| 词组 | -ize |
| 释义 | -ize 1. -ize, -ise. The American form of this suffix is -ize; the British typically use -ise, although some of the more etymology-conscious publishing houses may insist on the -ize termination for some words, following OED practice. Longman 1984 has a list of verbs (such as advertise, chastise, circumcise, despise, and surmise) that must be spelled -ise in both language varieties, but these words are not formed from the suffix -ize. 2. According to the OED, the suffix -ize itself was first mentioned by Thomas Nashe in 1591. He was none too politely tweaking the noses of his "reprehenders," whom he was apparently pleased to have nettled with his verb coinages ending in -ize. Ever since, it has been possible to raise hackles with newly coined verbs that end in this suffix. Such verbs have aroused much comment in the 19th and 20th centuries. Critics were upset by Noah Webster's inclusion of demoralize, Americanize, and deputize in his 1828 dictionary. Bache 1869 hated jeopardize (which was almost as big an object of scorn in the 19th century as finalize is in this) and signalize. Scheie de Vere 1872 was offended by barberize (which is what barbers were supposed to do). Richard Grant White 1870 denounced resurrectionize; his denunciation led Fitzedward Hall 1873 to rain down dozens of other similarly formed -ize verbs on him. Not content with pelting White, Hall produced a few dozen additional examples in another part of the book. He himself unloaded neo-terize in the course of this latter disquisition and then allowed his "philological patience" to be severely tested by T. A. Huxley's depauperize. Compton 1898 wanted to ban deputize and jeopardize. With this admirable head of steam built up, the issue roared into the 20th century, where finalize replaced jeopardize as the object of the most heat and least rationality. But plenty of other -ize words have come under the gun: accessorize, burglarize, and prioritize are some you will find discussed in this book. The anathematizing (we couldn't resist) of -ize verbs shows no sign of letting up: a recent handbook, Trimmer & McCrimmon 1988, counsels students to "avoid such pretentious and unnecessary jargon as finalize, prioritize, and theorize." The pretentious and unnecessary theorize has been with us since 1638 and has been used by Coleridge, Howells, Joyce, Dreiser, and Forster, among others. If you are one of those persons of tender sensibilities whose nerves are grated by -ize verbs, you would be better off learning to live with the problem, as everybody knows that the jargoneers of the government, the military, and the various hard and soft sciences have a sweet tooth for these words. And they are not the only ones. Samuel Pepys, for instance, came up with divertising in 1667. Truman Capote used artificialize, Mary McCarthy sloganized and sonorized, Coleridge melan-cholize, Charlotte Brontë colloquize, and Robert Southey physiognomize. But you can take some comfort in the thought that many of these coinages do not last. A check through Hall's 1873 list turns up such confections as excursion-ize, pulpit ize, sororize, sultanize, sens ize, dissocialize, soberize—have you ever encountered them? One suspects that more recent coinages such as laymanize, impossibilize, disasterize, explitize, incentize, and prom-inentized will be similarly forgotten. So -ize is a very productive suffix in English; for 400 years or more it has been freely attached to nouns, adjectives, proper names, and sometimes other roots to produce verbs for immediate use. These are often nonce words (we have a Colorado-ize used by someone getting ready to go backpacking in the mountains), but many others have stuck. Who today blinks at popularize, formalize, economize, legalize, politicize, terrorize, or capitalize? |
| 随便看 |
|
英语用法大全包含2888条英语用法指南，基本涵盖了全部常用英文词汇及语法点的翻译及用法，是英语学习的有利工具。