| 词组 | foreseeable future |
| 释义 | foreseeable future This phrase is denigrated by Shaw 1975 as "trite" and "lacking in good sense" and by Nickles 1974 as "haphazard writing." These two writers base their objection on the assertion that it is not possible to see into the future. But this phrase has to do with forecasting, not with prophecy. Webster's Third defines this sense of foreseeable as "lying within the range for which forecasts are possible." Forecasting may be an imperfect science, but it is carried on with some regularity. The phrase is not attested before 1932, but it caught on rapidly, and future is now the noun of choice with foreseeable, outnumbering in our files all other nouns by more than two to one. The phrase is used mostly by politicians, sociologists, educators, and planners; it does not appear to have much in the way of literary use. The use of the phrase does not appear to be diminishing. Here are a few examples: • Second, to form world-wide international organizations, and to arrange to use the armed force of the sovereign nations of the world to make another war impossible within the foreseeable future —Franklin D. Roosevelt, radio address, 20 July 1944, in Nothing to Fear, ed. B. D. Zevin, 1946 • Secretary of State John Foster Dulles was reported to have told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee today he is optimistic that plans can be worked out for new disarmament talks with Russia "in the foreseeable future."—Springfield (Mass.) Union, 10 Jan. 1958 • We live in a world of words, and no computers, mechanization, or new discoveries are going to change that... not in the foreseeable future anyway —Alfred Fleishman, Sense and Nonsense, 1971 • ... available sources of power are ample to meet needs for the foreseeable future —John Lear, Saturday Rev., 1 Jan.1972 • ... agriculture seems likely to be the mainstay of the nation in the foreseeable future —Horace Sutton, Saturday Rev., 17 Mar. 1979 |
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