| 词组 | hone in on |
| 释义 | hone in on An issue looming on the usage horizon is the propriety of the phrase hone in on. George Bush's use of this phrase in the 1980 presidential campaign (he talked of "honing in on the issues") caught the critical eye of political columnist Mary McGrory, and her comments on it were noted, approved, and expanded by William Safire. Safire observed that hone in on is a confused variant of home in on, and there seems to be little doubt that he was right. Home in on is a fairly new phrase itself, one whose origins can be traced to the verb home as it relates to homing pigeons. The OED shows that home was first used in the sense "to fly back home after being released at a distant point" in the late 19th century. The extended use of this verb from which home in on is directly derived was first recorded in 1920 in a magazine called Wireless World: "The pilot can detect instantly from the signals, especially if'homing' towards a beacon" (OED Supplement). Our evidence indicates that this use of home was confined chiefly to the military until the 1950s. It often occurred with on, as in "The missile homed on the target." Our first example of home in on is from 1951, in a context having to do with aviation. Our earliest record of its figurative use in a general context is from 1956. We did not encounter hone in on until George Bush used it in 1980, but we did record two instances of hone in in the '60s: • ... looking back for the ball honing in to intercept his line of flight —George Plimpton, Paper Lion, 1965 • Wallace has been able to "hone in some basic issues ... ," Bush said —Houston Post, 14 July 1968 George Bush again? Probably so. He was a congressman from Houston in 1968. Recent evidence suggests that hone in on is becoming increasingly common. We have found it twice in the past few years on the pages of a popular magazine: • ... boys tend to hone in on a few concentrated fields of interest —Ruth Duskin Feldman, quoted in People, 20 Dec. 1982 • ... Springsteen hones in on the plights and victories of the common man —Lisa Russell, People, 10 Sept. 1984 We have also noted its use in speech, and we received a phone call not long ago from an articulate and obviously well-educated woman who had read home in on in the newspaper and wanted to know if it was an error for hone in on. It may be that eventually hone in on will become so common that dictionaries will begin to enter it as a standard phrase; and usage commentators will then routinely rail against it as an ignorant corruption of the language. That is a development we can all look forward to, but its time is not yet. In the meantime, we recommend that you use home in on instead. |
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