| 词组 | transpire |
| 释义 | transpire The use of transpire to mean "to come to pass, occur, happen" has been disparaged since at least 1870. Some of its critics have rather shortchanged this interesting word, saying that transpire can mean only "to leak out, become known." They pass over its earlier technical senses, which we still find in use, most often in botanical contexts. Transpire was born as a technical word in the 17th century. In its literal senses, transpire describes the passing of a vapor through the pores of a membrane, such as the surface of a leaf. The word began to be used figuratively sometime in the first half of the century (the earliest figurative citation in the OED is from 1741). Samuel Johnson's 1755 Dictionary is the first to record the new sense, albeit disapprovingly. Johnson defined the sense as "To escape from secrecy to notice" and appended this comment: "a sense lately innovated from France, without necessity." He gave no example of its use. In James Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), the Earl of Marchmont tells Boswell that Johnson's dislike of transpire was actually owing to its having first been used by Lord Bolingbroke, with whom Johnson had deep political differences. This use by Bolingbroke has not yet been discovered, but it might explain Johnson's comment about the sense's French origin. The sense was current for the corresponding French verb in the early 18th century, and Bolingbroke lived in exile in France from 1715 to 1725. Here are a few examples of its use in English: • ... certainly, it would be next to a miracle that a fact of this kind should be known to a whole parish, and not transpire any farther —Henry Fielding, Tom Jones, 1749 • No more news has transpired of that Wanderer — Charles Lamb, letter, 1 Feb. 1806 • ... it had just transpired that he had left gaming debts behind him to a very considerable amount — Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, 1813 • ... some circumstance has transpired which leads to a belief that the persons ... are in some way connected with the prisoner for some sinister purpose — anonymous broadside, 1842, in Curiosities of Street Literature, 1871 • To be perfectly frank with you Ī am one of the most notable craftsmen of my time. That will transpire presently —Robert Frost, letter, 4 July 1913 • Manning had a long interview with Pius IX ... Precisely what passed on that occasion never transpired —Lytton Strachey, Eminent Victorians, 1918 This particular use is no longer very common, according to our evidence. In present-day general English transpire most often occurs in an impersonal construction with it. The construction may have developed from uses like Jane Austen's above. In this impersonal construction it transpired ranges in meaning from "it was learned" to "it turned out." Here are several examples: • It transpired afterwards that Miss Maitland had had no intention of giving Ernest in charge —Samuel Butler, The Way of All Flesh, 1903 • It then transpired that Old Crockford was a village and, from the appearance of the team on the day of battle, the Old Crockfordians seemed to be composed exclusively of the riff-raff of same —P. G. Wodehouse, Tales of St Austin's, 1903 • It transpired after a confused five minutes that the man had heard Gatsby's name around his office — F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, 1925 • ... but when they get there, it transpires that this is not the point of departure of their ship —James Thurber, Thurber Country, 1953 • But in the end it transpired that the allusion was characteristically to an Edwardian popular song — Foster 1968 • ... said at the time that he took no fees from the cereal makers. But it transpired that he did receive retainers from them —John L. Hess, Saturday Rev., August 1978 • ... therefore it was not resented by anybody when it transpired that indeed they did —William F. Buckley, Jr., quoted in Harper's, January 1986 The newest sense of transpire, "to take place; occur; happen," originated obscurely, probably in the late 18th century. Noah Webster in his 1828 Dictionary was the first to record the new meaning, which may be of American origin. It seems likely that it developed by misinterpretation of the earlier figurative sense in ambiguous contexts. For instance, the Dictionary of Americanisms and the OED Supplement both give this quotation as the first example of the new sense: • There is nothing new transpired since I wrote you last —Abigail Adams, letter, 31 July 1775 With just this much context given, however, the example is ambiguous: transpired might mean "has come out" or "has happened." Ambiguous examples are not hard to find. Here are two more: • I long to see you once more, to clasp you in my arms & to tell you of many things which have transpired since we parted —Emily Dickinson, letter, 8 Sept. 1846 • ... denied that anything had transpired that would jeopardize Walker's NCAA eligibility —Jerry Kir-shenbaum, Sports Illustrated, 28 Feb. 1983 We think it not unlikely that the new sense came from people's hearing transpire in ambiguous contexts, taking it to mean "happen," and then using it to mean "happen." At any rate, transpire was