| 词组 | kudos, kudo |
| 释义 | kudos, kudo Kudos is a Greek word that was dragged into English as British university slang in the 19th century. The OED so notices, calling it in addition (and curiously) a colloquialism. Early users, conscious of its origin, sometimes printed it in Greek letters: • "No money?" "Not much—perhaps a ten'ner," answered Drys-dale, "but no end of KVOOS, I suppose."—Thomas Hughes, Tom Brown at Oxford, 1861 In this earliest use, the word referred to the prestige or renown one gained by having accomplished something noteworthy. The word became more popular than one might have expected for a bit of university slang. By the 1920s it had developed a second sense, "praise given for some accomplishment"—a reasonable extension of the original use. Time magazine is frequently credited with the popularizing of this second sense, but it probably did not originate with Time editors. In this example, for instance, it seems to suggest praise or acclaim rather than prestige: • "If the secret were really kept, you'd be waiving all the kudos too," she added —Leonard Merrick, The Man Who Understood Women, and Other Stories, 1919 In construction kudos is originally a noncount noun, a mass noun, like glory, acclaim, renown, or prestige: • ... they had acquired much kudos among the pilgrims —John Buchan, The Last Secrets, 1923 • ... Oliphant, who gained a little kudos —Leonard Merrick, The Actor-Manager, 4th ed., 1919 • ... she was proud of sharing in Bresnahan's kudos —Sinclair Lewis, Main Street, 1920 During the 1920s the "praise" sense of kudos came to be understood as a plural count noun. Time magazine does seem to have been influential in this process. It was a policy of the editors to announce honorary degrees and like awards under an opening like this (from 28 June 1926): • Another week of Commencements ... and distinguished citizens from all walks of life were called to many rostra to be honored.... Kudos conferred during the week: And a list would follow. The notion of plurality also became associated with the word when it was linked with a plural noun: • They were the recipients of honorary degrees— kudos conferred because of their wealth, position or service to humanity —Time, 27 June 1927 But while these examples suggest a plural count noun, they do not prove that kudos has been taken to be a plural. Our earliest unmistakably plural citation is a bit earlier and from a different source: • Colonial mechanics have very few kudos thrown in their path —letter to editor, Rand Daily Mail (Johannesburg), 23 Dec. 1925 Demonstrably plural citations have not been as frequent as you might expect from the amount of attention kudos has received. Here are a few more of our earlier ones: • There is no other weekly newspaper which in one short year has achieved so many kudos —Time, 9 June 1941 • All kudos, he says, are the due of Cranston Williams —Advertising & Selling, April 1948 • Its kudos for brilliance are few —Saul Carson, New Republic, 26 Jan. 1948 Far more of our citations are of uses in which kudos could be taken to be either a mass noun or a plural. Once kudos was perceived as plural, though, it was inevitable that someone would prune the 5 from the end and create a singular. The earliest pruner in our files is Fred Allen. He did it in a letter written to Groucho Marx in which with a little pungent exaggeration he describes favorable reaction to a television show. He sets the scene in a delicatessen: • ... eating was suspended, chicken fat was shaken from fingers to point them, novy was shredded from snags of teeth to make way for encomiums a fat man put down a ... celery tonic bottle and emitted an effervescent burp while he paid his tribute to the hour, a man sitting on a toilet bowl swung open the men's room door and added his kudo to the acclaim —October 1950 What Fred Allen could do in a letter, someone else was bound to do in print: • To all three should go some kind of special kudo for refusing to succumb —Al Hine, Holiday, June 1953 Harper 1975, 1985 and Shaw 1975, 1987 tell us that there is no such thing as a kudo. But they are wrong. If there is no such thing as a kudo, there is no such thing as a cherry, a pea, an asset, a caterpillar, or a one-hoss shay. All of these terms were formed by back-formation from a supposed plural. Jespersen 1909-49, in his second volume, has many other examples. Mencken (1963 edition) also lists a number of similarly formed singulars that exist in the American vernacular. Like it or not, kudo is here as a singular count noun and kudos as a plural count noun. A few more examples: • All these kudos spread around the country —Goodman Ace, Saturday Rev., 6 Nov. 1971 • ... the real kudos obviously belong to good old Will Shakespeare —Playboy, January 1974 • Frazier delivered a kudo seldom uttered in high finance: "He's underpaid." —Joe Flaherty, New York, 23 Sept. 1974 • She added a kudo for HUD's Patricia Harris — Susan Watters, Women's Wear Daily, 26 June 1978 • ... the rewards are the kudos that come from everywhere —Horace Sutton, Saturday Rev., 2 Sept. 1978 • ... a handsome number of kudos —Allen Drury, letter in Publisher's Weekly, 17 Feb. 1984 We think that kudo and kudos as count nouns are by now well established, although you will note that they have not yet penetrated the highest range of scholarly writing or literature. If you do choose to use the word, keep in mind that there are three separate uses: kudo as a singular count noun, kudos as a plural count noun, and kudos as a singular noncount noun. Do not fall into the error of thinking that criticism of kudo means that there is a singular count noun kudos; there is not. If you are thinking of a single instance of praise, you must either use a kudo or choose some other word. Kudos is usually pronounced \\\\'k(y)ü-,däs\\\\ or \\\\'k(y)ü-,dōs\\\\ by those who treat it as singular, \\\\'k(y)ü-,dōz\\\\ by those who make it plural. |
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