| 词组 | sometime |
| 释义 | sometime 1. The adverb is written as a single word: "He arrived sometime last night." A phrase combining the adjective some and the noun time is written as two words: "He needed some time to think"; "We haven't seen them for some time." The difference is easy to see in these examples, but it is not always so clear. Consider the sentence "He arrived some time ago." The difference between sometime last night and some time ago may not be instantly apparent, since both phrases have an adverbial function. In some time ago, however, some and time still function within the phrase itself as an adjective and a noun, like five and minutes in the phrase five minutes ago. An easy way to tell if some and time should be written as one word or two in most contexts is to insert quite before some and see if the passage still makes sense. If it does, some and time should be written separately: "We haven't seen them for quite some time"; "He arrived quite some time ago." If it does not (as in "He arrived quite sometime last night"), sometime is the correct choice. 2. The adjective sometime has two meanings, the older of which is "former": • ... a sometime Communist ... refuses to say whether he is a Communist now —National Rev., 30 June 1970 • ... a sometime English professor turned administrator —Bruce Dearing, CEA Forum, April 1971 In its newer sense, sometime is essentially equivalent to occasional. This sense was first attested in the 1930s. It appears to have originated in the southern U.S., but in recent decades it has worked its way into the mainstream of American English: • The philosopher and sometime poet took seriously the commonplace that "man is a rational animal" — Richard A. Macksey, Johns Hopkins Mag., Spring 1968 • ... was a sometime participant in the international activities of Dada after the First World War —Roger Shattuck, N.Y. Rev. of Books, 12 Mar. 1970 • ... I am an inveterate browser and a sometime buyer of small objects —Claire Berman, New York, 1 Nov. 1971 • It is for this sometime shrillness of tone that one criticizes Mr. Brackman —Edmund Fuller, Wall Street Jour., 8 Sept. 1980 • The City Fathers of Beverly Hills, in their sometime wisdom, recently banned sightseeing buses —Oscar Millard, N.Y. Times, 19 Feb. 1984 • ... was the confidant, adviser and sometime agent of Presidents from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Lyndon B. Johnson —William V. Shannon, N.Y. Times Book Rev., 28 Oct. 1984 It often occurs in the phrase a sometime thing, where its meaning may tend toward "unreliable" or "transient": • But a counter culture is a sometime thing —Todd Gitlin, Psychology Today, January 1970 • ... communication between Wellman workers and the union was truly a sometime thing —Irving Kahan, Harper's, February 1971 • ... feel that the health care in pro football is a sometime thing —William Barry Furlong, N.Y. Times Mag., 30 Nov. 1980 • It turned out in later years that Mr. Frank's liberalism was no sometime thing —Suzanne Garment, Wall Street Jour., 27 Feb. 1981 This newer sense of sometime has only recently begun to show up in dictionaries. Although there is—or should be—no question about its being standard English, you still stand a small chance of being criticized if you use it. Most usage handbooks make no mention of it, but a majority of the Heritage 1982 panel finds it unacceptable. |
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