| 词组 | unbeknown, unbeknownst |
| 释义 | unbeknown, unbeknownst The history of unbeknown and unbeknownst is relatively straightforward. Unbeknown was first recorded in 1636, unbeknownst in 1849 (exactly how the -st came to be added is not understood). The OED labeled unbeknownst colloquial and dialectal, but the OED Supplement notes that it is "now of much wider currency than in the 19th. cent." According to our evidence, in fact, both unbeknown and unbeknownst are now in widespread standard use and have been for many years. Unbeknownst is the more common form: • ... had fetched them unbeknownst to the Western ocean —Conrad Richter, The Trees, 1940 • ... unbeknownst to the procurement agent —Atlantic, December 1951 • ... who unbeknownst to us had shifted his position —New Yorker, 13 Mar. 1954 • ... had been doing this unbeknown to Harriet — Elizabeth Taylor, A Game of Hide-and-Seek, 1951 • Unbeknown to me —Frank Deford, Sports Illustrated, 1 Apr. 1974 In contrast with the fairly simple history of the words themselves, the history of opinions about them is rather a tangle. The first contributor to the general confusion was Bache 1869, who noted that "Unbeknown is obsolete in good usage" (he did not mention unbeknownst). Bache's opinion is not supported by the evidence in the OED, which includes 19th-century citations for unbeknown from Charles Dickens and A. E. Housman, among others. Vizetelly 1906, however, called unbeknown "a vulgar provincialism used chiefly in the form unbeknownst.'''' MacCracken & Sandison in 1917 made no mention of unbeknown but dismissed unbeknownst as a "provincial error for without (my) knowledge." In 1926, Fowler observed that both forms were "out of use except in dialect or uneducated speech." Krapp called them "humorous, colloquial, and dialectal" in 1927. Jensen in 1935 called unbeknownst "vulgar and dialectal for unbeknown, unknown," which presumably indicates that he found nothing wrong with unbeknown. Evans 1957 noted that "neither of these words occurs in natural speech today." And so on. The latest to put in his two cents worth is John Simon 1980, who returns to Jensen's position by saying flatly that unbeknownst is "a vulgarism for 'unbeknown.'" Almost the only thing—besides hostility to one or both words—that these varied opinions have in common is that, at least with regard to current usage, they are all incorrect. A few more examples should be adequate to show that both unbeknown and unbeknownst are now standard, and that neither is limited to the spoken language: • ... unbeknownst to the jewel thieves —Cornelia Otis Skinner, New Yorker, 27 Oct. 1951 • ... unbeknown to their staffs —Anthony Bailey, New Yorker, 29 Oct. 1973 • ... unbeknown, undoubtedly, to the corporations' stockholders —Elizabeth Drew, New Yorker, 6 Dec. 1982 • ... unbeknownst to the teachers —Richard T. Schaefer, Sociology, 1983 • ... unbeknown to most historians —Paul Kennedy, Times Literary Supp., 28 May 1982 • ... quite unbeknownst to her —E. B. White, New Yorker, 7 Apr. 1956 • Unbeknownst to them —Garrison Keillor, Lake Wobegon Days, 1985 |
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