| 词组 | means |
| 释义 | means 1. The question whether means in the sense "something useful to a desired end" should appear in the singular or the plural form has occupied language commentators since as far back as the 18th century, and when Samuel Johnson was editing his Dictionary, he noted that mean "is often used in the plural." Shakespeare had used both mean and means: • And make the Douglas' son your only mean For powers in Scotland —1 Henry IV, 1598 • Our sacks shall be a mean to sack the city —7 Henry VI, 1592 • By this means Your lady is forthcoming yet at London —2 Henry VI, 1592 • And so I chide the means that keeps me from it —3 Henry VI, 1592 Johnson noted with mild disapproval not that mean was used in the plural, but that it was used "by some not very grammatically with an adjective singular," as in the example from 2 Henry VI above. Lowth 1762 also found this use worth criticizing in a line from a sermon by Bishop Francis Atterbury "... and by that means securing the continuance of his goodness," saying, "Ought it not to be, by these means, by those means? or by this mean, by that mean, in the singular number?" By the time of Noah Webster, however, means was in such widespread use that he could say • If this means and a means are now, and have imme-morially been, used by good authors and the nation in general, neither Johnson, Lowth, nor any other person, however learned, has a right to say that the phrases are not good English —Dissertations on the English Language, 1789 In contemporary use, mean has been pretty well abandoned in favor of means, which may be either singular or plural in construction: • Blake, by his own poetic means, which essentially disdains the virtues of prose —F. R. Leavis, Revaluation, 1947 • ... it is not clear that redistributing authority over the police is the proper means —James Q. Wilson, Harvard Today, Autumn 1968 • ... any means that accomplishes this removal may be, and has been, employed —Betty J. Meggers, Saturday Rev., 19 Feb. 1972 • Other means come to mind but most important of all is the clear call to faculty to initiate inquiry — Robert T. Blackburn, AAUP Bulletin, December 1967 • ... many New Left activists believe that the means determine the ends —Norman Thomas, quoted in The Progressive, November 1969 The OED labels the singular use of mean in this sense as archaic (the M volume was published in 1908), and our evidence confirms that it has occurred very rarely in the 20th century: • This is a much more powerful mean of augmenting the fund of national industry —Frank William Taussig, ed., Selected Readings in International Trade and Tariff Problems, 1921 2. In the sense "material resources affording a secure life", means rather than mean is the invariable form: • In pre-war days many mothers with very limited means had no idea of the relative values of different foods —Margaret Biddle, The Women of England, 1941 • ... a short woman ... decked out with furs ... — one of those middle-aged women of means, it seems, whose emptyheadedness smacks of tragedy —John Cheever, The Wapshot Chronicle, 1957 • ... it takes defeat in war to persuade a Superpower that it has been living beyond its means —Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., Harper's, March 1969 When this sense of means takes a verb, the construction is plural: • ... he came under the care of his maternal grandparents, whose means were sufficiently ample to enable them to afford him unusual educational advantages —Dictionary of American Biography, 1928 • ... while their means were always modest there was no trace of dire poverty —J. T. Ellis, Irish Digest, January 1954 At one time, this sense was also used in the singular construction; the OED labels it obsolete, and its latest use dates from the 17th century. 3. When used with a preposition, means is most often followed by of: • ... agreement about the best means of organizing the state —Aldous Huxley, Ends and Means, 1937 • ... she [Emily Dickinson] never undertook the great profession of controlling the means of objective expression —R. P. Blackmur, in American Harvest, ed. Allen Tate & John Peale Bishop, 1942 • ... having developed the means of survival in the Harlem ghetto —Current Biography, November 1967 • ... essential to find a means of conveying the lessons — Times Literary Supp., 19 Feb. 1971 Less frequently, means is used with to, toward or for: • ... its unique place within the community is that it is an instrument of social purpose and a means to raise public taste —Sir William Haley, quoted in Thomas Owen Beachcroft, British Broadcasting, rev. ed., 1948 • Many of our wants are means to a higher set of goals —Charles L. Schultze, Saturday Rev., 22 Jan. 1972 • ... they would have little incentive to query hospital costs, even if they had the means to do so —Robert Claiborne, Saturday Rev., 7 Jan. 1978 • The two most important means toward reaching this goal —Current Biography 1951 • High wages and slum clearance were the means toward abolition of group hatred —Oscar Handlin, The American People in the Twentieth Century, 1954 • ... the introduction of these new means for reproducing music —Aaron Copland, Our New Music, 1941 • ... technology has not as yet developed a means for dependable underground transmission of high voltage power —Annual Report, Union Electric Co., 1970 4. See also by means of. |
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