| 词组 | per |
| 释义 | per Bernstein 1971 traces opposition to the preposition per all the way back to William Cobbett in the early 19th century. Cobbett's objection was that per was not English and to most people was "a mystical sort of word." Later 19th-century commentators such as Ayres 1881 and Long 1888 omitted the mention of mysticism but disapproved per before English words. The same injunction appeared in Vizetelly 1906 and Bierce 1909, among others; it can be found as recently as Freeman 1983. Bernstein's point is that per is no longer a mystical word, yet newspaper reporters and editors are still told to replace it with a or an, even in statistical and economic contexts where per is appropriate. Here we have a few of these typical contexts where per has slipped into print: • About 8-9 parts per million of nitrate in an infant's drinking water may interfere with hemoglobin function —Barry Commoner, Columbia Forum, Spring 1968 • ... contributions ... will be made by sponsors who will pay per mile for distances covered —Massachusetts Audubon News, May-June 1971 • ... the average use per residential customer — Annual Report, Union Electric Co., 1970 • Dividends per share of Common Stock —Annual Report, R. J. Reynolds Industries, Inc., 1970 • He referred to the $29.75 bite (including city taxes) per concert ticket —J. Sebastian Sinisi, Denver Post, 1 Sept. 1984 • The districts now pay $6.25 per student per year — Saturday Rev., 14 Apr. 1973 • What is the average number of sentences per paragraph? —Albert H. Marckwardt, Introduction to the English Language, 1942 Sports writing is frequently statistical also: • ... during the last thirty-nine games he scored almost a goal per game —Current Biography, October 1966 • ... twenty-nine and one-half points and fifteen rebounds per game —Current Biography, July 1967 • Both men gave career best performances in taking five wickets per piece as Notts, were dismissed in two hours 55 minutes for 94 —Terry Bowles, Evening Post (Nottingham, England), 13 July 1974 Probably no one needs to be reminded of miles per hour, miles per gallon, and such. The démystification of per has gone so far that it can be found in rather more literary contexts than you might expect: • ... and on up to four more English writers per publishing season —Bernard DeVoto, Harper's, November 1952 • Complicating matters are two beautiful women, one per agent, and an assortment of double agents — Arthur Krystal, N. Y. Times Book Rev., 18 Nov. 1984 • ... gives us as much serious fun per word as anyone around —George Stade, N.Y. Times Book Rev., 6 Mar. 1983 Janis 1984 notes a use of per meaning "according to," often found in business correspondence in such expressions as "per your instructions" and sometimes preceded by as (see as per). This use he calls stilted. It is not limited to business correspondence. Here are four examples, none of which sound particularly stilted: • Kesselring still believes that even after the failure to destroy the Russian ground forces (per his advice) ... Hitler could have changed the course of the war —A. J. Liebling, New Yorker, 26 Mar. 1955 • The computer then tells the printer where to print the address, per your instructions —Rex Nelsen, Popular Computing, March 1983 • Many of them were rowdy and wasted, per tradition —John Rockwell, N.Y. Times, 16 June 1976 • The Soviets, per custom, besieged the U.S. women with questions —Demmie Stathoplos, Sports Illustrated, 2 Aug. 1982 No commentator seems to question the use of per to mean "by the means or agency of: • ... a narrator, opening the play, announces the plot; the voice is the voice of George Moore (per David Warrilow) —Edith Oliver, New Yorker, 28 June 1982 • ... a cavernous saloon, where, per his invitation, a rambunctious dairyman who insulted him, the brother of a man he killed ..., and a faro dealer ... await him with guns —Judith Crist, Saturday Rev., 21 Aug. 1976 Also unmentioned by the critics is the adverbial use of per, which is essentially the preposition with its object understood: • At $100 per, tickets ... are the most expensive in Broadway history —Andrea Chambers, People, 16 Nov. 1981 • ... tickets going at a bargain $3.50 per —New York, 13 Sept. 1971 Harper 1975, 1985 notes that when per is used, each is not necessary. We do not find this redundancy very often in print, but it does occur now and then. We have an educational report summarized in the Springfield (Mass.) Union (20 Mar. 1969) which recommends that school libraries "have 20 volumes per each student." Another curious item is from Editor & Publisher ( 11 Sept. 1976) where what appears to be an explanation of a grammatical test—perhaps from an advertisement— says "there is supposed to be only one error per a sentence." You should avoid such combinations. The examples shown above represent most of the common standard uses of per. You will notice that reflexive substitution of a or an for per, recommended by some commentators, simply does not produce acceptable English in many instances. Bernstein is right: per is no longer a mystical word, and you need not worry about using it in contexts such as those we have illustrated. |
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