| 词组 | zoom |
| 释义 | zoom There are those who claim that it is incorrect to speak of "zooming along the highway" or "zooming down a hill." This strange idea owes its origin to the use of zoom in aeronautics, where it means, in simple terms, "to climb rapidly and steeply." Pointing to the aeronautical use, such critics as Evans 1957 and Bernstein 1965 have contended that it is not possible to zoom in any direction but up. But the origins of zoom actually have nothing to do with aeronautics. The word is onomatopoeic, like zap, zing, and zip. The earliest evidence of its use can be found in the first (1933) Supplement to the OED: • The crystal went zooming into the fence-corner — Century Mag, 1886 Zoom here apparently suggests the sound of something moving at a high speed. Other early citations for zoom have to do with sounds produced by bees and by musical instruments. The aeronautics sense of zoom, which of course did not originate until the early 20th century, apparently developed from the older, onomatopoeic sense, and it was no doubt responsible for making zoom a much more common word than it had been. But the onomatopoeic sense has never gone out of use. It has persisted especially in describing something or someone moving at great speed, regardless of direction: • ... trade winds that zoom down across Hawaii from northern seas —advt., National Geographic, June 1924 • ... two of the 143 roaring racers zoomed off the road —Time, 18 Apr. 1938 • ... zooming sixty-five yards to a touchdown —Kansas City Star, 2 Jan. 1943 • ... Bold Ruler went zooming along alone, passing the six-furlong pole —Audax Minor, New Yorker, 22 June 1957 • ... a rocket sled zooming on rails down an incline —Science News Letter, 19 Dec. 1964 • My brakes could not hold the added weight perfectly, and down the hill I zoomed —Neville H. Bremer et al., Skills in Spelling (6th-grade textbook), 1976 • ... she zoomed recklessly down ski slopes —People, 3 Jan. 1983 Its connotations of great speed have also led to the common use of zoom in describing rapid flight that is not necessarily upward. Such usage is of course inconsistent with the specifically aeronautical sense and is therefore relatively susceptible to criticism, but the evidence shows that it is established in standard writing: • ... peels off, zooming down in a 60-degree power dive —Byron Kennedy, Harper's, July 1941 • ... government planes zoomed down to bomb tanks and strafe street fighters —Time, 1 Aug. 1949 • The plane zooms past them, zoom!, and silent guns fire and that whole gang falls dead —Garrison Keillor, Lake Wobegon Days, 1985 • Zooming low over the Queen Mary ... , each airplane emits a long vapor trail —Dennis Meredith, Air and Space/Smithsonian, August/September 1986 The "upward" connotations of zoom are also strongly established. They have given rise, so to speak, to the common use of zoom in the figurative sense "to increase rapidly": • ... his fee for professional services has zoomed — Arthur Knight & Hollis Alpert, Playboy, December 1971 • The popularity of her novels has zoomed —Ray Walters, N.Y. Times Book Rev., 6 Nov. 1977 • The rent zoomed up to eighty-seven dollars —Tip O'Neill with William Novak, Man of the House And zoom is also commonly used in optics and photography, without connotations of either speed or upward movement: • ... focus first at the highest power and then zoom to whatever lower power you may want —Consumer Reports, November 1971 • ... when the KTTV camera zoomed in on George and Crazy Ed —Joe Eszterhas, Rolling Stone, 14 Sept. 1972 Clearly, the aeronautics sense of zoom is but one of many, all of which are standard. |
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