| 词组 | civilian |
| 释义 | civilian Copperud 1970, 1980 complains that Merriam-Webster dictionaries are the only ones that recognize a use of civilian in which the word distinguishes the civilian from a member of a uniformed force such as a police force or fire department, as well as from a member of the military. Copperud does not like the extension beyond the military, and while Bernstein 1965 will accept extension to police and firefighting forces, he draws the line there. A check of some recent desk-sized dictionaries shows that at least one recognizes the extension to police and fire-fighting units (making it as up-to-date as Webster's Third, published in 1961 ) and another recognizes extension to police forces. Small wonder. The use has been around since the late 1940s or early 1950s, and here are a couple of examples: • Until the fall of 1954 New York was the only city with a population of more than 1,000,000 that shunned the use of civilians as school-crossing guards —Joseph C. Ingraham, Modern Traffic Control, 1954 • Police forces of the stature of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police must have a proper concern for the traditions that make membership in the force something different from holding down a nine-to-five civilian job —Globe and Mail (Toronto), 30 Apr. 1975 The extension of civilian to distinguish ordinary people from members of any group, regardless of whether the group is uniformed or not, is what Bernstein objects to. This use is not especially new; our files show that the meaning was listed as new in the 1948 Britannica Book of the Year. It has become well established and is more frequent in our files at the present time than the sense that contrasts civilians with police or fire fighters. Here are some representative examples: • ... pension fund managers are presumed to be dealing with sophisticated corporate minds, not the gullible civilian kind —Everett Mattlin, New York, 1 Nov. 1971 • While a civilian girl will often try a new haircut at whim, for a model a haircut is serious business — Richard Natale, Cosmopolitan, April 1974 • We could only conclude that either belly dancers have vastly bigger navels than civilians or that inflation has had some queer effects —Betsy Wade, N. Y. Times Book Rev., 2 Mar. 1975 • A pretty strong case could be made that the last person genuinely qualified to report on travel is a professional travel writer. After all, we seldom endure any of the common catastrophes that afflict civilian travelers —Stephen Birnbaum, Esquire, June 1977 • "As a man of medicine, I don't understand you civilians at all " —quoted by Goodman Ace, Saturday Rev., 14 Oct. 1978 • ... Ellen Schwamm's second novel In civilian life, Schwamm is married to the fiction writer Harold Brodkey —James Wolcott, Harper's, August 1983 It appears that you can safely ignore the strictures of Bernstein and Copperud, who are looking backward. These extended uses of civilian are common, well established, and standard. More dictionaries will doubtless be recording them as time goes on. |
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