英语词汇considerable的意思、翻译、用法及例句-英语用法大全

词组	considerable
释义	considerable Considerable is involved in issues as an adjective, adverb, and noun. We will take them up separately. 1. Adjective. It is first necessary to eliminate from this discussion the most common construction in which the adjective occurs. This is one in which considerable is usually preceded by a word like a, the, his, one, any, no: the play was a considerable success, her considerable fortune, no considerable effort was made. These uses are standard and universal, and no one questions them except Phythian 1979, who thinks considerable is used too much. But when considerable modifies a mass noun, with no determiner like an or our, Fowler 1926, 1965 notes a difference between British and American usage. Fowler says that in British usage considerable is used only with nouns for immaterial things, while in American usage it is used of nouns for material things. Evans 1957 also makes much the same statement without mentioning any use as specifically British. In fact Fowler's British use is both British and American: • ... scenes of considerable crime —Robert Shaplen, New Yorker, 6 Sept. 1982 • ... a time of corruption, hatreds, sadism and considerable hysteria —Ernest Hemingway, "Miss Mary's Lion," 1956 • ... did considerable harm to the prestige of his country —Elmer Davis, But We Were Born Free, 1954 • He did it with considerable energy —Joseph Conrad, Chance, 1913 • ... good wages, with considerable social prestige — Aldous Huxley, The Olive Tree, 1937 • He was a man of wide reading and considerable culture —The Autobiography of William Allen White, 1946 This use is standard and universal. The use with mass nouns of material does seem to be American. It is considerably less frequent than use with immaterial mass nouns. It occurs in standard English, but in works of a general and not a literary nature. • ... thereby liberating considerable dust —Louis Shnidman, ed., Gaseous Fuels, 1948 • ... has room for considerable luggage —Burgess H. Scott, Ford Times, September 1966 • The product contains considerable salt —Raymond E. Kirk & Donald F. Othmer, eds., Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology, 1950 • The Japanese ... were equipped with considerable radio equipment —Herbert L. Merillat, The Island, 1944 • Fore Shank—Rich in flavor, considerable bone — Meat and Meat Cookery, 1942 2. Adverb. The most ink has been spilled in the attempt to stamp out the old flat adverb considerable used to mean "to a considerable extent or degree; quite a bit." This use is not an Americanism in origin, but it seems to have survived chiefly in this country. Like most flat adverbs it seems to be primarily a speech form and like most flat adverbs, more common formerly than now. (See flat adverbs.) We have good evidence of its currency in 19th-century American English, especially from the humorists. • ... the charge half a dollar to each person; which being about the price of half a fat sheep, I thought "pretty considerable much," if I may be permitted to use an expressive phrase of the country —Frances Trollope, Domestic Manners of the Americans, 1832 • "What air you here for?" I continued, warmin up considerable. "Can't you give Abe a minute's peace?" —Artemus Ward, "Interview with President Lincoln," 1861, in The Mirth of a Nation, ed. Walter Blair & Raven I. McDavid, Jr., 1983 • ... considerable many warts —Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer, 1876 • ... loafs around considerable —Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer, 1876 In 20th-century use the adverb is found chiefly in speech, fictional and genuine, and in letters and similar speechlike prose. • ... I thought we had very frankly made a mistake and prayed considerable during about three days that the Communists would reject it —Walter George, U.S. Senator from Georgia, quoted in Time, 18 June 1951 • My two new swans ... have high voices and use them considerable —Flannery O'Connor, letter, 15 Feb. 1964 • ... I bought my first professional mixer, one with a dough hook that kneaded the dough for me. That speeded things up considerable —Everett Burton, quoted in American Way, July 1984 Although two of the three users we have quoted happen to be Georgians, the Dictionary of American Regional English gives no regional limitation to the adverb, nor do our other citations suggest one. Only occasionally does the adverb appear in edited prose: • ... Theodore Roosevelt received considerable more help —Victor L. Albjerg, Current History, September 1952 • ... the children of the upper and middle classes received the best schooling available with considerable greater frequency —Charles Frankel, Columbia Forum, Summer 1970 The flat adverb considerable, then, is still alive in speech. It is seldom used in edited prose other than fiction. 3. Noun. The noun use of considerable is evidently American. There is some disagreement among dictionaries as to which constructions are the adjective used absolutely and which are the noun. There is a construction "a considerable of (a)" which everyone calls a noun. It is, however, somewhat old-fashioned and may be going out of use. This is the most recent example we have found of it: • It was a kind of mixed hound, with a little bird dog & some collie & maybe a considerable of almost anything else —William Faulkner, "Shingles," 1943 (American Dialect Dictionary) This Faulkner quotation also appears in the OED Supplement and the Dictionary of American Regional English. The following examples are felt to be adjectives by some dictionary editors and nouns by others. In either case they are standard usages, but they are perhaps passing out of use in edited prose. • ... the older McMath was inclined to spend considerable on liquor —Roy Bosson, quoted in Current Biography 1949 • ... considerable is known concerning the literature of the Babylonians —The Encyclopedia Americana, 1943 • ... it explains considerable but has to be strained beyond belief to explain all it is supposed to —Herbert J. Muller, Science and Criticism, 1943 • ... Arnold Shaw, who reputedly knows considerable about the business —Saturday Rev., 21 Feb. 1953 ... The McGill News apparently caused considerable of a furore by printing a "top secret" picture of the famous fence —McGill News, Spring 1954 • ... and that is considerable of an understatement — Rolfe Humphries, ed., New Poems by American Poets, 1953 • ... Robert Hunter, who at that time was considerable of a Socialist —The Autobiography of William Allen White, 1946
随便看	grateful gray, grey Grecian, Greek grey grieve grievous, grievously grill, grille grisly, grizzly groom grope ground zero group genitive grow guarantee, guaranty guerrilla, guerilla guess guts guttural guy gynecology Gypsy, Gipsy h had better, had best had have, had of had ought, hadn't ought

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