| 词组 | last |
| 释义 | last Some usage writers make the distinction that last means "final" and latest means "most recent." Other writers admit that both words can mean "most recent" but insist that only latest conveys this meaning unambiguously. This difference of opinion has existed for quite some time, as we can see from a comparison of two comments published in 1927: • "Last" means the end of a series, "latest" indicates the most recent. For example, we say: "This is the latest issue of this magazine," when we mean that the issue is the most recent one. But if we say, "This is the last issue of this magazine," we mean that the publishers have discontinued the issue of the magazine, and no more numbers are to come —Lurie • Last in one of its senses means latest; in consequence, one may say, "The last issue of the magazine," meaning the latest issue. Some speakers, however, prefer to use latest instead of last, as more closely expressing the meaning to be conveyed — Baker Topics such as a last/latest issue of a magazine or a writer's last/latest book are the typical illustrations chosen by commentators, presumably because such contexts might be ambiguous if the wrong word is chosen. However, we agree with Bryson 1984 that "the chances of ambiguity ... are probably not as great as some authorities would have us believe." Our citations bear this out: • ... anyone who has read Professor Haines's study in our last issue —The Nation, 21 May 1924 • ... which was reproduced in facsimile in the last issue of this news letter —Ruth Wedgwood Kennedy, Renaissance News, Autumn 1951 • ... some hostile review in the New Republic of my last book —Harold J. Laski, letter, 28 Nov. 1920 • I scrounged around in my trash system trying to find if I had a carbon of my last to you —Flannery O'Connor, letter, 8 Oct. 1957 • This is another scrappy note written as a stop-gap between my last long letter to you and the next — Alexander Woollcott, letter, 26 Jan. 1918 • ... indicates that respondents tend to remember best the last words they hear —Stanley L. Payne, The Art of Asking Questions, 1951 We believe that the general context or the subject under discussion, if not the immediate context, will usually provide enough information to make such uses of last unambiguous. A dead writer's last book, for example, is obviously not merely his latest one. And in cases where the meaning of last is ambiguous the ambiguity may be immaterial. Whether a living writer's last novel is his final one or merely his most recent is a question that usually can't be decided until he either writes another or dies; in the meantime last will serve the purpose well enough. Of course, there may be times when, with no help from the larger context, you must make it clear that something is the final one of a series and not just the most recent. In such a case you can simply use final, or you can expand the immediate context and say, for example, "the last book she wrote before she died." Einstein 1985 says, "A prudent way to avoid such confusion is to use only latest for recency and only last for finality," but since other people use last with both meanings, you may not be able to avoid ambiguity just by restricting your own use. However careful you are to discriminate between last and latest, you cannot be sure that your reader or listener will realize that you have done so. When nouns denoting time (such as night, week, May, Tuesday) are being modified, idiom calls for last or past, but not latest, even though the meaning is clearly "most recent" and not "final." • ... the last three or four years —William R. Eshel-man, Wilson Library Bulletin, November 1968 • For eight of the past nine years —Bowdoin Alumnus, January 1971 See also first two, two first. last analysis See analysis. |
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