| 词组 | commence |
| 释义 | commence Commence has come in for various kinds of criticism since the middle of the 19th century. There were originally three objections, of which only one survives. The first was raised by George Perkins Marsh, in his 1859 Lectures on the English Language. Marsh comments in a footnote that good writers do not follow commence with to and an infinitive, but with a noun or gerund. Marsh also notes that there is no grammatical objection to such use. The OED notes that Fitzedward Hall and Miss Charlotte Yonge also commented negatively on the use. But the objection seems then to have died. The construction did not: • ... when the man climbed over the wall the ass commenced to crop the grass —James Stephens, The Crock of Go Id, 1912 • "In fact," Ambrose says, "I am commencing to wonder if the cat has got its tongue. It is the most noncommittal parrot I ever see in all my life." —Damon Runyön, Runyon à la Carte, 1944 • After discussing the day's prospects ... then commence to see the customers —Harry S. Truman, diary entry, 1 June 1945 The second objection was raised by Richard Grant White 1870 to a British idiom in which commence means "to begin to be": • If Wit so much from Ign'rance undergo, Ah let not Learning too commence its foe!—Alexander Pope, "Essay on Criticism," 1711 • Blake commenced pupil—Swinburne (in White 1870) Ayres 1881 notices this use but also says that Fitzedward Hall had defended it. After Ayres there seems to be no comment. Perhaps Hall had overpowered all opposition; the OED marks the sense archaic, which may also account for the silence of later critics. The third, and longest-lived, objection was started by Alford 1866. He objects to the frequent use in the newspapers of commence where begin might have served. He was also plagued by printers changing his begins in church announcements to commences. Apparently commence was popular with journalists and printers at the time, and the Dean preferred begin. Ayres 1881 also opted for begin, as did Bierce 1909 and many subsequent commentators down to Janis 1984 and Einstein 1985. A few—Vizetelly 1906, MacCracken & Sandison 1917, Bremner 1980, and some others—distinguish commence and begin and often start. The consensus of those who compare is that commence is more formal. Other commentators supply other labels: Janis 1984 calls it "pretentious," Bryson 1984 "an unnecessary gen-teelism," Copperud 1970, 1980 "old-fashioned and inappropriate," Longman 1984 "bookish or pedantic." There is a grain of truth in all these comments, but they should not be too insistently urged. The word has, after all, been in regular use in English since the 14th century, and it is not surprising that it has been used by writers of every stripe, from the artless to the humorous to the pedantic. The word is simply too valuable to take a narrowly dim view of. It has been used to make fun of stuffed shirts: • MOCKMODE.... our friendship commenced in the college-cellar, and we loved one another like two brothers, till we unluckily fell out afterwards at a game at tables —George Farquhar, Love and a Bottle, 1698 • ... things never began with Mr. Borthrop Trumbull; they always commenced —George Eliot (in Longman 1984) • How to begin—or, as we professionals would say, "how to commence" —Ring Lardner, preface, How to Write Short Stories, 1924 It was part of the arsenal of 19th-century American humorists: • Directly I spy the heathens they commence takin' on, and the spirit it begin to move 'em, they gin to kinda groan and whine —William C. Hall, "How Sally Hooter Got Snakebit," 1850, in The Mirth of a Nation, ed. Walter Blair & Raven I. McDavid, Jr., 1983 • ... after she commenced her miserable gift of the gab —Frances Lee Pratt, "Captain Ben's Choice," in Mark Twain's Library of Humor, 1888 It is also used by writers in a serious vein: • The Period wherein the English Tongue received most Improvement, I take to commence with the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's Reign —Jonathan Swift, "A Proposal for Correcting, Improving and Ascertaining the English Tongue," 1712 • His friendship with Arbuthnot was just now commencing —Sir Walter Scott, footnote in Swift's Journal to Stella, 1824 • Before Webster commenced his tinkering, the spelling of those two hundred words, however irregular to his apprehension, was more uniform than probably it will ever be again —Gould 1870 • You probably remember that when Wolcott Bales-tier commenced publishing in London ..., he asked Edmund Gosse to find him a willing and inexpensive office boy —Alexander Woollcott, letter, 29 Sept. 1942 • The Report was an aid to my stopping a two-pack-a-day habit which commenced in early infancy —William Styron, This Quiet Dust and Other Writings, 1982 And in ordinary fiction: • The ruggedness vanishes as quickly as it commenced in the east —Ernest K. Gann, Fate Is the Hunter, 1961 • At eleven-thirty he would dash through the city room to commence drinking his lunch —Gregory McDonald, Fletch, 1974 • The Buckeye State Used Cars enterprise looked grim and satisfactorily seedy, I turned in there and commenced a negotiation —E. L. Doctorow, Loon Lake, 1979 Commence, then, is a word capable of being used in several ways. You need not routinely change it to begin or start. |
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