| 词组 | similar |
| 释义 | similar 1. Similar is sometimes used as an adverb: • A sponge bath is taken similar to the way you wash your face —Margil Vanderhoff, Clothes, Clues, and Careers, 1981 Such usage is extremely rare in written English and is regarded as an error. It can easily be avoided, either by substituting similarly or by rearranging the parts of the sentence to make it read more smoothly: "Taking a sponge bath is similar to washing your face." 2. One thing is said to be similar in some way to another, and two or more things are said to be similar in some respect. Some critics have apparently seen as used after similar, because they mention it as an error to be avoided, but our files do not contain a single example of similar... as. 3. Similar is not normally a word of great precision. To describe two things as "similar" is to say only that they resemble each other in some way, which may or may not be specified. The degree of resemblance may be great or slight, but usually, when similar is used by itself without a modifying adverb such as very, a moderate degree of resemblance is implied. A few commentators have therefore looked with disfavor on the occasional use of similar to mean "the same" or "corresponding": • No two animal habitats are exactly similar —W. H. Dowdeswell, Animal Ecology, 2d ed., 1959 • I told Pope John that Chairman Khrushchev had expressed almost similar sentiments —Norman Cousins, Saturday Rev., 30 Oct. 1971 • ... casualties for the year to date are running little more than half the number in the similar 1970 period —Rowena Wyant, Dun's, October 1971 Such usage is not especially common, but it has a long history and is undoubtedly standard. The observations made by Noah Webster in his 1828 Dictionary are still accurate today: Similar may signify exactly alike, or having a general likeness, a likeness in the principal points. Things perfectly similar in their nature, must be of the same essence, or homogeneous; but we generally understand similar to denote a likeness that is not perfect. 4. For pronunciation problems with this word, see nuclear. |
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