| 词组 | combine |
| 释义 | combine The use of combine for a combination of people or of business or political interests, warns Copperud 1970, 1980, may have derogatory overtones. Bryant 1962 looks at the word from a different perspective, that of its use vis-à-vis combination, but she too notes an overtone of intrigue. The use is originally an Americanism (Jensen 1935 worried about that), but only by a matter of two or three years. The OED Supplement notes that the word is in standard British usage; OED Supplement citations and our British evidence show little or no trace of derogatory overtones: • The large firms and combines ... are most enlightened in their approach to this matter —Sir James Mountford, British Universities, 1966 • I doubt if the Bugner combine will accept the bid — Desmond Hackett, Daily Express, 8 Oct. 1970 • ... France's largest perfume and cosmetics combine —Michael Braham, The Observer, 14 Apr. 1974 Thus the overtone of something shady is American. The term seems to have been first applied to an unsavory political alliance in New York around 1886, and many early citations, whether referring to combinations of persons or corporations, have a derogatory overtone. But the term has ameliorated over the years, and much of our recent American evidence is similar in tone to our British evidence: • ... frightened France and Russia into their own protective combine 15 years later —Paul Kennedy, N. Y. Times Book Rev., 21 Oct. 1984 • ... if merged, the two would form the biggest cigarette combine anywhere —Gwen Kinkead, Fortune, 29 June 1981 • ... the United Scouting Combine, which pools information on college players —Allan Zullo, Popular Computing, November 1982 • ... a great mining and metallurgical combine in Siberia —Edward Crankshaw, N.Y. Times Mag., 30 Nov. 1975 So in recent use if the derogatory overtones are desired, they must be clearly signaled by context: • ... a would-be courier for the Mediterranean heroin combine —Don DeLillo, Esquire, December 1971 • ... the hefty Hibernian hustlers of the Manhattan combine known as Tammany —Walter Wager, Telefon, 1975 • ... a university-industrial combine which is even more pervasive and which has been far more powerful in determining the shape of the university —T. R. McConnell, AAUP Bulletin, September 1969 |
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