| 词组 | verbal, oral |
| 释义 | verbal, oral The first definition of verbal in Johnson's Dictionary (1755) is "Spoken; not written." Noah Webster also made this the first sense in his American Dictionary of the English Language (1828): "Spoken; expressed to the ear in words; not written; as a verbal message; a verbal contract, verbal testimony." The earliest citation for this sense of verbal in the OED dates from 1591. (The earliest citation for the synonymous sense of oral, on the other hand, is from 1628.) There is no indication from Johnson, Webster, or the OED that this sense of verbal is anything other than standard English. Why, then, has it been singled out for criticism by commentators on usage? The trouble seems to have started in the late 19th century. Hodgson 1881, who knew the etymologies of verbal (from Latin verbum "word") and oral (from Latin os "mouth"), declared that the correct meaning of verbal was "couched in words" (which is, in fact, one of the many senses of verbal, first attested in 1530). Hodgson dismissed the "spoken rather than written" sense as a "blunder," albeit a common one made by "writers of standing" such as Anthony Trollope, Henry Kingsley, and Henry Fielding: • The captain returned a verbal answer to a long letter —Henry Fielding, Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon, 1755 He might also have added Samuel Pepys, Jonathan Swift, and Charles Dickens: • "I would not consent to your being charged with any written answer, but perhaps you will take a verbal one?" —Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, 1859 Since Hodgson's time, disapproval of this sense of verbal has been widespread among usage commentators, most of whom clearly regard it as a recent development. Some commentators now concede that it is standard, but nearly all express a preference for oral, arguing that the multiple meanings of verbal could cause confusion. The truth is that the context almost always makes the meaning clear, and the only serious confusion appears to be in the minds of the commentators themselves. Simon 1980 postulates that the use of verbal to mean "oral" may have become widespread "because oral also designates nonspeaking functions of the mouth, as in oral hygiene or oral sex, and so begets the ignorant assumption that the spoken word must be covered by that other adjective, verbal." Samuel Johnson and Noah Webster would probably have been surprised by such reasoning. The use of verbal to mean "spoken rather than written" occurs commonly and unambiguously with such words as agreement, commitment, and contract. Very often it is contrasted with the adjective written in contexts that make its meaning unmistakable: • ... I found the word in constant written and verbal use by my American colleagues —Sir St. Vincent Troubridge, American Speech, October 1946 • ... far fewer written, recorded discussions, far more private, verbal discussions —Warren Bennis, Saturday Rev., 6 Mar. 1976 The adverb verbally is also extremely common in this sense: • Stalin boggled at a treaty clause setting a date for Soviet evacuation ... , but agreed verbally to have all troops out in three months —Time, 3 Sept. 1945 • ... have already expressed to me in a letter (as well as verbally) their desire to produce a faithful adaptation —E. B. White, letter, 24 May 1967 • Whilst Bode was able to communicate verbally his feelings ... , he failed when it came to putting pen to paper —Times Literary Supp., 2 May 1968 • ... but Freeman says she'd already verbally accepted a CNN offer —TVGuide, 31 May 1985 There is no ambiguity in these passages. Of course, if you do see a chance of ambiguity in a particular context, you can always use oral instead. But do not let anyone tell you that the use of verbal to mean "oral" is a recent corruption of the language. That idea is a popular myth, nothing more. |
| 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。