| 词组 | forthcoming |
| 释义 | forthcoming Janis 1984 and Copperud 1980 are worried about a sense of forthcoming that they believe is displacing forthright. The use is not new; the OED dates it back to 1835. It is, however, not very felicitously defined in dictionaries, and that is probably part of the problem. The use, which seems to be originally British, is almost always a predicate adjective and only rarely an attributive adjective. It is often used in negative constructions. It is applied to people and, less often, to what they say or write. In its earliest attestations it describes a social characteristic that suggests openness and willingness to talk. In these applications it is perhaps closer in meaning to outgoing than to forthright. It is still used in this way: • But though she was friendly she was not very forthcoming. She replied courteously and sweetly when spoken to, but she never told anybody anything — Elizabeth Goudge, Pilgrim 's Inn, 1948 • "... She's extraordinarily forthcoming, isn't she, bubbling over, uncontrollably effervescent?" —L. P. Hartley, The Hireling, 1957 • From Bertram Shaw, who was candid and forthcoming, he obtained what he required without appreciable trouble —Edgar Lustgarten, Defender's Triumph, 1951 • ... Viennese girls ... are attractive, amusing, forthcoming, and fairly chic —Ian Fleming, Thrilling Cities, 1963 • Even people ... who would have been, in India or other formerly colonial lands, at once servile and distant, were open and forthcoming in Nepal — Merry I. White, Atlantic, August 1970 When people are in a position where they are, for reasons of policy, expected to be closemouthed or evasive, forthcoming comes fairly close to frank or candid or forthright: • ... made what a member of the EEC gold lobby has characterised as a "rather forthcoming speech" — The Economist, 13 Apr. 1974 • ... but Joe tended to be a little too forthcoming and perhaps easily led into saying things that were ex officio —Milton Helpern, MD, with Bernard Knight, MD, Autopsy: The Memoirs of Milton Helpern, 1977 • The doctor was forthcoming and impregnable in the best tradition of American technicians. His understanding of events was too coherent to permit him to be tricked into inconsistency —Suzanne Garment, Wall Street Jour., 3 Apr. 1981 • ... the publisher, a pale, languid man of 30, was even more forthcoming. "I'm in it for the money", he said —The Times (London), 1 Nov. 1973 • ... the personal contact between the editor and local officials is friendly, if not always forthcoming — Keith Williams, In Britain, April 1975 It may suggest generosity or readiness to give out information: • His parents were very strict, German, authoritarian, and not forthcoming with explanations —Tony Kornheiser, Inside Sports, October 1979 • ... the dust-jacket gives no information about him, except that he lived in West Cornwall for several years. The publishers should be a little more forthcoming —D. M. Thomas, Times Literary Supp., 1 Aug. 1980 • The woman on the other end is clearly new, else she would not be so forthcoming with the information —Jay Mclnerney, Bright Lights, Big City, 1984 These are the chief ways in which the disputed sense is used. Forthright is in no danger of being usurped. |
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