| 词组 | consequential |
| 释义 | consequential Here we have a most curious case. The sense of consequential meaning "important" was rejected by some two thirds of the Heritage 1969 usage panel, for reasons that are not given. (Heritage 1982 has no comment on this subject.) Harper 1975, 1985 notes that the sense is disputed, but finds it logical and predicts eventual acceptance. Earlier American objection we have not found, and therefore we assume the Heritage question was based on H. W. Fowler's 1926 comment that "c. does not mean of consequence." "Of consequence" is part of the definition in the OED at consequential 5; but Fowler selected as an example of what "would not now be English" an OED citation at sense 6a "having social consequence." Of course both of these senses mean the same thing; the OED separated uses of the adjective applied to nonhuman things from uses of the adjective applied to humans. The OED marks the earlier, nonhuman sense obsolete, but not the human sense. So it is not clear what Fowler had in mind—was he in effect saying that the human sense was also no longer in use? Our files show almost no use of the human sense he gave as an example. (We do have evidence of the "self-important" sense—OED 6b—that Fowler said was still alive.) But if the example given by Copperud 1970, 1980 in reporting Heritage 1969 is accurate, the Heritage panel was objecting to the nonhuman sense (OED 5). This sense has a curious history too. The OED shows it to start with Henry Fielding in 1728. In a comedy called Love in Several Masques, Fielding put the word into the mouth of Lord Formal, an updated Restoration fop with a taste for fancy language. Lord Formal takes the adjective, based till then on other senses of consequence, and bases it on the sense meaning "importance." These are his words as he takes leave of another character: • For the sweetness of your conversation has perfumed my senses to the forgetfulness of an affair, which being of consequential essence, obliges me to assure you that I am your humble servant. If this sense started out as part of the fancy talk of Fielding's fop, it was also in serious use; the OED shows later and straight-faced citations from the mid-18th century to the early 19th. But its last quotation is dated 1821, and the editor thought the sense obsolete. Nevertheless, the use reappeared in the middle of the 20th century. We do not know whether the sense had continued all along, and the OED simply lacked citations, or whether it was re-formed from the same elements Fielding had used. In either case there is none of Fielding's playing with words in these examples: • Impressionism has proved itself the most consequential of the efforts of the nineteenth-century painters to reorganize the data of vision —Wylie Sypher, Partisan Rev., March-April 1947 • The social effects were more consequential —Oscar Handlin, N.Y. Times Book Rev., 11 Apr. 1954 • ... the single consequential work of fiction so far this year by any of the French intellectuals —Janet Flan-ner, New Yorker, 14 July 1956 • ... so severely indifferent to the events the rest of us think consequential in our politics —Murray Kemp-ton, N. Y. Rev. of Books, 23 Oct. 1969 • Separately, none of these responsibilities seems very consequential —Albert R. Hunt, Wall Street Jour., 24 July 1972 • ... provocative, constantly interesting, and in some regards profoundly consequential —Rodney Need-ham, Times Literary Supp., 25 Jan. 1980 • Such views that have to do with that nonissue can sever the very consequential friendly relationship that is now being built up —Malcolm S. Forbes, Forbes, 3 Jan. 1983 These examples, as you can see, are perfectly standard. The "self-important" sense applied to humans has been in use all along, as Fowler observed: • As for the Housekeeper, she was more consequential than ever, having been intrusted with a secret —William Black, A Daughter of H eth, 1871 • He was a very short, fat little man, with immensely long grey side-whiskers, and a most consequential manner —Lord Frederic Hamilton, Vanished Pomps of Yesterday, 1934 • ... we might reflect that a weighty, consequential, humourless manner can still draw the plaudits of the intellectuals —Kingsley Amis, Encounter, April 1955 It can even be extended to the inanimate: • ... kept a couple of Rollses in the garage One was an old Phantom, I think, and stood gleaming in the half-light, immensely long, terrifically black and enormously consequential —Jan Morris, N.Y. Times Mag., 2 Feb. 1975 |
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