. Questions about whether the Americans or the British were to blame for this sense persisted for some years, but that part of the controversy has now died out entirely. Our evidence shows that the "suppose" sense of expect is now common on both sides of the Atlantic. Many recent handbooks have followed the OED's lead in calling the "suppose" sense colloquial (White's point about "expecting backward" is now rarely heard). Our evidence gives some support to that characterization, but only if colloquial is understood as meaning "characteristic of informal conversation" rather than as a term of disparagement. When expect means "suppose," it is almost invariably used in the first person, and it therefore appears most often in speech and in the kinds of writing which make use of the first person— correspondence, dialogue, and informal prose: • I shall be able, I expect, to dispatch the waggon — Thomas Jefferson, letter, 27 Feb. 1809 • ... it was loose or something, I expect —Francis Lee Pratt, "Captain Ben's Choice," in Mark Twain's Library of Humor, 1888 • I expect that Shakespeare devised Iago with a gusto —W. Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence, 1919 • "He won't go quite as high as I do, I expect..." — D. H. Lawrence, "The Rocking-horse Winner," 1933 • "George knows, I expect," said Virginia —Agatha Christie, The Secret of Chimneys, 1925 • ... do look at the book on him by Grégoire Leroy, I expect in the Library of Congress —Harold J. Laski, letter, 18 Jan. 1930 • I expect you're familiar with them —Heathcote Williams, Evergreen, December 1967 • To be fair, I expect that the same situation obtains in the editorial page —Lawrence Dietz. Los Angeles Times Book Rev., 27 Feb. 1972 The use of this sense with a subject other than I is rare and is most likely to occur in an indirect quotation: • ... she would announce ... that she expected that Osbert would like a little walk —Osbert Lancaster, All Done From Memory, 1953 The "suppose" sense of expect is now far less controversial than it once was, although it still has its detractors. It has also had some staunch defenders in its time, including Fowler 1926, who declared, "This extension of meaning is, however, so natural that it seems needless PURISM to resist it there is no sound objection to it." We agree. Whenever I is appropriate in a written context, the "suppose" sense of expect is likely to be appropriate also. 2. Expect is very often followed by to and the infinitive: • ... the anthropologists expect to find some degree of fit between religious beliefs and the institutions they sustain —Mary Douglas, Commonweal, 9 Oct. 1970 • For the system to work, the individual must not only expect to pay that price, he must consider it proper to do so —Ramsey Clark, in Center Mag., July/ August 1970 • "Jacques d'Amboise ... is now about as elegant a danseur noble as one can expect to see." —Winthrop Sargeant, in Current Biography, September 1964 • ... Bainbridge's men could expect to be starved and cold —C. S. Forester, The Barbary Pirates, 1953 Less often, but still very commonly, expect is used with from or of: • As was to be expected from such a large number of writers —Morris R. Cohen, The Faith of a Liberal, 1946 • ... a new student gets some idea from these records of what to expect from himself —Howard Warshaw, Center Mag., July/August 1970 • ... he was not interested in poetry and there could be small hope of expecting poetry from him —John Ciardi, Saturday Rev., 11 Mar. 1972 • What he expected of me was to extricate him from a difficult situation —Joseph Conrad, Chance, 1913 • ... magazines offer printed information on what one can expect of fabrics —Mary S. Switzer, in The Wonderful World of Books, ed. Alfred Stefferud, 1952 • A fine ear for the music of words is expected of a poet —Michael Williams, in Little Reviews Anthology 1949, ed. Denys Val Baker. |
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英语用法大全包含2888条英语用法指南，基本涵盖了全部常用英文词汇及语法点的翻译及用法，是英语学习的有利工具。