| 词组 | satisfy |
| 释义 | satisfy "Satisfied" is straying, is pushing into the place long filled properly by "convinced" or even the lowly "sure." The result is sometimes startling. For instance: • "The man's family is satisfied that he was murdered." Of course that may be literally true, but the family did not mean to tell the world so —Alice Hamilton, M.D., Atlantic, September 1954 A look in the OED shows that satisfy has been used in a sense essentially synonymous with convince since at least 1520. {Convince itself was first recorded in this sense in 1606.) It has occurred in the works of such writers as Shakespeare, John Locke, Henry Fielding, Francis Bacon, Jane Austen, Thomas Macaulay, and Charles Lamb: • Keeping them up till midnight... would, I am satisfied, in a medical point of view, prove the better caution —Charles Lamb, The Essays of Elia, 1823 Samuel Johnson duly recorded it as a standard sense in 1755, and so did Noah Webster in 1828. In the late 19th century, however, it had the misfortune of being noticed by Alfred Ayres, who was reported (in the Inland Printer, October 1899) to regard it as "unnecessary." 20th-century criticism has been sporadic. Whipple 1924 states flatly that satisfy "should not be used as a synonym for convince." Evans 1957 concurs with that opinion, but Gowers in Fowler 1965 acknowledges the long history of the sense, limiting his criticism to what he regards as its overuse in contexts where its suggestion of contentment may seem inappropriate. The "convince" sense of satisfy continues in fairly common use, and there is no doubt that it is entirely reputable. You may wish to avoid it in certain contexts, as Gowers recommends, but keep in mind that satisfy and convince have different connotations and are not always interchangeable. Such a sentence as "The man's family is satisfied that he was murdered" may seem ludicrous taken out of context, but making it "The man's family is convinced that he was murdered" results in a significant change in meaning. Convinced implies an utter certainty which may or may not have a sound basis ("All the evidence suggests an accident, but the man's family is convinced that he was murdered"). Satisfied emphasizes certainty less strongly; it implies a realization that doubts (or hopes) have been shown by the evidence to be unreasonable or groundless ("After seeing the evidence, the man's family is satisfied that he was murdered"). |
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