| 词组 | bust, busted |
| 释义 | bust, busted Among the usagists' complaints about the verb bust are mixed some shots at adjective use of the past participle: • Don't write busted if you mean broke —McMahan &Day 1980, 1984 This seems a curiously antediluvian attitude when you compare it with this over 80 year old observation: busted: A slang term for financially broken, but used by persons accustomed to a refined diction —Vizetelly 1906 The sentence "The stock market collapse left me busted" was included in Leonard's 1931 usage survey; the respondents found it "disputable." Crisp's 1971 replication of the survey yielded essentially the same result. The reason for the unchanged status across 40 years— during which the bust group has gained considerable status in print—may be that the adjective uses of bust and busted have become differentiated. Webster's Third has an entry for bust or busted defined as "broke, bankrupt." There was good evidence for busted in the late 1950s: • ... eventually went completely busted as a publisher —William Manchester, Disturber of the Peace, 1951 • The town was a busted mining camp, than which there is nothing sadder to see —Bennett Cerf, Saturday Rev., 31 July 1948 • FDR ... was dealing with a busted nation —Gerald W. Johnson, New Republic, 29 Nov. 1954 • ... to play roulette side by side with a busted but still imperious grand duke —David Dodge, Holiday, February 1955 But the tendency since 1961 has been to use bust— usually as a predicate adjective and quite often in the phrase go bust—for the sense of "bankrupt, broke": • One is rich, one is poor. One is booming, one perennially half bust —James Morris, The Road to Hud-dersfield, 1963 • And when the Penn Central went bust —Robert Townsend, Center Mag., January/February 1972 • At one time a man who went bust was treated almost as a leper —William Davis, Punch, 17 Apr. 1974 • ... dropping out or selling out or going bust —Betsy Morris, Wall Street Jour., 23 Dec. 1981 • ... the profits generated by one hit show pay for the 20 to 25 other projects that go bust —Brandon Tar-tikoff, TV Guide, 13 Sept. 1985 Busted, on the other hand, is used as both an attributive and a predicate adjective chiefly in the sense "broken": • ... broken homes and busted marriages —Peter Carlson, People, 17 Feb. 1986 • ... a trial run at the last minute revealed that the damn thing was busted —Alan Lightman, Science, September 1984 • ... writing fiery memos to his staff about every yawning pothole, busted street light or littered playground he sees —David M. Alpern, Newsweek, 26 July 1982 • She had a busted ankle and was on crutches at the time —John Hepworth, Nation Rev. (Melbourne), 17 Apr. 1975 Bust is sometimes used to mean "broken": • Ours are starting to crumble to bits now, the kettle and iron going bust —Simon Williams, quoted in Annabel, March 1975 • My fantasies were dashed, my new friendship gone bust —Mark Harris, N.Y. Times Book Rev., 4 Nov. 1984 Busted "bankrupt, broke" still seems to be of low status because usage has shifted to bust in this sense; busted "broken" seems to be gaining in status and appears with some frequency in well-edited and widely distributed publications. Bust "bankrupt" seems to be standard, especially in the phrase go bust. |
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