| 词组 | better |
| 释义 | better 1. See absolute comparative. 2. The use of better for had better, (see also had better, had best) is rejected by a couple of critics, but Copperud 1970 says that the consensus is that it is not open to serious criticism. Longman 1984 notes that it is also used in informal British English. Our examples here suggest that while it is an acceptable idiom, it is not found in very formal surroundings. • ... an internist, which is what you ought to see. You better listen to me —Flannery O'Connor, letter, 9 Oct. 1962 • ... a stubblehead German with an accent you better not laugh at —E. L. Doctorow, Loon Lake, 1979 • You better buy it too —Pete Carey, Popular Computing, January 1985 • ... they're going to be awfully mad at me, and we better figure that in, too — John F. Kennedy, quoted in Harper's, February 1971 3. The idiom better than used to mean "more than" is disliked by the usage panel of Heritage 1969, 1982 and by the Oxford American Dictionary; Harper 1985 and Lurie 1927 find it unacceptable in careful writing or literary English but passable in speech. Reader's Digest 1983 has fewer reservations about it, calling it "slightly informal" but "widespread and perfectly legitimate." Not one of these sources brings forth a better reason for questioning the expression than that more is not necessarily better, a truism irrelevant to a matter of idiomatic English. Lurie does say, though, that some dictionaries label it colloquial. Better than is primarily a spoken idiom (it is attested in some varieties of Irish English and in some English dialects), and like many spoken idioms it is not generally found in the more formal kinds of writing. • ... it would take better than a fifty-degree incline to flip the moon car —Henry S. F. Cooper, Jr., New Yorker, 17 July 1971 • ... who has hit better than .300 for the last 14 seasons —Bill Lyon, Hartford (Conn.) Courant, 12 July 1983 • We were whistling along at slightly better than Mach 2 —Horace Sutton, Saturday Rev., 23 June 1979 • ... added up to better than 16 percent of consumer expenditures for health care —American Labor, July-August 1969 4. The idiom the better part of in the sense of "most" or "more than half of is disliked by Bremner 1980, for no apparent reason. "Why better?" he asks. But why not? That's how the idiom goes. It is used with expressions of time. • We stayed in Seoul the better part of two days — Norman Cousins, Saturday Rev., 4 Mar. 1978 • ... including the better part of a year spent living with the Blood Indians —Frank Getlein, Smithsonian, May 1972 • For the better part of two decades the forces of expansion were in the saddle —Eli Ginzberg, Columbia Forum, Fall 1970 • ... and Buenos Aires, with the better part of two days at the last —David D. Tennant, Illustrated London News, 31 Aug. 1968 |
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