| 词组 | idiosyncrasy, idiosyncracy |
| 释义 | idiosyncrasy, idiosyncracy A number of critics since Fowler 1926 (Watt 1967, Copperud 1964, 1970, 1980, Bryson 1984) warn against the -cy spelling, calling it a misspelling. Fowler also claimed that the -cy spelling spoiled the sense, but he had trapped himself in his etymological musings—there is no evidence that any one using the -cy spelling meant anything except idiosyncrasy. The evidence in the OED shows that the -cy spelling goes back as far as Sir Thomas Browne's Pseudodoxia Epidemica in 1650; there are also some 19th-century examples. An article in Word Study, May 1957, listed 19 citations for the -cy spelling from 1892 to 1953 found in such sources as Notes and Queries, PMLA, English Studies, American Speech, the New Republic, Saturday Review, Time, and several books, including Jespersen 1909-49. The most amusing example was from a 1931 book written by J. Middleton Murry, who six years later wrote an article in the Times Literary Supplement (3 Apr. 1937) decrying the -cy spelling. The editor of the word for Webster's Third was impressed by the documentation and entered idiosyncracy as a secondary variant. Since idiosyncracy has been in use for nearly 350 years, it is probably time to stop thinking of it as a misspelling; it is a misspelling only from the standpoint of etymology, not of educated usage. But we remind you that it is a secondary variant—idiosyncrasy is much more common—and you will probably be better off sticking to the more common spelling. |
| 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。