| 词组 | self-depreciation, self-deprecation |
| 释义 | self-depreciation, self-deprecation Self-depreciation is attested in our files as early as 1917. It appears at first to have indicated a lack of self-esteem: • ... the self-depreciation that made him powerless before her mother's reproaches —Hearst's Mag., March 1917 This sense has not been lost: • ... an increase in group solidarity, a lessening of self-depreciation, a feeling of potential strength —Gerda Lerner, Columbia Forum, Fall 1970 The word is also used for a conscious downplaying or undervaluing of oneself, usually for the purpose of conveying a real or assumed modesty: • ... owes her nationwide popularity largely to her mastery of satirical self-depreciation —Current Biography, July 1967 In this use, it is a noun clearly parallel to the adjectives self-deprecating and self-deprecatory (see self-deprecating, self-deprecatory). In recent years—only since 1971 in our files—self-deprecation has sprung up as a synonymous rival to self-depreciation. It is used in the same ways: • One pollyannish anecdote after another illustrates each phase—anecdotes that will plunge any experienced mother into feelings of inadequacy and self-deprecation —Margaret O'Brien Steinfels, TV. Y. Times Book Rev., 1 Nov. 1976 • ... they use self-deprecation as a way of making themselves attractive, and it is as aggressive as ordinary boasting —David Denby, Atlantic, April 1971 • He proved everything by his self-deprecation, his sighs, his lachrymose pauses —E. L. Doctorow, Loon Lake, 1979 • ... what's missing under Allen's highly salable self-deprecation, is any true sense of dissatisfaction — Stanley Kauffmann, Before My Eyes, 1980 Self-deprecation makes a better match with the adjectives self-deprecating and self-deprecatory than does the older self-depreciation, and it is not unlikely that it is the influence of the adjectives that has promoted the use of the newer word. While our evidence may not be conclusive, it is interesting to note that our citations for self-depreciation began to grow rarer just about the time that those for self-deprecation first appeared. It seems likely that the newer word will become the more common. |
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