| 词组 | mutual, common |
| 释义 | mutual, common It has long been the practice of usage writers to condemn the use of mutual in the senses "shared in common" and "joint" because, they maintain, mutual must include the notion of reciprocity. The basis for this long-lived criticism goes back to two sources in the 18th century. The first of these is Samuel Johnson's 1755 Dictionary, which gave only one definition, "reciprocal." Fitzedward Hall 1873 points out that this is an error on Johnson's part; the first quotation under mutual is from Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice (1597) and is for the "common" sense. Johnson simply missed the meaning, and his omission is what we may call the passive 18th-century source. The active 18th-century source is Baker 1770. Baker claimed never to have seen Johnson's Dictionary before writing his book, so he must have developed his opinion independently or gotten it from some unidentified source. Baker insists on the "reciprocal" sense and objects to expressions like "our mutual benefactor" and "our mutual friend"; although he gives no actual citations of such use, he says that many writers use such expressions. He prescribes common as correct in such expressions and quotes with approbation a letter of John Locke's using "our common friend." Subsequent criticism of the "common" sense of mutual seems to derive directly from Baker. The subject got a considerable boost in popularity when Charles Dickens published Our Mutual Friend in 1864. After Alford 1866 (who does not mention Dickens, though) almost every 19th-century commentator known to us has something to say on the subject, and so do a great many 20th-century commentators. Among the most recent holdouts for Baker's position are Phythian 1979, Simon 1980, and, a little lukewarmly, Bryson 1984. The OED's first example of mutual friend is dated 1658. The other examples of its use are from Lady Mary Wortly Montagu, Edmund Burke, Sir Walter Scott, and George Eliot. Here are a few from our files: • ... by the hands of our mutual friend, Mr. Boswell —Sir Alexander Dick, letter (to Samuel Johnson), 17 Feb. 1777 • I had it from a dear mutual friend —W. M. Thackeray, The Book of Snobs, 1846 • ... after I had paid ten dollars in court for having punched a mutual friend —Robert Frost, letter, January 1923 • ... after the burial of a mutual friend —James Joyce, Ulysses, 1922 • ... our mutual friend, T. R. Smith —The Intimate Notebooks of George Jean Nathan, 1932 • Our mutual friend Libba Thayer has given me your address —James Thurber, letter, 2 May 1960 • ... at the home of mutual friends —Larry L. King, Harper's, April 1970 • That same day, a mutual friend invited Mullins and myself to join him for a round of golf at his club — Tip O'Neill with William Novak, Man of the House, 1987 We even have an example or two of the stigmatized sense used with other nouns. Dean Alford managed to convince himself that the mutual in the following example denoted reciprocity, but it clearly does not: it refers to the faith of both Paul and the Christians in Rome in Jesus Christ: • That is, that I may be comforted together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me —Romans 1:12 (AV), 1611 Here are a couple of other examples: • ... La femme de quarante ans has a husband and three lovers; all of whom find out their mutual connection one starry night —W. M. Thackeray, The Paris Sketch Book, 1840 • So they all nudged each other toward a mutual fate —Garry Wills, Saturday Rev., 11 Dec. 1976 Objection to mutual "common" has no basis other than Baker's ipse dixit of 1770 and the regrettable support given it by Samuel Johnson's failure to recognize the meaning in his 1755 Dictionary. The usages themselves go back to Shakespeare; they have been in continuous use for almost 400 years, they are eminently standard, and it is about time the matter was laid to rest. |
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