| 词组 | some |
| 释义 | some I Like the adverb (see some • You'd be some kind of hitter if you took a wider stance —Willie Mays, quoted in Sporting News, 26 Mar. 1966 • MacLeish looks a little like Doctor Devol, and he is some smooth poet —E. B. White, letter, 31 Jan. 1942 • ... that was some sustained drive —Arnold Dean, radio broadcast of football game, 21 Sept. 1974 • ... it had taken her some doing to get it —Liz Smith, Cosmopolitan, February 1972 In the 19th century the intensive adjective was used as a predicate adjective (as in "He was some in a fight"), to judge from the examples in Thornton 1912. Considerable and other adjectives were used in the same way. We have no recent examples showing some in this construction. II The indefinite pronoun some is governed by notional agreement and may take either a singular or plural verb. Some of followed by a plural noun or pronoun takes a plural verb: • ... demonstrated that some of the new particles were slow to decay —Current Biography, February 1966 • And some of them are saying that ... —Margaret Mead, Barnard Alumnae, Winter 1971 When a singular mass or collective noun follows some of, a singular verb is usual: • Some of the biggest news in knits this year is being made at home —Nora O'Leary, Ladies' Home Jour., August 1971 • Some of the office staff was there —E. L. Doctorow, Ragtime, 1975 When some stands by itself, the source of the notional agreement will be only in the writer's mind or in more distant context, but it will still prevail. This some usually takes a plural verb when it means "some people": • It may be, as some argue, that... —Amos Elon, New Yorker, 29 July 1985 • Some feel we are not treating other people in the world fairly —W. E. Brock, AAUP Bulletin, September 1969 The use of a singular verb with this sense, as in a recent newspaper headline which read "Should Meals Be Included in Education Budget? Some Thinks So," is distinctly odd-sounding. But when some stands for part of a mass, a singular verb is usual: • The text... is rather uneven. Much is summary and factual Some has undertones of... —Times Literary Supp., 24 Nov. 1966 See also agreement: indefinite pronouns; notional agreement, notional concord. III 1. When some is used to modify a number, it has the force of about and is almost always tacked onto a round number: • ... would by now have collected some $500 billion from the tax —Felix G. Rohatyn, The Twenty- Year Century, 1983 • ... ordered the slaughter of some 20,000 of his brother's followers in Rome —Robert Payne, Saturday Rev., 18 Mar. 1972 There has been occasional objection (Bernstein 1958, 1965, 1977, Copperud 1970, 1980) to some used with numbers that are not approximate. Such usage seems to take two forms. First, with dates: since years and centuries are equivalent more or less to round numbers, some usually retains its meaning of "about": • Some fifteen years ago, a gentleman representing an exclusive and expensive special-editions club came to the office —James Thurber, letter, August 1947 • ... a point in time some fourteen centuries before the earliest authentic example —Times Literary Supp., 19 Feb. 1971 The second example also suggests the second use of some with numbers that are not approximate: as a mild intensifier, used as if to elicit "Wow! That many?" from the reader. Bernstein has a perfect example: • Some 35,683 attended the races at Aqueduct —Bernstein 1958, 1965 And here is one from our own files: • An expert parachutist, he has some 115 jumps to his credit —Current Biography, July 1965 Some is certainly omissible in such contexts, but it does provide an emphasis which would otherwise be lacking. It is also good to keep in mind that a unit that seems quite precise to you may not be so precise to someone accustomed to smaller units. It would be overfastidious, for instance, to object to some—meaning "about"—in a context like this one: • ... had, collectively, improved the boat's upwind speed by some six seconds a mile in winds of 18 knots and up —Sarah Ballard, Sports Illustrated, 26 Jan. 1987 See also -odd. 2. A favorite with usage writers for more than a century has been the subject of the use of some in the sense "somewhat." It can be found in such early works as Bache 1869, Ayres 1881, Compton 1898, Vizetelly 1906, and Bierce 1909, and in recent books like Trimmer & McCrimmon 1988, Shaw 1987, Warriner 1986, and Little, Brown 1986. Evidence in the OED suggests that the usage has two sources. As the modifier of a comparative ("some better"), it seems to have belonged originally to Scots or