| 词组 | ahold |
| 释义 | ahold Copperud 1970 and Bernstein 1958 both label ahold dialectal (as do several dictionaries) and discourage its use in standard prose (Bernstein found it in a New York Times article). The Dictionary of American Regional English lists it, with attestations from several states: Florida, Arkansas, Georgia, Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Illinois. Citations in Merriam-Webster files suggest Michigan, Wisconsin, Massachusetts, Alabama, Texas, and California as well. If it is indeed dialectal, it is well spread around (we have it in a few British sources also). The idiom we are discussing here most often follows get (catch, have, seize, take, lay, and grasp as well) and is regularly followed by of. When hold is followed by a different preposition—on, upon, over—it always takes the indefinite article; only with of is the article idiomatically omitted. The majority idiom, then, is (to take the most common verb) get hold of; the minority or dialectal idiom is get ahold of, with the article separate from or attached to hold. The OED (under get 13b) shows the idiom as to get (a) hold of; no nonstandard label is appended. Its earliest citations, however, lack the article. Part of the difficulty with ahold is simply the way it is styled in writing or print. When the article is separated from hold, the expression is not especially noticeable, as in these examples (the first two British): • ... signal-towers improved the east coast defences; a stronger hold was taken of Wales —Jacquetta & Christopher Hawkes, Prehistoric Britain, 1949 • ... until you can get a hold of the splinter —Peter Heaton, Cruising, 1952 • A reporter got a hold of this tax business —Sally Rand, quoted in Studs Terkel, Hard Times, 1970 But when a is attached to hold, with or without a hyphen, the expression calls more attention to itself: • If you can't get ahold of a voltmeter —Len Feldman, Rolling Stone, 6 June 1974 • I got ahold of the dean at Miles College —E. D. Nixon, quoted in Studs Terkel, Hard Times, 1970 • We found this export control business was a nasty nettle to grasp ahold of —Gerald C. Smith, quoted in Wall Street Jour., 30 Nov. 1984 The pronunciation spelling aholt is also used: • I swum to de stern uv it, en tuck aholt —Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn, 1884 (Dictionary of American Regional English) • I must admit some of the birds tried to get aholt of me —Colin Maclnnes, Absolute Beginners, 1959 • Shot said that when he died, he grabbed aholt of him ... and he like to have never got away —Flannery O'Connor, letter, 11 Jan. 1958 Bremner 1980 thinks ahold does not exist except as "an illiterate provincialism." Recent evidence suggests otherwise; although it still appears primarily in transcriptions of speech, it does turn up in edited prose: • Sometimes, if you could get ahold of a representative who was a regular guy —Norman Mailer, The Naked and the Dead, 1948 • The words [good stuff I suggest something gratify-ingly material, whereas in baseball they describe that which, ideally, one cannot get ahold of —Roy Blount, Jr., Sports Illustrated, 18 May 1970 The expression is frequently used in the sense of "get in touch with": • "I'll get ahold of Blatty to put his nomination on the agenda tomorrow." —Leon Uris, Saturday Evening Post, 30 May 1964 • I got ahold of General Cushman —Richard Helms, 2 Aug. 1973 (U.S. Senate Watergate hearings) Although ahold usually has a literal meaning, it does occasionally appear in figurative uses: • I'm most happy when I'm three and a half or four months into a picture.... I'm over the worst hurdle of it. I feel I've got ahold of it; I'm the boss —Carolyn Wyeth, quoted by Richard Meryman, N.Y. Times Mag., 1 Jan. 1970 • Okay, girl, get ahold of yourself —Christina Ferrare De Lorean, People, 29 Nov. 1982 But it is primarily a spoken construction, and its most frequent appearance is in the transcription of speech: • As soon as Lyndon got ahold of the damn thang — Sam Houston Johnson, quoted by Larry L. King, Harper's, April 1970 • When Rosalynn gets ahold of you, it's going to be even worse —Jimmy Carter, quoted by B. Drum-mond Ayres, Jr., N.Y. Times Mag., 3 June 1979 • ... success is not such a fabulous goal. It's like air— you can't get ahold of it —Tammy Grimes, quoted by Kristin McMurran, People, 2 Feb. 1981 • It felt good getting ahold of it —Darryl Strawberry, quoted by William Nack, Sports Illustrated, 23 Apr. 1984 In summary, hold when followed by of and preceded by get or another verb in the idiom of the majority of English speakers and writers from Shakespeare to the present is not accompanied by a: get hold of. Since the late 19th century, the minority idiom with a seems to have been gaining in respectability, but it is still primarily a spoken rather than a written form. When transcribed from speech, it is generally styled as one word, ahold. |
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