| 词组 | perspicacious, perspicacity, perspicuous, perspicuity |
| 释义 | perspicacious, perspicacity, perspicuous, perspicuity Fowler 1926 was perhaps wise in his approach to this subject: he lumped all of these hard words under the heading perspic- and avoided a lot of tedious spelling. In case you are uncertain, the pair with a go together and the pair with u go together. The purpose of Fowler's discussion, and that of Evans 1957, Krapp 1927, Copperud 1964, 1970, Phythian 1979, and Bryson 1984, is to point out confusion—the substitution of one or another of each pair for one or another of the other pair. One easy way to keep out of trouble with these words is not to use them, of course, as they are never really required. Any good thesaurus will give you several alternatives for each. A more sensible, and surely bolder, approach is to check your desk dictionary before you use them. We say desk dictionary, not unabridged, because your desk dictionary has the present-day mainstream meanings. An unabridged dictionary has all the meanings, and that, as we shall see, is the problem. According to the commentators, the chief mistake is substitution of perspicuity for perspicacity (it has been going on since 1662) and of perspicuous for perspicacious. The latter is a real problem for the commentators: perspicuous was used in the sense of perspicacious in 1584, two years before it was used in its current mainstream meaning (1586) and 56 years before perspicacious ( 1640) is attested in English at all. The meanings we are concerned with, then, are "of acute discernment; keen" (you might even say "shrewd")—the chief modern meaning of perspicacious—and "acuteness of discernment or insight"—the chief modern meaning of perspicacity. With history in mind, we cannot call the use of perspicuous and perspicuity in these senses a mistake, or even a confusion. The adjective has priority, and although the noun does not, it is as likely to have been derived from the old sense of the adjective as it is from confusion with perspicacity. We must point out, however, that the trend of development since the 16th and 17th centuries has been toward differentiation, with perspicacious and perspicacity used chiefly in the senses just given, and perspicuous and perspicuity used in the senses of "clear to the understanding; plain, lucid" and "clarity, lucidity." Here are some examples of mainstream use: • ... she took some comfort in her perspicacity at having guessed his passion —Vita Sackville-West, The Edwardians, 1930 • ... triumph is itself fortuitous, and is therefore no great credit to his perspicacity —George F. Kennan, New Yorker, 1 May 1971 • The dictum of Ben Jonson ... that "the chief virtue of style is perspicuity " —Times Literary Supp., 18 Mar. 1944 • ... the problems that still confound us were formulated with remarkable clarity and perspicuity — Noam Chomsky, Columbia Forum, Spring 1968 • ... St. Augustine has some very perspicacious remarks on Plato —I. F. Stone, N. Y. Times Mag., 22 Jan. 1978 • Being not only sane but perspicacious, General Gri-gorenko kept mum —Robert C. Tucker, N. Y. Times Book Rev., 2 Jan. 1983 • One must be extremely exact, clear, and perspicuous in everything one says —Lord Chesterfield, Letters to his Son, 1774 • ... offering a perspicuous picture of the movement of empires —Times Literary Supp., 12 Feb. 1970 These examples are in the mainstream. The use of perspicuous and perspicuity where perspicacious and perspicacity are expected has historical justification but may be seen as a mistake or may confuse your readers. We suggest that you stick to the mainstream uses or skip the words altogether. |
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