| 词组 | faze, phase, feaze, feeze |
| 释义 | faze, phase, feaze, feeze 1. Faze is a 19th-century American variant of a much older verb feeze (spelled in about a dozen different ways) with a meaning not attested for the older word: "disconcert, daunt." It has existed in American use in four chief spellings, faze, phase, feaze, and feeze, as noted by Bernstein 1971. A writer in the Buffalo, N.Y., Express, 17 Sept. 1894, who was quite pleased with the word, noted the spellings faze, phase, and feaze. A letter to the editor of a New York paper in June 1915 noted feaze in one magazine, phase in a second, and faze in a third. This writer had found so many variant spellings in the dictionaries he consulted that he said, "At present it holds the unique position of being the only English word that cannot be misspelled, however one tries." He favored faze, as do Bernstein and numerous other commentators, most of whom believe phase to be an error. Only Webster's Third and Bernstein recognize phase as a legitimate variant. Of the four variants, faze is by far the most usual. We find phase the next most frequent: • A woman arriving alone in sunglasses and Nike jogging shoes did not phase the solitary waiter —Town & Country, May 1983 • Rainstorms do not phase them —Christian Science Monitor, 11 Nov. 1977 • ... not even the sight of the evening's star in purple-pink underwear ... seemed to phase anyone —Rolling Stone, 16 Mar. 1972 Feaze and feeze are becoming quite rare. Our last feeze is from 1947: • That didn't feeze the gaunt Kaltenbrunner —Victor H. Burnstein, Final Judgment, 1947 Feaze is seen a bit more often: • It didn't feaze her any —James M. Cain, Double Indemnity, 1936 • It takes a lot to feaze a Texan —Robert M. Den-hardt, The Horse of the Americas, rev. ed., 1975 The unrelated phase is usually a noun, but it is also a verb and it seems to be getting more play as a verb in recent years, especially in such combinations as phase out, phase in, and phase into. We have at least one instance of the verb phase (with out) spelled faze. So in the interests of lessening confusion in the world, we recommend that you use faze to mean "daunt" and let phase have its own distinctive use. However, the phase spelling of faze is almost a century old now, and we are not especially hopeful that it will be phased out. 2.Faze, being an Americanism, was naturally suspect by the usage and dictionary community. Vizetelly 1906 seems to be the earliest commentator to recommend avoiding it as slang. Its entry in older dictionaries was variously labeled colloquial, dialectal, slang, or informal, and a few usage commentators still carry similiar warnings. But Merriam-Webster dictionaries, Reader's Digest 1983, and Bernstein 1971 know that it is standard. Bernstein makes this point: faze has a connotation that such synonyms as daunt and disconcert simply cannot supply. He thinks daunt might be closest, but finds it too high-flown for a context that is typical of faze. He gives an example like this one: • It hit Marciano flush on the right side of the jaw, but it didn't seem to faze him a bit —A. J. Liebling, New Yorker, 17 Nov. 1951 It might have been appropriate to use daunt in such a context when John L. Sullivan was fighting, but not when Rocky Marciano was fighting, and not now. Quite a few commentators note that faze is most commonly found in negative contexts: While this is true, it is incidental to the meaning of faze—not being fazed is more worthy of remark than being fazed. Here are a few more examples: • He had ice water in his veins. Nothing fazed him, not insult or anger or violence —Robert Penn Warren, All the King's Men, 1946 • "... It never fazed her for a moment and we can't let it faze us." —John Dos Passos, The Grand Design, 1949 • Leopardi got a threat letter yesterday It didn't faze him, though. He tore it up —Raymond Chandler, The Simple Art of Murder, 1950 • ... I was too well schooled in the Christian ethic— all worthwhile things are difficult, you must stand up to life's challenges—to let that faze me —Jane Har-riman, Atlantic, March 1970 • ... the wines, which do not faze him, fuddle me — Robert Craft, Stravinsky, 1972 • Dry snow didn't faze the Dynamark, but a normal mouthful of wet snow clogged it —Consumer Reports, January 1983 |
| 随便看 |
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。