| 词组 | gauntlet |
| 释义 | gauntlet 1. Gauntlet, gantlet. Some confusion exists about the status of these spelling variants. The argument is sometimes heard that they represent etymologically distinct words, and that gantlet is the only correct choice—or at least is the preferable one—in the common phrase run the ga(u)ntlet. This argument is mistaken. There is, in fact, more than one gauntlet in the English language, but gauntlet and gantlet are not themselves etymologically distinct—they are spelling variants, pure and simple. The older gauntlet was borrowed from French in the 15th century. Its literal meaning in French is "little glove," and it originally described a protective glove worn with medieval armor. The phrases throw down the gauntlet and pick up the gauntlet arose from the medieval custom of throwing down a glove to issue a challenge. These phrases (with many variations) persist in figurative use, and gauntlet also now describes several varieties of glove, both protective and fashionable: • ... not picking up the gauntlet so callously thrown to them by Nixon —Ralph J. Gleason, Rolling Stone, 8 June 1972 • In the first paragraph he throws down the gauntlet — Time, 12 Dec. 1983 • ... wears his engineer's cap, coveralls and work gauntlets—Saturday Evening Post, 16 Nov. 1956 • Wool-knit gauntlets in navy, cobalt, or black —New Yorker, 21 Nov. 1983 The gauntlet of run the gauntlet has a more complex history. The reference in run the gauntlet is to a form of military punishment in which a prisoner was made to pass between two rows of men armed with clubs or other weapons. The original name for such a punishment in English was gantlope, a derivative of the Swedish gatlopp, from gata, "road," and lop, "course." Gauntlet came to be used in place of gantlope through the process of folk etymology—that is, the substitution of a familiar word for an unfamiliar one. The earliest citations for gauntlet meaning "gantlope" are from the 17th century: • To print, is to run the gantlet —Joseph Glanvill, The Vanity of Dogmatizing, 1661 (OED) • They stripped them naked, and caused them to run the Gauntlet —Increase Mather, The History of King Philip's War, 1862 (originally published in 1676) (OED) Gantlet was simply one of several spelling variants. It was also used for the "glove" sense of gauntlet: • Yee that fling out the gantlet to him that calls you Coward —Nathaniel Ward, The Simple Cooler of Aggawam, 1647 (OED) We do not know exactly how gantlet came to be regarded as the "preferred" spelling in run the ga(u)ntlet. The distinction gantlet (punishment)/gauntlet (glove) seems to have arisen in the U.S. during the 19th century. Our own dictionaries recognized it—for reasons which are not at all clear—and probably played a significant role in promoting it up until the publication of Webster's Third in 1961. British dictionaries have never recognized the distinction, and gantlet has long since dropped out of use as a spelling variant in British English. In American English, mistaken notions about its correctness (for which we have to take our share of blame) have assured its continued use as a variant of gauntlet in its "gantlope" sense: • ... send it through the FDA gantlet —Paul H. Blachly, Psychology Today, May 1971 • The gantlet of congressional committees ... remains to be run —William G. McDonald, Fortune, 15 Dec. 1980 The more common spelling, however, is gauntlet: • ... could run the Republican primary gauntlet — Kaye Northcott, Mother Jones, January 1980 • ... found himself running a gauntlet of 1,200 women —Linda Marx, People, 4 Oct. 1982 • ... running a gauntlet of hostile bulls —Fred Bruem-mer, National Wildlife, June/July 1985 2. Many commentators warn against confusion of run the gauntlet for run the gamut. Such confusion does not appear to be widespread, but we do have some evidence of it: • Customers run the gauntlet from state and local governments to public libraries and big corporations — Datamation, May 1977 When the sense of the phrase is "range," the correct choice is gamut. See also gamut. |
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