| 词组 | over |
| 释义 | over The preposition over has a dozen senses in Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary. Nearly half of these were under attack in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but most of this controversy has been forgotten by now. One use, however—over in the sense "more than"—has not been forgotten. Disapproval of over "more than" is a hoary American newspaper tradition. It began with William Cullen Bryant's Index Expurgatorius of 1877, compiled when he was editor of the New York Evening Post. Bryant simply forbade over (and above) in this sense; he gave no reason. From Bryant the dictum passed to Bierce 1909. (Bryson 1984, Copperud 1970, 1980, and Bernstein 1971 suspect Bierce of originating the notion.) From Bierce over passed into almost all of the newspaper handbooks: we find it in Hyde 1926; George C. Bastien et al., Editing the Day's News (4th ed., 1956); and Bremner 1980. Time for 11 Oct. 1948 twitted the Detroit Free Press for disapproving the usage while the newspaper's motto is "On Guard for Over a Century"; New World 1988 mentions the stylebooks of the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and the Associated Press. Neither Bryant nor Bierce deigned to give any reason for disapproval, but later commentators have devised a few. Bremner, for instance, distinguishes between 30,000 dollars and 200 pounds, which are "collective quantity" and 10,000 people and 200 buildings, which are "countables"—over may be used with the first two but not the second two. Of the stylebooks cited in New World, one insists that over refers only to physical location, and another allows it for age but not for other numerical quantities. The limitation to physical position is also mentioned by Harper 1975, 1985 and Freeman 1983. All of this rationalization seems tortured. Over in the sense of "more than" has been used in English since the 14th century. Here are some examples of over in the disputed sense. You will note they were not written by American newspaper reporters. • ... over 32,000 acres are under vineyards —Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th ed., 1910 • Johnson's biographical writings cover a period of over forty years —John Butt, English Literature in the Mid-Eighteenth Century, edited & completed by Geoffrey Carnall, 1979 • I have now a library of nearly 900 volumes, over 700 of which I wrote myself —Henry David Thoreau, journal, 30 Oct. 1853, quoted in N.Y. Times Book Rev., 7 Nov. 1982 • ... Mr. Kallman and I have been close friends for over thirty years —W. H. Auden, Harper's, March 1972 • "How old is M'Cola?" I asked Pop. • "He must be over fifty," Pop said.—Ernest Hemingway, Green Hills of Africa, 1935 • And I counted over six hundred men come out of there —Harry S. Truman, quoted in Merle Miller, Plain Speaking, 1973 • ... the phrase in question appeared over six hundred years earlier —W. F. Bolton, A Short History of Literary English, 1967 • I have been in show business man and boy for over forty years —Groucho Marx, letter, 5 Sept. 1951 • It has been almost twenty-two years since you were at "Shorelee" and it doesn't seem a day over seventeen —James Thurber, letter, 1 June 1954 • Over two hundred friends from my district came — Tip O'Neill with William Novak, Man of the House, 1987 There is no reason why you need to avoid this usage. |
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