| 词组 | complex |
| 释义 | complex Copperud 1970, 1980 reports that some commentators object to the use of complex in nontechnical prose in a figurative sense derived from psychological use (as in Oedipus complex). The books that contain these criticisms (Bernstein 1965, Evans 1957, Fowler 1965) are now more than a quarter century old. The OED Supplement shows that this figurative use began as far back as 1927, and Copperud notes that most dictionaries consider it standard. If the use was a bit of a fad 30 or 40 years ago, it no longer is; other senses of the noun are currently in much more frequent use. But the figurative sense is still occasionally encountered. As these examples suggest, it is not used very often in highly serious writing: • My childhood passed rather uneventfully, getting only pimples and a complex to remember it by — Pat Rutter, quoted in Rolling Stone, 22 June 1972 • ... Jemima, the Blackface ewe with the Houdini complex. No respecter of confining fences —Scottish Field, June 1974 • ... the British do not share our superstar complex —Karl E. Meyer, Saturday Rev., 25 Nov. 1978 • ... there is a distinct feeling that if the Royals lose the first game, they will be overcome by their Yankee complex —Murray Chass, N. Y. Times, 6 Oct. 1980 • I think in the arts and in all matters that relate to the intellectual, we still have a colonial complex —Tom Wolfe, quoted in Saturday Rev., April 1981 |
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