| 词组 | liable |
| 释义 | liable 1. When liable means "responsible" and is followed by a prepositional phrase, the preposition is for: • ... each alleged conspirator can be held liable for the statements and actions of the other conspirators — Herbert L. Packer, N. Y. Rev. of Books, 6 Nov. 1969 • ... a general partner liable for any excess of liabilities over the paid-in capital —Dun's, October 1971 When it means "in a position to incur," to is used: • Outside of eating with a sharp knife, there is no rule in the Book that lays you liable to as much criticism —Will Rogers, The Illiterate Digest, 1924 • ... will render a man liable to certain diseases of the personality —John Butt, English Literature in the Mid-Eighteenth Century, edited & completed by Geoffrey Carnall, 1979 2. Liable, apt, likely. These three words are often used in the same construction—with to and an infinitive following—and in meanings that are very nearly synonymous. Usage commentators began to insist on discriminating between them as far back as Richard Grant White 1870. White's chief object of concern was apt, but he threw in a shot at liable in passing. Ayres 1881 mentioned them both, and so did Vizetelly 1906 and Bierce 1909. White insisted that apt and liable be restricted to inherent characteristics of persons while likely was appropriate for what Vizetelly called "contingent events." The following citations from Oliver Wendell Holmes illustrate usages that Richard Grant White would have found acceptable. Apt is applied to a person and suggests an inherent quality. Liable too is applied to a person and carries the notion of being subject to something not especially desirable. • Little localized powers, and little narrow streaks of specialized knowledge, are things men are very apt to be conceited about —The Autocrat ofthe Breakfast-Table, 1857 • ... the man who thinks his wife, his baby, his house, his horse, his dog, and himself severally unequalled, is almost sure to be a good-humored person, though liable to be tedious at times —The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, 1857 Bierce went his own way. His rejection of apt was based on senses of apt not relevant to the construction he disliked, and his rejection of liable was based on its supposedly requiring to and a noun, not to and an infinitive. Much present-day criticism tends to be rather an amalgam of Bierce and his predecessors; irrelevant senses of both apt and liable are brought in for discussion, and Richard Grant White's analysis is still used. The majority of recent opinion accepts apt as broadly synonymous with likely. A few still bother with apt, and when they do you can see the ghost of Richard Grant White: • Apt is more specific in meaning than likely and should be used only to indicate that its subject has a natural tendency to err or do something undesirable —Heritage 1982 Most commentators, however, expend the greater part of their critical efforts on liable. The emphasis is on the undesirable aspect of whatever it is that follows liable, although this aspect tends to be somewhat exaggerated by examples in which boilers are liable to explode. The disastrous is not required; Oliver Wendell Holmes gave us only tediousness. You might also note that the exploding boiler standard overlooks Richard Grant White's insistence that liable be used of a person; this aspect of his analysis is generally overlooked by recent commentators. Let's begin with a few examples of likely which no one criticizes and everybody recommends. They can perhaps serve us as a sort of benchmark by which to judge examples of apt and liable. We think they present contexts in which different writers might have used apt or liable. • ... that man is always susceptible to phony religions, and that he is likely to further an epidemic by mistaking it for a religious activity —Robert B. Heil-man, in The Range of English, 1968 • ... strange subjective experiences, and because they are strange they are also likely to be upsetting — Trans-Action, March 1968 • If the student with limited ability fails to gain admission to a prestige college, the parents are likely to blame the public school —James B. Conant, Slums and Suburbs, 1961 • She is a down-to-earth woman who is likely to shake her head at being celebrated as "a living legend" — Current Biography, February 1968 • ... my interests being what they are I am not likely to make even a good start —Charlton Laird, in The Range of English, 1968 Now we come to apt. The OED shows that the criticized construction with apt goes back to the 16th century, as does that with liable. It would appear that these constructions have an unbroken history of use. It also seems likely that they have been more common in speech and casual writing than in the more serious kinds of writing. We think the older examples here are not much different from the more recent ones: • Not till the fiddles are in tune, pray, sir. Your lady's strings are apt to fly, I can tell you that, if they are wound up too hastily —Sir John Vanbrugh, The Relapse, 1696 • I am too apt to be negligent —Samuel Johnson, letter, 16 July 1754 • I wish, however, that the instrument might be less apt to decay, and that signs might be permanent — Samuel Johnson, Preface to the Dictionary, 1755 • Solitary reading is apt to give the headache — Charles Lamb, letter, 26 Feb. 1808 • ... the danger is that we are apt to be huddled forward into all sorts of new expressions of no particular value —Leacock 1943 • ... discovering the Church is apt to be a slow procedure —Flannery O'Connor, letter, 16 July 1957 If we remember that what is undesirable or unwanted is not necessarily a disaster of large proportions, we will find that liable is rather more often used of the undesirable than not: • We have no reason to be sure that we shall then be no longer liable to offend against God —Samuel Johnson, 1777, in James Boswell, Life of Samuel Johnson, 1791 • ... it seems to me that their cause is, I do not say, desperate, but liable to be overturned at what would seem to be a small thing —Henry Adams, letter, 23 Apr. 1863 • ... I am so liable to say what I do not mean —Lewis Carroll, letter, 9 June 1879 • The simpler the word, the more liable I am to come up with a rare spelling —Flannery O'Connor, letter, 3 Mar. 1954 • ... the pastor must set an example, he must illustrate his morality in public; and this is liable to result in hypocrisy —Edmund Wilson, A Piece of My Mind, 1956 • ... images and association which would be suggestive to Japanese readers are liable to be meaningless to English readers —Times Literary Supp., 22 Oct. 1971 • She is not as prone to fight with other dogs, and is less liable to stray —The Complete Dog Book, 1980 We do have good evidence of liable as simply synonymous with likely: • "It's all kudu country," Pop said. "You're liable to jump one anywhere." —Ernest Hemingway, Green Hills of Africa, 1935 • ... the parrot does not act as if it is liable to say anything important in the next hour —Damon Runyon, Runyon à la Carte, 1944 • ... between these two dates, when most of the summer visitors are liable to be handy —Eleanor Sterling, Yankee, July 1968 • I am not liable to reach the city again though I consider myself very good on crutches —Flannery O'Connor, letter, 24 Nov. 1956 • Even while observing Arab etiquette ... he is liable to drape an arm across royal shoulders and boom, "Well, your Excellency, how's the doubles game? ..." —J. D. Reed, Sports Illustrated, 17 Nov. 1980 Our conclusion is that, except in the handbooks, which seem simply to repeat their predecessors, this is essentially a dead issue. Both apt and liable are still synonyms of likely, as they have been for some 400 years now. Liable is still more frequently used of things that are undesirable. One curious note: to make a negative compound, you need likely: • ... any action ... is liable, and not at all unlikely, to be blamed by somebody —Lewis Carroll, letter 21 Sept. 1893 |
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