| 词组 | adverse, averse |
| 释义 | adverse, averse 1. Many commentators, British and American, warn us against confusing adverse and averse in such sentences as • He is not adverse to an occasional brandy —The Observer, cited in Bryson 1984 The word in such a sentence should be averse, we are told. Beyond that specific judgment, little help is given us, for the most part. Here is some information we think will be more helpful. The two words are only close in meaning in the combination adverse/averse to. Adverse, however, is usually used attributively: • ... 18 to 30 percent of all hospitalized patients have an adverse reaction to one or more of the drugs they are given —David Zimmerman, Ladies' Home Jour., October 1971 • Are any of us ... certain that an adverse wind will not sweep away our possessions —Henry Miller, The Air-Conditioned Nightmare, 1945 • ... her own conduct must be carefully regulated so as not to give rise to a breath of adverse comment —Stella Gibbons, Cold Comfort Farm, 1932 • We do not face an adverse balance of trade —Paul A. Samuelson, New Republic, 26 Mar. 1945 • ... maintaining a cheerful countenance under adverse circumstances —George Bernard Shaw, Cashel Byron's Profession, 1886 Averse, on the other hand, is rare as an attributive adjective: • ... he was on his way to fame despite the averse crew —Jane Ross, Early American Life, April 1977 Even when used with to, adverse is most often used with a thing rather than a person as the object of the preposition: • ... Johnson firmly and resolutely opposed any restraint whatever, as adverse to a free investigation of the characters of mankind —James Boswell, Life of Samuel Johnson, 1791 • ... was able to hear all testimony adverse to her — AAUP Bulletin, December 1967 • But it is really almost completely adverse to the very interests which it pretends to protect —Leland Olds, New Republic, 14 Sept. 1953 • His own written enunciations were adverse to his chances of escape —George Meredith, The Ordeal of Richard Feverel, 1859 • ... the whole Parliamentary tradition as built up in this country ... is adverse to it —Sir Winston Churchill, The Unrelenting Struggle, 1942 When used of people, adverse and averse are essentially synonymous, but adverse chiefly refers to opinion or intention, averse to feeling or inclination. Or, as it was put in the Literary Digest of 10 Feb. 1934, "We are adverse to that which we disapprove, but averse to that which we dislike." • I... hope that our periodical judges will not be very adverse to me —William Cowper (in Webster 1909) • Mr. Richards ... was adverse to his union with this young lady —George Meredith, The Ordeal of Richard Feverel, 1859 • Protestants ... adverse to all implicit submission of mind and opinion —Edmund Burke (in Webster 1909) • The Roosevelts are, as you may suspect, not averse to travel; we thrive on it —Franklin D. Roosevelt, address to Congress, 1 Mar. 1945, in Nothing to Fear, ed. B. D. Zevin, 1946 • ... he was never averse to another encounter. All the devil that was in him challenged the devil in Wolf Larsen —Jack London, The Sea- Wolf, 1904 • Under certain circumstances, to be explained later, I am not averse to pillorying the innocent —John Barth, The Floating Opera, 1956 • Miss Carew, averse to the anomalous relations of courtship, made as little delay as possible in getting married —George Bernard Shaw, Cashel Byron's Profession, 1886 But the distinction is a subtle one and not observed universally, even by respected writers: • ... for Leonora Penderton was a person who liked to settle herself and was adverse to complications — Carson McCullers, Reflections in a Golden Eye, 1941 • Her Majesty, as I have said, was by no means averse to reforms —Edith Sitwell, Victoria of England, 1936 The criticized uses of adverse to all occur in negative sentences. It is in such contexts that it is most difficult to distinguish opinion or intention from feeling or inclination. In the sentence about brandy at the beginning of this discussion, one suspects inclination, as one does in this: • ... and he is not adverse to reading about himself— N. Y. Times, cited in Bernstein 1962 But either nuance may be plausibly inferred in these instances: • Aside from his desire to see the natives come out on top, Jarel was not at all adverse to the idea of a trick being played on Dulard —Sylvia Louise Engdahl, "Enchantress from the Stars," 1970 in Literature, Carl B. Smith et al., 1980 • ... Holbrook would not be adverse to a regular TV series —N. Y. Times, cited in Bernstein 1977 In summary, adverse and averse are only synonymous when used of persons and with to. Adverse is most often used as an attributive adjective and of things; averse is extremely rare as an attributive and is regularly used of persons. When used with to and of persons a subtle distinction can be drawn, but it is not universally observed, and in negative contexts it is hard to make out whether the distinction is being observed or ignored. 2.See averse to, from. |
| 随便看 |
英语用法大全包含2888条英语用法指南，基本涵盖了全部常用英文词汇及语法点的翻译及用法，是英语学习的有利工具。