| 词组 | extemporaneous, impromptu |
| 释义 | extemporaneous, impromptu If you have ever taken a class in public speaking, you have probably been taught to distinguish between these adjectives. Teachers of speech will tell you that an extemporaneous speech is one that has been thoroughly prepared and planned but not memorized, so that the exact words used by the speaker are chosen as the speech is actually being made. An impromptu speech is distinguished as a speech for which the speaker has made no preparations—a genuinely spur-of-the-moment, off-the-cuff speech. This distinction undoubtedly has value in discussing different types of speeches, but it is not strictly observed in general usage. Extemporaneous in its oldest sense is simply synonymous with impromptu, and its use in describing off-the-cuff remarks is common and correct: • ... the ready wit of a detective who has had to resort to extemporaneous prevarications on numerous occasions —Erie Stanley Gardner, The Case of the Stuttering Bishop, 1936 • ... asked him to reminisce.... He responded eagerly and delivered a four-minute extemporaneous recollection —New Republic, 11 July 1955 But the distinction does have some existence outside the speech classroom. Extemporaneous is also used to describe a prepared speech given without notes or text, while impromptu is almost always used in describing speech that is truly unprepared: • He spoke without a note, and he is a superb extemporaneous speaker —New Republic, 16 June 1952 • It might be misleading to say that these Churchill talks were "impromptu"—for it is doubtful that he was ever unprepared for a speech —Robert Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins, 1948 |
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