词组 | boat |
释义 | boat Almost everyone knows a ship is bigger than a boat, and a number of usage writers—Kilpatrick 1984, Harper 1985, Shaw 1975, for instance—allow themselves a display of their nautical lore by elaborating on the theme. This is all part of the folklore of newspapering, and goes back at least as far as James Gordon Bennett's "Don't List" of the New York Herald, in which everyone is directed not to use boat "(except in describing a small craft propelled by oars)." Copperud calls the attempt to restrict boat to this sense "a naval fetish." The literate general public, no doubt mostly landlubbers, pays no attention to the restriction and uses boat for a floating contrivance of whatever size it wishes. Such use is entirely standard, of course, except in nautical circles: • When he reached Alexandria he came up to his boat, a paddle steamer built of steel —E. L. Doctorow, Ragtime, 1975 |
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。