| 词组 | bête noire, bête noir |
| 释义 | bête noire, bête noir Copperud 1980 notes that three commentators label bête noir a misspelling, but Webster's Third recognizes it as a variant spelling. Most of the commentators, for example Partridge 1942, wonder why people do not use good old English bugbear instead. One trouble with fussing over the presence or absence of a final -e in a phrase pinched from French is that any number of other freedoms taken with the conventions of French spelling and compounding are overlooked. In English context a circumflex may disappear or a superfluous hyphen may be added, and the term is sometimes printed in roman and sometimes in italic. A French phrase in English is likely to undergo a few changes; it is idle to pick on just one of them to label a mistake. Bête noire has been in English since 1844, according to the OED; the e-less spelling dates from 1860. Here are a few examples of its use from our files: • ... the old bête noir of labor —Atlantic, October 1922 • ... and bête noir of Disraeli —Bennett Cerf, Saturday Rev., 11 Dec. 1954 • ... which has always made him a bête noir in Quebec —Donald C. Masters, A Short History of Canada, 1958 • ... the real bête noir in the Vietnam situation —William O. Douglas, Center Mag., March 1969 • ... in his view the bête noir of behavioral psychology —N.Y. Times Book Rev., 16 Sept. 1973 Flesch 1964 thinks the e-less spelling is used nine times out of ten, but it is not. Our evidence shows bête noire to be four or five times more common. |
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