| 词组 | locate |
| 释义 | locate Locate seems to have come into use as an Americanism, and as an Americanism it has been subject to disparagement on three separate counts beginning as long ago as 1870. 1. Locate "settle." This intransitive use is the earliest recorded for the verb and dates back to the middle of the 17th century. Richard Grant White 1870 seems to have been the first to disparage it. He acknowledged it as an Americanism, and he apparently associated it with settlers in the Midwest, a group and a region with which he cared to have as little to do as possible. Although White's objection is social, he lists locate among the incorrect words; and it is so picked up by Ayres 1881. Diffidence about Americanisms has long been a characteristic of American usage commentators; it is plain in Jensen 1935, who says locate is "sanctioned only as an Americanism" but is disguised behind the characterizations "colloquial" of MacCracken & Sandison 1917 and Watt 1967, "not regarded as standard" of Bernstein 1965, and "less refined and more dialectal" of Shaw 1987. It is possible that we are seeing some of the social aversion of 1870 still repeated in these comments; however, now that our rumbustious and uncouth ancestors have passed on to their rewards, there can be no objection to intransitive locate beyond its American origin. As these examples suggest, intransitive locate is not an overly literary term. It is, however, standard. • Contra Costa County, Calif., Development Assn. would like to tell you why numerous chemical companies have located in the county —Area Development, May 1970 • Prefer to locate near a university granting Ph.D. or D.S.W. —advt., AAVP Bulletin, December 1969 • In 1865 he located at Scranton, Pa. —Dictionary of American Biography, 1929 2. Located "situated." William Cullen Bryant put located on his Index Expurgatorius (published in 1877 but compiled earlier) without a gloss, so we do not really know what it was about the word that offended him. We do know that Bernstein 1962 found it objectionable in the sense of "situated" (he first went after it in a 1958 Winners & Sinners). Maybe he was the inheritor of the Bryant tradition. He considerably moderated his views in his 1965 book; apparently no one else agreed. The use is entirely standard. • Located in a bad slum area now undergoing redevelopment, this school ... —James B. Conant, Slums and Suburbs, 1961 • She lived in Brooklyn ... and was an avid fan of the Dodgers baseball team when it was located in that borough —Current Biography, April 1968 • Settlements were typically located on or near the shore —Edward P. Lanning, Peru Before the Incas, 1967 Located is also disparaged as unnecessary or as dead-wood in several books, such as Bernstein 1965, Flesch 1964, Perrin & Ebbitt 1972. If we take the Lanning quotation for an example, we can see that the sentence can still be understood when located is omitted. But its omission does not make a better sentence, just a shorter one. You should not hesitate to use located, even though it may be omissible for sense, when it gives a sentence better rhythmic structure. 3. Locate "find." MacCracken & Sandison 1917 seem to have been the first to raise an objection to locate in the sense of "find." This curious objection, too, has been repeated by more recent commentators. Evans 1957 would restrict locate for finding something by hunting for it; no one else makes this distinction. Flesch 1964 objects to locate as being a "stilted synonym" of find. Gowers in Fowler 1965 sets up a factitious distinction that Watt 1967 accepts: you locate the place where something or someone is, but you find the something or someone there. This is rather a subtle distinction, and it is not observed by the writers represented in our files. In the following examples, the first three are British, in the broad sense that comprehends the Commonwealth nations: one locates a place, one a thing, and the third might be interpreted either way. The rest of the examples are American. • The young policeman was ... trying to locate with his eyes the place in the garden where ... —Doris Lessing, The Good Terrorist, 1985 • ... one or more dogs that will locate the lion —J. Stevenson-Hamilton, Wild Life in South Africa, 1947 • ... sent out to reconnoitre and to locate the kraal of the Kaffirs —Stuart Cloete, The Turning Wheels, 1937 • The next task is to locate a native speaker with no inhibitions —Stuart Chase, Power of Words, 1954 • ... he soon located about two dozen other concerned students —Johns Hopkins Mag., October 1965 • ... instructed to locate two others with whom you would like to be in a group —Clyde Reid, Christian Herald, June 1969 • ... this excerpt is very difficult to locate —George Jellinek, Saturday Rev., 12 June 1954 • CIA officials sought to locate the source of the funding —The Tower Commission Report, 1987 You will note that not one of these violates Evans's distinction, but all except the first violate Gowers's distinction. Evans seems to have a clearer view of this matter. All of these examples are standard. While we cannot say with Janis 1984 that "the quibbling about this word has ceased," there is not one of these three usages that need worry you. They are all thoroughly established in respectable usage. |
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