| 词组 | as |
| 释义 | as There are a number of questions—both picky and more substantial—involving the little word as—"one of the most overworked words in the English language," according to Shaw 1970. Overwork is a fate shared by most small function words in English; Mr. Shaw himself works as as hard as anyone else. (As is the fourteenth most frequent word in the Brown University Corpus, according to Kucera & Francis 1967.) We will treat at this entry several uses of as that tend to be lumped together in handbooks. When as forms part of a compound, correlative, or phrase whose use is questioned, the whole construction will be found at its own alphabetical place. A number of these follow the present article. See also like, as, as if. 1.Causal "as." Bryant 1962 reports that causal as appears in standard contexts but is quite a bit less frequent than because and since. Many other commentators object to the use; the most frequent objection is the possibility of ambiguity in the uncertainty, in certain made-up sentences, whether as signifies "because" or "while." Here, for example, is the ambiguous sentence from Copperud 1970: • As the door was locked, he turned and walked away. The weakness of an example like this is that it is presented with no supporting context. The context would disambiguate, as linguists say, the sentence. We might know that the locking of this particular door was a process sufficiently lengthy to permit our protagonist to turn and walk away, or that our protagonist was simply balked of his purpose. On the other hand, if you have difficulty imagining a context into which this sentence would fit comfortably, that fact is a sign that the example has little demonstrative value. Actually, cases where causal as is clearly ambiguous are hard to find; the objection seems somewhat flimsy. The objection of Copperud 1970 and one or two others that causal as is unidiomatic will not bear scrutiny. Here are some genuine examples of causal as; you can judge whether they are ambiguous or unidiomatic: • The class of'24's valedictorian did not make it from Southern California this year, for instance, as his wife had died —Tom Gavin, Sunday Denver Post, 7 Oct. 1984 • As you are but young in the trade, you will excuse me if I tell you, that some little inaccuracies have escaped your eye —Thomas Gray, letter, 10 Aug. 1757 •THESEUS. Oh! then as I'm a respectable man, and rather particular about the company I keep, I think I'll go _w. S. Gilbert, Thespis, 1871 • "... I shall prepare my most plaintive airs against his return, in compassion to his feelings, as I know his horse will lose." —Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, 1814 • Martin told Jimmy Miranda to take the 3-year-old colt to the lead, and the strategy seemed brilliant as no one challenged Ten Below through slow early fractions —Steven Crist, N. Y. Times, 26 Sept. 1982 • ... and as it is always well to prepare for contingencies, I will just notify you —Henry Adams, letter, 9 Apr. 1859 • ... in cases of doubt I often leave them out, but I am apt to put them in, as they help the reader —Oliver Wendell Holmes d. 1935, letter, 27 July 1931 • ... I accepted at once as I like to make trips by plane —Flannery O'Connor, letter, 11 Sept. 1955 • At the last possible minute, John carefully polishes all the brass, as it tarnishes so easily —Suzy Lucine, Morgan Horse, April 1983 • As this chapter had no observable merits it did not seem worth reprinting here —Robert Burchfield, Note on the Text, 1984 reprint of Cobbett 1823 Causal as is a standard and acceptable alternative to because and since, but it is less frequently used than either. Objection to it on grounds of ambiguity seems dubious at best, since ambiguous examples in published writing are hard to come by. See also since 1. 2.Relative pronoun. The use that is questioned here breaks down into two kinds of constructions, one perfectly standard and one chiefly dialectal. In the standard construction, the relative pronoun as is preceded by such or same: • Therefore let Princes, or States, choose such Servants, as have not this marke —Francis Bacon, Essays, 1625 • Simpling our Author goes from Field to Field, And culls such Fools, as may Diversion yield—George Farquhar, Prologue, The Beaux Strategem, 1707 • Each house shall keep a journal of its proceedings, and from time to time publish the same, excepting such parts as may in their judgment require secrecy —Constitution ofthe United States, 1787 • ... appreciation of and interest in such fine, pleasant, and funny things as may still be around —James Thurber, letter, 20 Jan. 1938 • ... with such poor things as are our own —Leacock 1943 • Plato and Aristotle faced the same problems of man in society as confront the modern philosopher — Report: Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters, & Sciences, 1949-1951 (Ottawa, Canada) • ... faced by the same sort of problem as confronts many local housing committees —Times Literary Supp., 1 Oct. 1954 • ... such innovations as they actually have made — James Sledd, in Essays on Language and Usage, 2d ed., ed. Leonard F. Dean & Kenneth G. Wilson, 1963 • ... a tarred timber barn, behind which such of the young as fancied and some as didn't used to box — Benedict Kiely, New Yorker, 20 Aug. 1973 • A