| 词组 | where |
| 释义 | where 1. See where...at. 2. A number of schoolbooks and college handbooks are concerned about the use of where in the sense "that" after the verbs see and read. The schoolbooks prohibit the use; the college handbooks find it informal. The use they describe appears to be more common in speech than in writing, but it is not rare in writing by any means: • But I cannot see where the neurotic laboratory rats have served to deepen or enlarge our understanding of human behavior —Leslie A. White, The Science of Culture, 1949 • The music got on her nerves, and he could see where it would —John Cheever, The Brigadier and the Golf Widow, 1964 • You read where Pres. Reagan supports a move to repeal the 22nd Amendment, which limits the president to two four-year terms? —Herb Caen, San Francisco Chronicle, 5 Aug. 1986 The construction gets quite a bit of use in fictional dialogue as well: • I have nothing against Mr. Jones personally, but I can't see where he's fitted to be President —Frank Sullivan, A Rock in Every Snowball, 1946 • Well, Al old pal I suppose you seen in the paper where I been sold to the White Sox —Ring Lardner, You Know Me Al, 1916 • He ... cackled maliciously, "I suppose you saw where Forward Press folded up...." —James A. Michener, The Fires of Spring, 1949 The issue as presented in the handbooks and school-books is rather oversimplified. The criticized use is but one facet of a longstanding use of where to introduce noun clauses that serve as the objects of verbs. (This use—and similar use of when—has also occasionally been criticized; see when, where) During the last two or three hundred years this use has become much more restricted than it once was, and where now introduces object clauses after only a few verbs such as find, forget, and remember as well as see, read, tell, and so forth. Where also often introduces a clause that modifies a noun, serving as an approximate equivalent to in which: • I think mine is the case, where when they ask an egg, they get a scorpion —Emily Dickinson, letter, Autumn 1853 • I saw a Picture in the Paper last summer where the Prince was on one of his Horses and its name was Will Rogers —Will Rogers, The Illiterate Digest, 1924 • The other plays ... where the director's name had been left off the screen I hadn't wondered why. I had understood —Goodman Ace, Saturday Rev., 1 May 1954 • ... the kind of dampness which puts out a cigarette after the third puff, the kind where you leave a pair of sneaks beside your bed at night, and in the morning you have to dump them before putting them on —E. B. White, letter, 11 July 1945 • There are floor boards 14 inches wide, two fireplaces where you can bake bread in the ovens —Randall Jarrell, letter, 19 May 1952 • ... the sturdy admonishment addressed 'To the Principal and Professors of the University of St. Andrews, on their superb treat to Dr. Johnson', where the vigour and vulgarity of the vernacular enhance the abuse —John Butt, English Literature in the Mid-Eighteenth Century, edited & completed by Geoffrey Carnall, 1979 Another use of where is to introduce clauses that are the objects of prepositions. • But we kept that horse and gentled him to where I finally rode him —William Faulkner, 7 Mar. 1957, in Faulkner in the University, 1959 Strang 1970, citing Daniel Defoe, says that this construction came into use around the beginning of the 18th century. What we have shown here is a sample of the ways in which where introduces noun clauses. The criticism of one aspect of such use in the handbooks is legitimate only insofar as it draws your attention, as do most of our examples, to the fact that this use is typically found in less formal kinds of writing. |
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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。