词组 | mankind |
释义 | mankind Mankind has been open to some of the same objections as the generic use of man (which see). If our usage books are right, this is a subject less fervently pursued than man, probably because mankind in modern use is used almost exclusively to mean "the human race." It does, however, have a sense "men": • PERT. Your knowing of Mr. Dorimant, in my mind, should rather make you hate all mankind. MRS. LOVEIT. So it does, besides himself. —George Etherege, The Man of Mode, 1676 This sense seems to be quite rare in the 20th century. Most modern use is of this type: • It was to be more than a compilation of national histories; it was to tell the story of mankind —Times Literary Supp., 19 Feb. 1971 If mankind is offensive to you, you have available humankind, human beings, humans, and people, at the very least, for replacements. Humankind, like mankind, is a mass noun that will force you to make up your mind about agreement; some people make such nouns plural, some singular. The other alternatives are all comfortably plural. |
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