| 词组 | amateur |
| 释义 | amateur Bernstein 1965 presents us with the choice of of, in, or (sometimes) at for a preposition with which to follow the noun amateur. Although all of them can be used without violating English idiom, our files show that only of has much in the way of current use. Of's preeminence is partly due to its being the only preposition used when amateur is used in its earliest sense— "devotee, admirer"—or in a use close to that meaning: • "No, seriously," he said, in his quality of an amateur of dogs —Arnold Bennett, The Old Wives' Tale, 1908 • They are amateurs of Horace in the best sense of that word —Edward Townsend Booth, Saturday Rev., 4 Oct. 1947 • As all amateurs of marzipan must agree —New Yorker, 8 Dec. 1956 • He was an amateur of gadgets, but he was not even an engineer on the model of Watt or Fulton —O. B. Hardison, Jr., Entering the Maze, 1981 When used in the sense of "one not a professional," amateur followed by of tends to have a bookish tang that probably favors its selection in such contexts: • ... edition of Donne is intended, I expect, for the university student and the advanced amateur of English letters —D. C. Allen, Modern Language Notes, May 1957 • ... I must co-opt for our profession one or two amateurs of the discipline —John Kenneth Galbraith, Esquire, May 1977 • ... a simplistic amateur of letters, boring students with one's own enthusiasm —John Bayley, N.Y. Times Book Rev., 27 Feb. 1983 The prepositions of, in, or at serve to connect amateur with the name of some activity, profession, discipline, or field of study or interest. Our citations show that in recent time the indication of such a relationship has been more and more taken over by the adjective amateur: when in the past you might have been an amateur of, in, or at photography, nowadays you are much more likely to be an amateur photographer. The prepositions, of course, are still likely to be used where no fully appropriate agent noun is available, or where the writer simply chooses not to use the agent noun. |
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