| 词组 | concept |
| 释义 | concept Bryson 1984, Janis 1984, Ebbitt 1982, Mac-millan 1982, and Copperud 1970, 1980 are among those who complain of a fad use of concept in a sense approximating idea (or any of a number of other words trotted out to suit the need). College handbooks may be trying to eliminate this from the writing of students in Freshman English, but the real problem here is that the commentators are all criticizing business and advertising use without saying so. Our files are full of examples of concept from the annual reports of U.S. corporations. And we have this sort of thing: • ... they perceive their roles as selling merchandise when they should be marketing a concept —Joel B. Portugal, N.Y. Times, 7 Dec. 1980 And this: • ... weaknesses come to the fore on this concept album about the songwriting team's scuffling days — Jon Landau, Rolling Stone, 17 July 1975 The language of business and showbiz is not especially amenable to correction by those who write college English handbooks. Still more important is the fact that these commentators start from the wrong basic premise: they assume that concept is originally and basically a word from philosophy meaning "an abstract or generic idea generalized from specific instances." The OED shows that concept is a Latinized form of conceit introduced in the 16th century; its earliest meaning was, in fact, "idea, notion." The philosophers then came along in the 17th century and made a narrower application of the earlier general term. The general sense "idea, notion" has been used all along. Our evidence suggests that concept is currently not in extensive use for literary purposes. We have, however, winnowed out some examples in which "notion, idea" is the prevalent meaning yet which are not specialized uses. You can judge for yourself how faddish these examples are. • ... the elevators in loft buildings, castles, hospitals and warehouses—that, infirm and dolorous to hear, seem to touch on our concepts of damnation —John Cheever, The Wapshot Chronicle, 1957 • ... "honor"—a word ... of which they had such a curious concept —William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, 1960 • ... we must expand the concept of conservation to meet the imperious problems of the new age —John F. Kennedy, Introduction to Stewart L. Udall, The Quiet Crisis, 1963 • ... my inherited concept of New Englanders —John Fischer, Harper's, January 1969 • Were there two human minds functioning separately from each other in the same brain? The concept was shattering —Irving Stone, McCall's, March 1971 • ... the Falstaff who simply and fully enjoyed life and wasn't about to sacrifice it to some idiot concept of battlefield honor —Martin Gottfried, Saturday Rev., 23 June 1979 |
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