| 词组 | factor |
| 释义 | factor Most of the criticism that factor is imprecise or vague suffers from exactly the same fault—it is imprecise and vague. Prentice Hall 1978 even calls it "wordy"—how does a six-letter, two-syllable word get to be "wordy"? We are also told that the word is overworked, and this criticism has greater validity. A few commentators will allow factor to be used for "a cause contributing to a result"—one of about eight senses in Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary. Some of the "more precise" words that factor displaces are consideration, circumstance, characteristic, constituent, component, ingredient—all of them obviously longer and windier. Let's test these criticisms on an example: • But such factors as Reid's youth at the time of his crime, his slum background, his marginal mentality, had caused Wright ... to feel that execution would be an injustice —William Styron, This Quiet Dust and Other Writings, 1982 Now, what are these factors? Contributing causes to the crime? Mitigating circumstances?'Simply considerations that the judge is taking into account? Or perhaps all of these at once? If we substitute any of these more precise terms, do we then improve the sentence, or do we simply add syllables and lose part of the meaning carried by factors? Contributing factor is criticized in a few books as a redundancy. As factor is a word of several senses, the addition of contributing may serve to narrow the word's focus or to set off less significant from more significant factors; the question of redundancy in such contexts is irrelevant. The main consideration may often be whether the sentence sounds better with or without contributing. It looks like the criticism offactor started as a reaction to a noticeable increase in its use, perhaps around the time of World War II, and most of what we see now are the original criticisms rehashed. Trimble 1975 seems dated in its remark, "Doesn't it have a lovely scientific ring to it?" No more. Factor is old hat. Parameter is a much flashier word. We think it is perfectly all right to use factor in favor of any of those longer, "more precise" substitutes. But remember that factor is a well-worked word; you should not beat it to death. |
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