| 词组 | wherefore |
| 释义 | wherefore When Juliet asks, "O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?" she is not trying to find out if her truelove is hiding in the bushes beneath her window. Wherefore means "why," not "where." Some confusion on this score seems to have resulted from the frequent use of this famous line in popular entertainment. A humorous takeoff on the balcony scene, for example, might feature a nearsighted Juliet squinting searchingly into the darkness as she asks wherefore her Romeo art (to which he might reply, "I'm right down here, Julie baby"). Another reason for the confusion is that wherefore is now rarely used, except as a noun meaning "reason": • ... good to know the whys, hows, and wherefores of what you are seeing —Elin Schoen, American Way, December 1971 • ... the whys and wherefores of automated sound mixing—Michael Lydon, N.Y. Times Book Rev., 23 May 1976 • ... questioning the whys and wherefores of disciplinary action —Noel Mclnnis, Change, January-February 1971 Note that why also means "reason" in such contexts, so that the alliterative phrase whys and wherefores could, it seems, be called redundant. In truth, however, to know the whys and wherefores is not simply to know the reasons, but to know all the reasons. The seemingly redundant phrase has an added meaning of its own. |
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