| 词组 | negotiate |
| 释义 | negotiate The use of this verb to mean "to successfully travel along or over," as in "negotiate a sharp turn," was once disparaged as a colloquialism or worse, but it is now recognized as standard. The OED traces it to the language of hunting in the 19th century: • The first fence I negotiated most successfully —G. J. Whyte Melville, Inside the Bar, 1862 (OED) This sense of negotiate became common enough in the early 20th century to attract some unfavorable attention. The earliest criticism recorded in our files is from the New York Sun of 22 Oct. 1906, in which the new sense is cited as a "barbarism creeping into the language." Fowler 1907 dismissed it briefly as slang, but its heyday as a usage topic did not come until the 1920s, when it was censured by many critics—including Fowler 1926, who asserted that any writer who used it was "literarily a barbarian." Despite that ringing condemnation, the voices of criticism in the years since have been few and relatively mild. Among current commentators, only Harper 1975, 1985 continues to find fault with it, claiming that it is "considered inappropriate in formal speech and writing." Our evidence does not show, however, that there is anything particularly informal about its use. As Gowers suggests in Fowler 1965, the distinguishing characteristic of negotiate is that it usually "implies a special need for skill and care": • She negotiated expertly the nerve-racking curves — Edna Ferber, So Big, 1924 • ... enables one to negotiate narrow channels —H. A. Calahan, Yachtsman's Omnibus, 1935 • ... the hairpin turn just beyond that you in your car will negotiate gingerly —Maynard Leahey, New England Journeys, No. 3, 1955 • ... might then have somehow negotiated the two miles up Carnelian to Bella Vista —Joan Didion, in The Contemporary Essay, ed. Donald Hall, 1984 • With a catamaran bottom, she is able to negotiate the shallows —William Styron, This Quiet Dust and Other Writings, 1982 |
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