| 词组 | as best |
| 释义 | as best James J. Kilpatrick, in a column printed in the Portland Oregonian of 2 Nov. 1985, worries about his use of "we must do as best we can"—several of his readers had written in to chide him about it. Kilpatrick believes "as best we can" to be a respectable idiom but concedes that it might be a Southern regionalism and wonders if anyone else uses it. The answer is yes. In fact Bernstein 1977 specifically puts the stamp of approval on it: • It is perfectly proper to say, "He did the job as best he could." The idiom itself seems to have been little noticed, although at least one American desk-size dictionary includes it, and Janis 1984 stigmatizes it as nonstandard. Our evidence shows that the phrase is not an American regionalism. Our oldest citation comes from sometime in the 19th century, in an excerpt from an undated and unpublished manuscript written by Jane Austen's niece that is included as a footnote in R. W. Chapman's edition of Miss Austen's letters: • But ... he then found himself a ruined Man, and bound to provide as best he could for his Mother and Aunt —Caroline Austen, Reminiscences Here are some later examples: • ... the one-armed man, conscious of his helpless plight, entrapped in the mêlée, fled as best he might through the familiar intricacies of the old hotel — Charles Egbert Craddock, "The Bushwackers," 1899 • We must get along as best we can without it —Utter 1916 • But I do as best I can —Harry S. Truman, letter, 18 Aug. 1948 • We climbed wearily into the car, squeezing in as best we could —S. Dillon Ripley, Search for the Spinv Babbler, 1952 • ... down the ruts of the midway to where, or where as best he could see in the dark, she had gone through her rites —John Cheever, The Wapshot Chronicle, 1957 • ... while the great mass work very little and amuse themselves as best they can —August Heckscher, in Automation, Education and Human Values, ed. W. W. Brickman & S. Lehrer, 1966 • He pictured himself as this hard, lonely man—sidestepping the Byron cliché as best he could, only to land splat in the Bogart —Wilfrid Sheed, People Will Always Be Kind, 1973 • As best I could tell —William Least Heat Moon, Blue Highways, 1982 It looks like a perfectly respectable idiom to us. |
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