clearly used to mean "happen" as early as 1804 in a fugitive publication from Hartford, Connecticut. It is fitting that this early example of the "happen" sense was probably journalistic, for it was journalistic use that after some sixty years resulted in controversy. The first two critics were Richard Grant White 1870 and John Stuart Mill in A System of Logic (whether first in the 1866 or the 1872 edition we do not know). The "happen" sense of transpire came to the attention of each through its use in newspapers. White devoted four pages to his critique of this sense, but in the end he produced only three examples of it, while quoting twice as many examples of the sense he approved. White's most flamboyant example is this one, from an unidentified paper: • The police drill will transpire under shelter to-day in consequence of the moist atmosphere prevailing. Mill contented himself with dismissing the new sense as a vulgarism, but White characteristically buttressed his opinion by reference to etymology, the upshot of which was that there is no logical connection between either the Latin roots of transpire ("breathe" and "across") or its literal English sense and its use to mean "happen." Many subsequent commentators have also based their criticism on etymology. Others have stressed more what they see as the pretentiousness of transpire in its disapproved sense. The etymological argument against the use of transpire to mean "happen" can be dismissed along with many other such arguments. That this sense arose out of confusion seems undeniable, but the confusion that produced it occurred about 200 years ago. Modern writers and speakers who use transpire to mean "happen" are not confused about the meaning of the word; they know perfectly well that in current English "happen" is one of its established senses. The process by which it acquired this sense in the distant past is irrelevant; acquire the sense it did, and it now has it for good, or at least for the forseeable future. Anyone who tries seriously to claim in the late 20th century that transpire does not mean "happen" is obviously talking nonsense. As for the charge of pretentiousness, there is no denying that transpire is a somewhat formal word, and like any formal word it can be used pretentiously (as in the passage about the police drill cited by Richard Grant White). But formal words can also be used appropriately, in contexts where a certain formality is called for. Our evidence for transpire meaning "happen" shows that its use is sometimes pretentious and sometimes not. Sometimes the pretentiousness is deliberately employed for comic effect. You can judge the range of use from this sampling: • Few changes—hardly any—have transpired among his ship's company —Charles Dickens, Dombey and Son, 1848 (OED) • All memorable events, I should say, transpire in morning time and in a morning atmosphere — Henry David Thoreau, Waiden, 1854 • ... the first incidents of the origin of the fire which all told did not occupy more than five minutes in transpiring —Tombstone Epitaph, ca. 1880, in Douglas D. Martin, Tombstones Epitaph, 1951 • This here finish joke of Jaybird's transpires one evenin as the cook's startin in to rustle some chuck —Alfred Henry Lewis, "Jaybird Bob's Last Joke," 1897, in The Mirth of a Nation, ed. Walter Blair & Raven I. McDavid, Jr., 1983 • All sorts of delays transpired in the work —N.Y. Times, 20 Nov. 1899 • ... if the project will shape into the building of a great American army to meet whatever may transpire —Archibald MacLeish, letter, 4 Feb. 1917 • The stage, of course, was the dream. All that transpired there is now a memory —Charles A. Lindbergh, The Spirit of St. Louis, 1953 • ... most agreed that I gave an honest account of what transpired —James A. Michener, Saturday Rev., 1 May 1954 • Stage three, flirtation, depends on individuals, but a great deal of it transpires in airplanes —Robert Craft, Stravinsky, 1972 • I did not learn much of what transpired until the next day —William L. Shirer, The Nightmare Years, 1984 • ... his faithful report of what transpired amounts to the proverbial smoking gun —David A. Stockman, Newsweek, 28 Apr. 1986 • ... documents which are often conflicting and occasionally far from what we believe transpired —The Tower Commission Report, 1987 It should be noted in passing that transpire is also a formal word in its uncontroversial sense, "to become known or apparent," and that its use in this sense can also at times seem pretentious. In summary, transpire has two uses in general publications today. It is used in an impersonal construction, usually it transpired that, which means approximately "it turned out that" or "it developed that." And it is used to mean "to take place, occur, happen." In both uses it is a somewhat formal word that can sometimes seem pretentious. In both uses it is firmly established as standard. The use of transpire to mean "happen" has attracted criticism for more than a century and will perhaps continue to attract criticism for many years to come, but it is extremely common, can be found in the works of excellent writers, and is in no sense an error. |
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