northern English dialect. As the postpositive modifier of a verb ("has grown some"), it is apparently not dialectal. Both uses were imported to America from Great Britain, and the outbreak of comment in the later 19th century was apparently in reaction to popular 19th-century spoken American usage. Commentary on this subject has varied little over the years. The repeated prescription has been to use somewhat in place of some, which was called dialectal and provincial in Vizetelly 1906 but has more recently been labeled informal, colloquial, or nonstandard. The basic prescription is, however, more than a little oversimplified. The only use in which somewhat is virtually certain to substitute smoothly is the one where some precedes a comparative: • She does feel some better, and is able to take short walks —E. B. White, letter, 14 Feb. 1963 Our most recent evidence includes very few examples of this construction in writing, in spite of its being mentioned in almost every usage book since Bache 1869. And our recent evidence shows that some following the verb is the usual construction. When some is itself followed by more, you certainly would not want to use somewhat instead: • Here in Newport, both Southern Cross and Courageous practiced some more —William N. Wallace, N.Y. Times, 10 Sept. 1974 But in what is by far the most common construction in our evidence some stands alone after the verb. It can sometimes be replaced by somewhat, but it also occurs commonly in contexts where somewhat is not idiomatic: • But I've been brooding some about it —E. B. White, letter, 4 Feb. 1942 • She wept some, and tried to retract —William Faulkner, "Centaur in Brass," in The Collected Stories of William Faulkner, 1950 • I know him some, not well —And More by Andy Rooney, 1982 • But even to get to be anemic looking, Hershiser had to fill out some —Bruce Newman, Sports Illustrated, 5 May 1986 • To know that she is often compared to Maria Callas helps some —Joseph Mathewson, Horizon, May 1985 • ... was slowing down some, now that he'd reached middle age —Andrew H. Malcolm, N.Y. Times Mag., 23 Mar. 1986 • He also helped out some at Ben & Jerry's —Calvin Trillin, New Yorker, 8 July 1985 • She may be oversimplifying some —Jay Cocks, Time, 19 Mar. 1984 The evidence shows, in short, that the adverbial some, in the senses "in some degree; to some extent; a little; somewhat," is a well-established American idiom. It is freely used in edited prose in the 1980s, although it seems not to be found in prose of the highest formality. You need not (and sometimes cannot) automatically replace it with somewhat when it is used in constructions like those illustrated above. It is worth mention in passing that we have no current evidence for the downtoning some used in front of an adjective, as in the 1817 "His clothes were some bloody" recorded in Thornton 1912. 3. There is also an intensive adverbial some, best known, perhaps, in the combinations going some and go some: • I still retain my pure English, even when I lose my temper, which is going some —Kenneth McGaffey, The Sorrows of a Show Girl, 1908 (in A Dictionary of Americanisms 1951) • Well, her sister's about twict as good-lookin' as her, and that's going some —Ring Lardner, "Alibi Ike," in How to Write Short Stories, 1924 • ... will have to go some to surpass the April program —Robert J. Armbruster, Johns Hopkins Mag., June 1970 This sense is attested as modifying a following adjective, too. Our most recent examples associate it with the state of Maine: • I knew one thing: With that eye he looked some funny —Oscar Cronk, Jr. (identified as a Maine trapper), quoted in Sports Illustrated, 24 Jan. 1983 • "This place is some nice," I begin —A. G. Mojtabai, Autumn (novel set in Maine), 1982 • The salmon preparation ... was, in the argot of Maine and Long Island lobstermen, some good — Jay Jacobs, Gourmet, April 1985 Earlier it had use outside of Maine: • Husky young fellow, nice voice, steady, clear eyes, kinda proud, I thought, an' some handsome —Zane Grey, Desert Gold, 1913 M. H. Scargill, in A Short History of Canadian English (1977), mentions some hot "really hot" as existing in Canadian English. Editors of the Dictionary of American Regional English tell us that this use is currently attested in Hawaii, Texas, and New Jersey, as well as Maine (and elsewhere in northern New England). It also exists in British dialect. It looks to us like a form that was once rather widespread but has survived in speech only in scattered places. |
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