| 词组 | activate, actuate |
| 释义 | activate, actuate Gowers in Fowler 1965 disparages activate as a popularized technicality replacing actuate; Shaw 1975, 1987 considers the meanings of the two words to be "confused when used to refer to persons" and both he and Evans 1957 attempt to discriminate between them. Here is what evidence in the Merriam-Webster files shows. Both words are currently much used in technical contexts, although activate seems to be used more frequently and widely. Technical uses are not disputed, so we pass them over, except to note that when a person sets some mechanism in motion, either word might be used, but activate is more frequent in our more recent citations: • Then he actuated the mechanism, and the mass of metal fell with a muffled, reverberating thud — Arnold Bennett, The Old Wives' Tale, 1908 • ... the throttle being actuated by hand —Priscilla Hughes, Now There's No Excuse, 1952 • Whenever Dr. Kelman activates a switch, the wall ... begins to slide away —Brian Vachon, Saturday Rev., 15 Apr. 1972 • ... small sonic pingers that could be activated in an emergency —John Devany & Sylvia Earle, "My Two Weeks Under the Sea," in Networks, ed. Mar-jorie Seddon Johnson et al., 1977 When the words are used in reference to persons, they are usually distinguished. Actuate, which has a long background of literary use, almost always indicates an interior cause for the action: • Notwithstanding the high veneration which I entertained for Dr. Johnson, I was sensible that he was sometimes a little actuated by the spirit of contradiction —James Boswell, Life of Samuel Johnson, 1791 • ... men, who ... are always actuated by the hope of personal advantage, or by the dread of personal punishment —Thomas Love Peacock, Headlong Hall, 1816 • Individuals may be actuated by a sense of justice — William Ellery Channing, Discourses on War, 1903 • ... the spirit that actuated the grandfather having lain fallow in the son —Samuel Butler, The Way of All Flesh, 1903 • Still, as he is actuated by a sense of duty —W. S. Gilbert, The Pirates of Penzance, 1879 • ... that very British spirit of freedom which has actuated them throughout —Osbert Sitwell, Triple Fugue, 1924 • ... the man who is actuated by love of power is more apt to inflict pain than to permit pleasure —Bertrand Russell, Atlantic, March 1952 When activate is applied to individuals, it almost always implies an external force: • ... her life in art is closely related to the places where she has lived and visited, to the natural phenomena that have activated her —Katharine Kuh, Saturday Rev., 22 Jan. 1977 • He was rarely seen by day, but the feast of St. Patrick had altered his habits and activated him this noon —Herman Wouk, Aurora Dawn, 1947 • ... he lacked the force to control his party and the personality and leadership to activate the public — Sidney Warren, Current History, May 1952 Infrequently actuate is used of an external stimulus and activate of an internal one: • ... a society too ill-organized to actuate the generosity of decent human beings —Times Literary Supp., 4 Mar. 1939 • ... many persons, hitherto vaguely sympathetic, become ... energized and activated out of indignation —Richard Hofstadter, Harper's, April 1970 Activate is, in general, the more likely word to be used of something that is compared to or conceived of as machinery: • The federal government finally was activated — Donald Canty, City, March-April 1972 • Economists are accordingly much more interested in societies activated by command than in those run by tradition —Robert L. Heilbroner, The World of Economics, 1963 • ... exhortations ... fail to activate the more costly self-sacrificing behaviors —James H. Bryan, Psychology Today, December 1969 • Those who have activated the evil forces loose in the world today —JAMA, 26 June 1954 • "I ain't a vegetarian, and Garbo does not have big feet," he said, activating knowing titters —New Yorker, 1 July 1950 To summarize, actuate has a long history of literary use; it is applied to people who act for internal reasons. Activate is more often used of things thought of as mechanical in their operation; when applied to people, it almost always indicates the working of some external spur to action. |
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