| 词组 | unthinkable |
| 释义 | unthinkable This unremarkable adjective became a usage topic when H. W. Fowler turned his attention to it in 1926, devoting a full page and a half to a detailed and literal-minded critique of its various uses. Fowler believed that the word should be—and eventually would be—restricted to "its severely limited philosophic sense"; that is, "incapable of being perceived or apprehended by the mind." He considered all of its other, much more common uses, with such meanings as "preposterous," "entirely unacceptable," and "out of the question," to be mistaken. Later commentators seem to have been at something of a loss to understand just why it was that Fowler felt so strongly about unthinkable. Only a few have seen a need to address the subject, and most of those who do acknowledge that the uses Fowler objected to are, by and large, established and above reproach. Follett 1966, who is not ordinarily notable for his liberality in such matters, goes so far as to attribute the criticism of unthinkable to "fussy literalism." The criticism can still be heard on occasion, but its validity is even more dubious now than it was in 1926. All of the uses objected to by Fowler occur frequently in standard writing: • The idea of a coalition between the present-day Conservative and Labour leaders is also unthinkable — Times Literary Supp., 30 July 1971 • It was unthinkable for a respectable girl simply to come to America by herself —Tom Wolfe, New York, 27 Sept. 1971 • ... it is unthinkable that the President could return American troops to the ground war —Richard H. Rovere, New Yorker, 18 Nov. 1972 • Government leaders no longer regard nuclear war as unthinkable —Norman Cousins, Saturday Rev., 7 Feb. 1976 • As for raising the price at the gasoline pump,... that is evidently unthinkable —Anthony Lewis, N.Y. Times, 1 Nov. 1979 • This was hardly a farm by modern standards, but it was land that could be used, and it was unthinkable that we would not use it —Wendell Berry, in The Contemporary Essay, ed. Donald Hall, 1984 |
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