| 词组 | banquet |
| 释义 | banquet Copperud 1970 reports banquet as high-flown when it is used for present-day public dinners; his 1980 book finds it both quaint and pretentious. He brings in Evans 1957 and Bernstein 1965 to buttress his assertion. However, Evans and Bernstein in his 1971 book devote most of their remarks to noting how the quality and quantity of food offered at a banquet has declined from times past. That sad fact had been noted earlier: • ... a routine banquet menu (grapefruit, chicken, peas, ice cream) —Time, 15 Nov. 1948 How different things were in the old days! • ... Leckerbiss Pasha of Roumelia, then Chief Gal-eongee of the Porte, gave a diplomatic banquet at his summer palace at Bujukdere.... He was an enormous eater. Amongst the dishes a very large one was placed before him of a lamb dressed in its wool, stuffed with prunes, garlic, assafoetida, capsicums, and other condiments, the most abominable mixture that ever mortal smelt or tasted —W. M. Thackeray, The Book of Snobs, 1846 State banquets like that given by the Galeongee of Roumelia—less revolting, no doubt—are still given from time to time: • ... a recent banquet in Hong Kong, which featured simple preparations like rolled fillet of fish stuffed with mustard greens and Yunan ham, and more complex dishes like baby oysters stir-fried with scrambled eggs —George Lang & Jenifer Harvey Lang, N.Y. Times Mag., 25 Jan. 1987 There can be no criticizing this use of the word. But perhaps a more typical use of banquet is to be found in reports like these: • Girl Scout Troop 103 held its second annual banquet and court of awards Saturday night in St. Mary's Church Hall —Springfield (Mass.) Daily News, 16 June 1953 • ... was honored as the '86 Horse of the Year at Saratoga Raceway at the recent USHWA Award Banquet held at the track —Hoof Beats, January 1987 At this sort of gathering the speeches and the presentations are the important thing, not the food. A later paragraph in the first report, for instance, tells us that the Girl Scouts were fed baked ham. The entry in the OED suggests that banquets were heading in this direction as far back as the end of the 19th century. So why the fuss? It is true that in her new and revised edition of Etiquette in 1927 Mrs. Emily Post listed banquet among several expressions she held to be pretentious and not used by "Best Society." But Mrs. Post was unlikely to have been concerned with the Girl Scouts or the horse of the year. A more likely answer is the fact that banquet was laid under interdiction by William Cullen Bryant in his Index Expurgatorius, compiled when he was editor of the N. Y. Evening Post and published in 1877. Bierce 1909 repeated the rejection. Old newspaper prejudices never die—and some don't even fade away. |
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