词组 | type, -type, type of |
释义 | type, -type, type of Objection has been made to the use of type in the sense of "sort" as an attributive modifier of another noun, as in this example: • ... the one big impression I got was that the game hasn't changed. It's the same as it was when I played. I see the same type pitchers, the same type hitters — Ted Williams & John Underwood, The Science of Hitting, 1971 The concern is an American one that seems to have first surfaced in the 1950s. The gist of the objection appears to be that type is a noun and should not be used as an adjective. The usual suggestion is to use type of instead of type alone. Attributive nouns (such as apple in apple pie) are a commonplace in English, however, and there is no grammatical reason why type should not be used attributively. It may be that the criticism actually has some more subtle basis. Paul Fussell, in The Boy Scout Handbook (1982), hints at a social stigma; he asserts that this usage is a lower-class one. Copperud 1980 takes the same view, seeing the locution as characteristic of the "lower East Side or the Bronx." Other factors contributing to the dislike of attributive type are its apparent origin in speech—it is mentioned as a spoken form by Evans 1957 and Bryant 1962—and its association with business, technical, and advertising usage. Our evidence suggests that the usage has not established itself strongly in edited prose. It turns up occasionally in trade publications, but only seldom in more general writing. A sample: • ... many breeders both new and old are searching for a smaller, meaty type rabbit —Rusty Schultz, Rabbits, September-October 1986 • ... reported to be interested in this type product — RichardC. Sizemore, Women's Wear Daily, 14 Jan. 1974 • ... the Supervisor in charge of this type office — Arthur S. Aubry, Jr., Police, January-February 1968 • ... a nagging sensation of do-gooder type guilt — Orson Bean, National Rev., 23 Feb. 1971 Examples from speech—and one letter—show a wider spread of usage: • You should see a diagram of the latest type incendiary —Randall Jarrell, letter, August 1945 • Says Fabergé president Richard Barrie, "We think Margaux really epitomizes today's young woman ... • she's an all-round type lady " —Gregg Kilday, Cosmopolitan, November 1976 • After an NSC meeting or an NSC type meeting a few of us were asked to gather in the Oval Office —Edwin Meese 3d, quoted in The Tower Commission Report, 1987 • I do a warm-up about local Buffalo things, and there's a champagne party afterward. It's really a family-type thing —Mark Russell, quoted in TV Guide, 23 June 1978 Notice the hyphen in the last example. Mark Russell obviously did not pronounce it; a writer or editor put it in. For some mysterious reason this hyphen removes much of the stigma from the usage: any number of commentators excuse the hyphenated use in technical contexts, and Copperud says it is "verging on respectability" in other contexts as well. A few examples: • ... to expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit and otherwise neutralize the activities of black nationalists, hate-type organizations —J. Edgar Hoover, quoted in N.Y. Times, 30 Aug. 1974 • ... a field jacket-type parka would have cost in the neighborhood of $250 —Kent Mitchell, Atlanta Constitution, 19 Sept. 1984 • ... judicial-type decisions made by Government departments —A. H. Hanson & Malcolm Walles, Governing Britain, 1970 • One of my trenchcoat-type coats has two buttons missing —And More by Andy Rooney, 1982 Type is frequently used to make compound modifiers as needed in this way. It is fairly common with technical terms: • ... tetracycline-type antibiotic —Annual Report, Pfizer, 1970 • It's not practical to shrink this conveyor-type dishwasher down —William H. Dennler, quoted in General Electric Investor, Winter 1970 And many writers attach -type to proper names: • ... an adult Western with an Othello-type plot — Current Biography, June 1965 • ... Goon-type funny voices —Peter Davalle, Annabel, May 1975 • ... the plot is based on an Eric Ambler-type device —Fraser Sutherland, Books in Canada, June-July 1974 While a majority of commentators prescribe type of in place of attributive type, a minority—mostly college handbooks—disparage type of as frequently unnecessary. Type of is, indeed, deadwood in some uses. Here are a couple of examples where it could have been cut with no loss: • ... is all business—in a friendly type of way —Julie Gilbert, Houston Post, 3 Sept. 1984 • The most flagrant type of misuse is to say something like: 'They decimated almost half the enemy.' — Howard 1977 |
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