| 词组 | agenda |
| 释义 | agenda Everybody agrees, according to Copperud 1970, 1980, that agenda is standard in English as a singular, with agendas as its plural. We have about a dozen commentators—both English and American—who are also in agreement in addition to Copperud's group of experts. Against this formidable array stands the OED Supplement: • agenda ... treated as a singular (a use now increasingly found but avoided by careful writers). The OED Supplement is supported by a couple of letter writers: the novelist Upton Sinclair objecting to the appearance of "a broad agenda" in the New Republic in 1951 and a correspondent to William Safire in the New York Times in 1984 objecting to "a hidden agenda." Everyone further agrees that agenda is the plural of agendum in Latin. The use of agendum in English to mean "a list or program" is considered a slip by Evans 1961 and pedantic by a few other commentators. It is considerably less frequent than agenda, but it has been in use since 1898 and is entered as standard in dictionaries. • Each instructor or student leader receives an agendum of suggested "overhead" or general discussion questions —Major James L. Jackson, Ph.D., College English, March 1954 Many commentators say that agendum means "something to be done." This is more a direct translation of the Latin word than a well-established meaning in English. In fact, it is so rare in English that it is not recognized in Webster's Third. But it does exist: • Principal agendum of the pages standing at the rostrum steps was to lift the train of each ascending delegate with combined dexterity, good timing and discretion —Time, 2 May 1938 The present use of agenda did not arise until the end of the 19th century. It barely made the OED, which included a single italicized example from 1882 under the entry agend, a spelling no longer used. It appears to have caught on quickly enough—agenda-paper appearing in 1887, agendum in 1898. The use of agenda for the list was such a rapid development that dictionaries had not yet caught up with it when this Kansas journalist felt it necessary to explain details of usage in 1928: • An "agendum" is "something to be done." In the plural—"agenda"—it means a "memorandum book." In diplomatic speech it comes nearer to signifying a "program." In this sense it's most conveniently mentioned in the singular, rather than the plural—one "agenda," not a whole flock of "agendums." —Charles P. Stewart, Emporia (Kans.) Gazette, 11 Feb. 1928 The feeling that agenda referred to a single entity was developed early: • ... it was resolved that "items 1 to 4 on the agenda need not be discussed" —The Strand, September 1900 • The agenda drawn up for the Congress contains the following items —Soviet Union Rev., 31 Jan. 1925 This singular agenda has continued in standard use: • There was an agenda or program of the conference —The Autobiography of William Allen White, 1946 • The original agenda, which was to have covered many motions —Mollie Panter-Downes, New Yorker, 13 Oct. 1951 • It's a vast agenda —Prime Minister Harold Wilson, BBC radio broadcast, 1 June 1967 • President Carter's agenda for America is too important to be jeopardized by a defense of the indefensible —Norman Cousins, Saturday Rev., 2 Apr. 1977 • But many have another agenda as well —Elizabeth Drew, New Yorker, 6 Dec. 1982 In those instances where a plural is necessary, agendas is the standard form. The OED Supplement shows agendas as early as 1907. Our evidence suggests that the plural is relatively uncommon. • The two agendas, which were not as far apart as the draft agendas of some past East-West conferences — Time, 12 Mar. 1951 • But the agendas of faculty meetings rarely include such issues —Ruth R. Hawkins, Change, November-December 1969 • ... a Trojan horse filled full of all kinds of budget-busting measures and secondary agendas —David A. Stockman, quoted by William Greider, Atlantic, December 1981 Agendum, usually in the form agenda, has some relatively infrequent use to mean "an item on the agenda": • They should have the right to initiate agenda, to discuss the entire range of university concerns —William M. Roth, Saturday Rev., 10 Jan. 1970 This use may be curtailed by the use of the wordier but self-explanatory agenda item to convey the same sense: • ... it may be useful to survey some of the agenda items and problem areas he will confront —Samuel Halperin, Change, January-February 1971 • ... the President moved on to other agenda items without asking for reactions —Irving Janis, Psychology Today, November 1971 William Safire (N.Y. Times Mag., 16 Sept. 1984) tries to trace the development of the expression hidden agenda. He finds its roots in the use of agenda for a political program, a use that has been around since at least the 1950s: • It now appeared that military aggression was most definitely on the agenda of international Communism —Edgar S. Furniss, Jr., Yale Rev., Autumn 1954 Our earliest citation for hidden agenda suggests that the term was already familiar when the author used it: • The schooling process has a hidden agenda—an invisible curriculum—that sorts knowledge into packages ... ; that categorizes persons as successes or failures with a fixed criterion; that mistakes conformity for allegiance —John Gagnon, Change, October 1971 • The collection had indeed a hidden agenda—it was a running argument with Stalinism —Steven Marcus, N. Y. Times Book Rev., 8 Feb. 1976 The phrase continues to be popular: • In a field where polemics and ideology are the norm, Walker's book is a refreshing exception. It has no hidden agenda —Stephen Stich, Times Literary Supp., 29 Apr. 1983 • This credibility could not be long sustained if readers come to believe that our articles are tainted by some hidden agenda —Wall Street Jour., 3 Apr. 1984 In the last two examples, hidden agenda is beginning to come close in meaning to ulterior motive. Agenda , then, is fully established as a singular in standard English, with a plural agendas available, if you need it. Agendum, with a plural agenda, has infrequent use as "something to be done," slightly greater use as "an item in an agenda," and some use as an equivalent to agenda. Agenda and agendum also have a few other uses; for them we recommend an unabridged dictionary. For other foreign plurals, see Latin plurals. |
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