| 词组 | manner |
| 释义 | manner In Hamlet there is the phrase to the manner born which is used to mean "accustomed to a practice from birth." It seems to have caught the fancy of the literary set and has subsequently been stretched in one way or another to fit various somewhat similar contexts. This one is not too far from Shakespeare's meaning: • She looks very pretty, breakfasting in bed as to the manner born —Vita Sackville-West, The Edwardi-ans, 1980 For at least sixty years various commentators have warned against the spelling manor in place of manner. Among the more recent of these are Shaw 1987, Bremner 1980, and Copperud 1980. Some of these recognize that the spelling manor gives the phrase a different twist, but still disapprove. Reader's Digest 1983, however, simply treats to the manor born as a phrase meaning "of upper-class birth and education"—a sort of equivalent to born with a silver spoon in one's mouth. They provide a couple of examples, including this one: • ... Kay, according to her, should have got married quietly in City Hall, instead of making Harald, who was not to the manor born, try to carry off a wedding in J. P. Morgan's church —Mary McCarthy, The Group, 1963 We think Reader's Digest has taken the more reasonable approach. If someone intends a meaning that is not Shakespeare's, why use Shakespeare's spelling? But you should note that both of these phrases are conspicuously literary, and you should not throw them around carelessly. |
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