词组 | head up |
释义 | head up Like many other verbs, head is often used with up; a person can either head a committee or head up a committee. Because the up appears to add nothing to the meaning of head (although it might be argued that head up in some way implies a more active and energetic leadership than does head by itself), language watchers regard it as superfluous and therefore, as Harper 1985 puts it, "unacceptable to careful speakers and writers." Evidence of actual usage shows, however, that head up is extremely common both in speech and in writing. Our earliest record of it is from the 1940s, and we have found it to be in widespread use since the 1950s: • Energetic, imaginative, forceful Sir James Stevenson headed up a committee of experts —William Haynes & Ernst A. Hauser, Rationed Rubber, 1942 • ... who unselfishly headed up the fund —Harvey Breit, N.Y. Times Book Rev., 18 Apr. 1954 • ... casting about for a man to head up his political-science department —Thomas Drake Durrance, Saturday Evening Post, 29 May 1954 • ... a dynamic young businessman who was heading up a forty-million-dollar a year enterprise —Tom McCarthy, The Writer, November 1968 • ... Saxophonist Cannonball Adderley ... heads up his quintet —New Yorker, 20 Aug. 1973 • ... a bearded outdoorsman who heads up a private consortium of environmental groups —Jane Eblen Keller, Smithsonian, February 1980 We see nothing wrong with such usage, but you should be aware that it stands some chance of being criticized. |
随便看 |
英语用法大全包含2888条英语用法指南,基本涵盖了全部常用英文词汇及语法点的翻译及用法,是英语学习的有利工具。