| 词组 | boggle |
| 释义 | boggle When a usage writer is determined to find something wrong with an expression, he will disapprove no matter how difficult constructing a rationale for the disapproval turns out to be. Both Barzun 1985 and Bremner 1980 dislike the expression "(something) boggles the mind." Bremner says it is an example of the error of making a transitive out of an intransitive. Presumably this means that if "the water boils" is earlier in standard use, then "boil the water" must be an error. Of course it isn't, as anyone willing to take a short tour through the verbs in a dictionary will see. Barzun thinks that making a transitive out of boggle is contrary to usage. If it were truly contrary to usage, however, he would not have had to write about it. Barzun also says boggle describes what a horse does when it is startled and refuses to budge, and that's why "the mind boggles" makes sense. (Horse sense, perhaps.) But a verb's original physical sense—and that of boggle was used of people about as early as it was of horses, by the way—cannot be taken as controlling the legitimate direction of the verb's later semantic development. If it could, we might have to disapprove many well-established verb uses, such as "the situation cries out for action" because the earliest uses of cry involved loud noise. Such objections as the ones just discussed have a decidedly ad hoc cast to them. What really irks these writers is that the transitive use of boggle in this sense is quite recent. Our evidence for it began to appear in the mid-1950s, and in our early examples it is not the mind but the imagination that is boggled: • Efforts to capture the atmosphere of a European musical center come off on the whole far better than might be expected, but not without several moments that boggle the imagination —Arthur Knight, Saturday Rev., 20 Mar. 1954 • The amount of litigation that would be set off... boggles the imagination —The Reporter, 6 Apr. 1967 It was also used with a personal direct object: • Lack of a clear-cut mission is only one of several problems which can boggle even the brightest, best-paid, and most dedicated commissioner —Sanford Brown & Robert Vermillion, Newsweek, 2 Jan. 1961 • What boggled her, though, was why her uptight husband ... was suddenly a sex symbol —Cyra McFadden, The Serial, 1977 Our files do not hold any evidence for "boggle the mind" before 1970, although it was undoubtedly in use earlier: • ... even good small claims courts tend to impose procedural requirements that boggle the mind of most laymen —Philip C. Schräg, Columbia Forum, Summer 1970 • The impressions of the vast land that is Russia boggle the mind —Richard Dunlop, Chicago, September/October 1972 • It is the forum in which all this ends up which boggles the mind —Douglas Kiker, The Washingtonian, October 1973 There is another transitive sense of boggle: "to mess up, botch": • ... a ne'er-do-well New Yorker who held minor government posts and had a talent for boggling nearly every job he put his hand to —H. Allen Smith, People Named Smith, 1950 • The master of ceremonies ... seemed to boggle everything that seemingly could be boggled —Rust Hills, Esquire, September 1974 The intransitive uses have not been pushed aside by the transitive. The intransitive equivalent of "boggle the mind" is not only older but more frequent: • ... so much for a movie sale, so much for a major book club selection, and so on until even the statistical mind boggles —Robert Stein, New York, 30 Aug. 1971 • When Bette abruptly dropped out for more than a year, show business minds boggled —Patricia Bur-stein, People, 30 June 1975 • ... has more dresses and skirts than your average boutique. On the other side of the hallway is another walk-in closet that—well, the mind boggles —Lisa See, TV Guide, 30 Dec. 1984 And the old standard boggle at construction is still in use: • ... not inclined to boggle at the way much of it was achieved —Wallace Stegner, Saturday Rev., 14 Jan. 1967 • ... who dishonestly pretends to be an old Etonian but honestly boggles at the peculations he finds his sister involved in —John Simon, Esquire, February 1974 • ... who, however, might boggle at the chefs inclusion of butter —Jay Jacobs, Gourmet, June 1982 In summary, you can either have your mind boggle at something or have something boggle your mind—both are standard and frequent in American English. Our evidence shows that the intransitive predominates in British English, but the adjectival compound mind-boggling, which implies a transitive verb, is used in British English as well as American: • ... sets the seal to her mind-boggling trajectory — Clive James, Observer Mag., 4 Nov. 1973 |
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