banjo can set up such a racket as will work the fillings loose from your teeth —Michael O'Rourke, Nation Rev. (Melbourne), 24 Apr. 1975 In this construction as cannot be easily replaced by another relative pronoun like that or which. The relative pronoun as without a preceding such or same is a more complex matter. The OED found it obsolete in standard English but current in various dialects; the Dictionary of American Regional English declares it formerly widespread in American English but now restricted to the Midland and Southern areas. We have three kinds of evidence in our files. First, we have transcriptions of actual speech: • 'I writes notes and letters for some as buys paper of me ' —Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor, 1851 • She said to me: 'There's a lot of old maids in this village, sir, as wants men ' —The Journals of Arnold Bennett, ed. Frank Swinnerton, 1954 • "Not," he said, "what you would call bookshops. There's some as stocks novels; there's some as stocks religion " —Harold J. Laski, letter, 26 Aug. 1925 Then there is other dialectal evidence (British and American): • Agriculture was ordained by Him as made us, for our chief occupation —Thomas C. Haliburton, The Clockmaker, 1837 • ... we was goin to tell the Gospel to them as had ears —Robert Penn Warren, in New Directions, 1947 • ... a lot of things happened inside of you as never ought to —Richard Llewellyn, None But the Lonely Heart, 1943 • "Never trust a bloke as says that," Bert said —Alan Sillitoe, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, 1958 • I had me a little spell and took some pills as cost 60<t a throw —Flannery O'Connor, letter, 4 Aug. 1957 And, curiously, we have as a third group a few examples appearing in contexts intended to be standard. These examples may simply reflect the natural idiom of the writer. • He has only to shake his well-stocked sleeves to provide a shower of comic images as point to what he calls "his relish for the ridiculous." —Times Literary Supp., 3 Mar. 1950 • The same people as objected to "Inkhorn terms" ... poured derision upon those who "peppered their talk with oversea language" —David C. Brazil, The True Book about Our Language, 1965 • There has never before been a time as exists today when school committees needed to present a united front—Alton S. Cavicchi, MASC Jour. (Mass.), February 1968 • ... coffeehouse featuring many of the performers as have appeared on Robert Lurtsema's "Morning Pro Musica" —advt, WFCR (Amherst, Mass.) Program Guide, February 1978 In addition, there is a fixed phrase beginning "them as" followed by a third-person present singular verb. In the first of the examples below, the phrase is represented as the speech of an unlettered character. In the other two the fixed phrase is used—as are many fixed phrases with ain't—in such a way as to disinfect it of the suspicion of illiteracy and make it a leavening agent in the writing. • 'Them as looks down their nose don't see far beyond it,' said Laffin —Robert Gibbings, Lovely Is the Lee, 1945 • I'll stick to my casualty page; them as likes that kind of thing can have their newsworthy floozies —Alan Villiers, Ships and the Sea, January 1953 • In literature, for example, it is often said that "the novel is dead", or that "the sentence is obsolete". All right for them as thinks so —Clancy Sigal, Times Literary Supp., 6 Aug. 1964 The plain relative pronoun as without such or same is a survival of older use. It must have been fading in the middle of the 18th century, for Lowth 1762 remarks in a footnote that it is no longer common. Here are three of his examples, all from the 17th century: • An it had not been for a civil gentleman, as came by —William Congreve, The Old Bachelor • The Duke had not behaved with that loyalty, as he ought to have done —Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon (title not given) • In the order, as they lie in his preface —Thomas Middleton, Works It looks to us as if the plain relative pronoun as would be a little tricky to use if it is not part of your natural idiom. You need not, of course, avoid its survival in this proverb: • Handsome is as handsome does. 3. This use, like the one discussed in section 2 above, is a survival of an older one. The OED notes its existence from Caxton's time in the 15th century. Lowth 1762 lists it in a footnote of old-fashioned or out-of-date uses. It had high literary use in the 17th and early 18th centuries: • And certainly, it is the Nature of Extreme Selfe-Lov-ers; As they will set an House on Fire, and it were but to roast their Egges —Francis Bacon, Essays, 1625 • I gain'd a son; And such a son, as all men hail'd me happy —John Milton, Samson Agonistes, 1671 (in Lowth) • ... disposed to conclude a peace upon such conditions, as it was not worth the life of a grenadier to refuse them —Jonathan Swift, The Four Last Years of the Queen (in Lowth) • There was something so amiable, and yet so piercing in his looks, as inspired me at once with love and terror —Joseph Addison, The Spectator, No. 63 (in Lowth) These literary uses have dropped away. The OED notes survival in southern British dialects; the DARE in American. It remains almost entirely an oral use in American English. It can occasionally be found in positive constructions: • Billy Sessions asked me if I thought you all would read his play & I allowed as I thot you would —Flannery O'Connor, letter, 1 July 1959 But usually it is followed in negative constructions, usually after the verbs know, see, or say: • I don't know as you'll like the appearance of our place —Harriet Beecher Stowe, Dred, 1856 (in OED) • I don't know as it makes any difference in respect to danger —Walt Whitman, letter, 9 Feb. 1863 • "Just as you say," returned the rejected. "I ain't sure as you'd be exactly the one " —Francis Lee Pratt, "Captain Ben's Choice," in Mark Twain's Library of Humor, 1888 • I don't see as it's been any use —Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome, 1911 (in American Dialect Dictionary) • I didn't know as I'd go —Thornton Wilder, Our Town, 1938 (in ADD) • But the last five years anyway we've managed to market it all in retail containers. I don't know as I should say all, but the majority of it —Mac Joslyn, quoted in New England Farmer, October 1984 This as must have been a regular feature of the idiolect of the detective novelist Erie Stanley Gardner. He put it into the language of many of the characters in his stories—including characters whose speech is standard. One sample: • Well, after reading that letter, I don't know as I blame Minerva —The Case of the Negligent Nymph, 1949 This use of the conjunction as is not ungrammatical, erroneous, or illiterate, but you must remember that it is now a speech form—whether dialectal or not—and is not found in ordinary expository prose. See also as how. 4.Preposition. Phythian 1979 believes that "correct grammar" does not accept as as a preposition, but that is not the case. As has a few prepositional uses no one quibbles about: • When I sailed as a boy, yachting was confined to relatively few centers —Carleton Mitchell, Boating, January 1984 • ... language is primarily learned as speech —William Stafford, Writing the Australian Crawl, 1978 • He acted as her manager —E. L. Doctorow, Ragtime, 1975 • It was as Julie Lamber in Theatre ... that she first won almost unanimous praise from Broadway critics —Current Biography, December 1964 • ... they respect every man as a man —J. Bronowski, American Scholar, Autumn 1969 • Here's a good Ph.D. thesis for somebody: Weber as a literary man —Harold C. Schonberg, N. Y. Times, 16 July 1967 There is another sense of the prepositions as that means the same as like: • ... each of them, as their predecessors, neatly tailored to the pocket —Times Literary Supp., 26 Jan. 1967 • Then I said, "Do you think that he is not as other men?" —Jim Henderson, Open Country Muster, 1974 • ... that grimness is as nothing compared to what was to come —Robert Penn Warren, Democracy and Poetry, 1975 Because of the propensity of conjunctional as to be used with what are called truncated clauses, it is sometimes hard to tell whether the conjunction or preposition was intended: • Comeau was thin and Adams was fat, but after years of association they moved as matched planets — John Updike, Couples, 1968 • It sounds and reads as a forced word —John O. Barbour, quoted in Harper 1985 Some writers choose as automatically out of fear of misusing like; such uses are often ambiguous because the as can be understood in its "like" sense or in its "in the character or capacity of sense. In the E. L. Doctorow quotation above, "He acted as her manager," as reflects the latter sense; it is easy to see how "He acted like her manager" would mean something quite different. Copperud 1964, Freeman 1983, and others warn against using as in its "like" sense when it can be taken for the other. Here is an example: • ... convicted of assaulting a security guard ... and breaking up the hotel's furniture. Said the judge to the defendants upon sentencing them: "You acted as buffoons." —TV Guide, 4 Jan. 1985 If the judge had used like, his meaning would have been apparent at once. 5. Copperud 1970 and one or two others raise an objection to the preposition as used after what they term "designating verbs": name, appoint, elect, and the like. Verbs like elect and appoint are what linguists call "ditransitive verbs"—they take two objects: • We elected Helene president. • He was appointed vicar. • They considered her a genius. The problem with a blanket objection to the insertion of as between the objects is that some similar verbs, such as install, are not ditransitive: • He was installed as vicar last week. If the occasional insertion of an unnecessary but harmless as in He was appointed as vicar, avoids the unidiomatic He was installed vicar, it is a minor fault indeed. 6. As, such as. Sellers 1975 objects to as used for such as, calling it "a sloppy Americanism." His compatriot Phythian 1979 finds it entirely acceptable. These two examples show that it is not an Americanism, and is not necessarily sloppy. • ... some little inaccuracies have escaped your eye, as in the 9th page Lab'rinth's & Echo's, (which are Nominatives plural,) with Apostrophes after them, as tho' they were Genitives singular —Thomas Gray, letter, 10 Aug. 1757 • I was often astonished when my mother did me some deed of generosity, as when she bought me my first Sunday suit with long pants —Russell Baker, Growing Up, 1982 |
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