| 词组 | aftermath |
| 释义 | aftermath Let us begin by demonstrating how the figurative senses of aftermath are used. In one sense it is applied to something that follows from something else: a result or consequence. This following or resulting thing is very often unpleasant, but need not necessarily be so: • How could he know she would arrive an hour later alone, that there would be a snowstorm in which she wandered about in slippers, too confused to find a taxi? Then the aftermath, her escaping pneumonia by a miracle, and all the attendant horror —F. Scott Fitzgerald, "Babylon Revisited," in The Portable F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1945 • ... perhaps it is a mistake to resuscitate his theory, with all its melancholy aftermath of 'art for art's sake' —Herbert Read, The Philosophy of Modern Art, 1952 • In pioneer days, when an editor could term a fellow citizen a "low-born loon" with no fear of legal aftermath —American Guide Series: Tennessee, 1939 • Deep pessimism is perhaps a natural aftermath of the shock of recognizing that the vaunted "progress" of modern civilization is only a thin cloak for global catastrophe —Barry Commoner, New Yorker, 2 Oct. 1971 • ... the feigned death of Juliet and its aftermath of grief —Winthrop Sargeant, New Yorker, 1 May 1971 • One of the truly dramatic aftermaths of the World War has been the awakening and expansion of commercial life in the Latin-American countries —The Nation, 16 Jan. 1929 • As a gratifying aftermath of the recent aeronautical exposition manufacturers of aircraft have received orders —N.Y. Times, 30 Mar. 1919 It is worth remarking that there is a tendency toward more unpleasant aftermaths in recent use of the word. The other main figurative use of aftermath is for a period immediately following some event. Usually the event is an important and ruinous one, such as a war. In this sense aftermath is often found in the phrase in the aftermath of. • Perhaps the greatest crime of the war and its aftermath —Manchester Guardian Weekly, 17 Feb. 1922 • It bodes ill for a future in which the life and strength of Britain, compared to the other Powers, will be tested to the full, not only in war but in its aftermath —Sir Winston Churchill, address in Commons, 18 Jan. 1945, in Voices of History 1945-1946, ed. Nathan Ausubel, 1946 • ... salutary effect of Eliot's earlier criticism in curbing the carelessness and gush of the aftermath of Romanticism —Edmund Wilson, Axel's Castle, 1931 • It is just as well that there was no competitive piano or violin playing in the immediate aftermath of theirs —Irving Kolodin, Saturday Rev., 2 Jan. 1954 • In the aftermath of the Coronation —Punch, 2 Sept. 1954 • When old William Jennings Bryan, the advocate of the Bible, died in the exhausted aftermath of that trial —Time, 6 Feb. 1956 • ... in the melancholy aftermath of Vietnam — Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., Harper's, March 1969 • ... the ice ages—in the aftermath of which we are now living —Times Literary Supp., 1 Jan. 1971 With that background we may turn now to the usage writers. The earliest in our files is Vizetelly 1920, who tells us that aftermath is "a word persistently misused." His adverb should have alerted him to the fact that he had missed the direction of usage. But it did not, and he goes on to entangle himself in the etymology and agricultural senses of the word. Math is an old word for "mowing"; after is simply after. Literally, then, aftermath means "after mowing." The citations in the OED, from the 17th century on, show the word being used to refer to the herbage that grows in a field after the first crop—of hay, for instance—has been mowed. But Vizetelly thinks the word means "second mowing"—with stress on second—and so refers to an event. He then draws conclusions about what figurative extensions are allowable based on his misconception of the original meaning. No wonder the world does not go along with him. Evans 1957, 1962 follows a similar line of argument, basing conclusions on a supposed right relationship of extended meanings to the original. Evans feels the word should be restricted to real consequences, not just subsequent events; he notes that the consequences are usually unpleasant but does not insist that they must be. Gowers in Fowler 1965 sees extended use as "firmly established" and thinks it pedantry to object to the unpleasant aspect of the meaning on etymological grounds (as it would be, if anyone did so). Copperud 1970 thinks they both favor restriction to unpleasant results, which is not quite the case, and he agrees. Clearly a tangle of opinion surrounds this word, but as the examples above show, the opinion really does not matter. Both figurative senses are well established in standard writing. Since aftermath originally referred to a crop that grows after a first crop is cut, it is easy to see how it came to be used figuratively for one thing that happened after another. How it came to acquire its generally unpleasant connotations is not so clear. Here are two hints. The OED cites the poet Robert Southey as writing "No aftermath has the ... sweetness of the first crop" and the poet Coventry Patmore as using the phrase "the bloom-less aftermath." Beyond these suggestions of disappointment, we have evidence from veterinary sources that aftermath might be considered bad for sheep or horses to graze on because of possible infestation with parasites. Perhaps the unpleasant connotations came from farmers with sick livestock. |
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