| 词组 | credence, credibility |
| 释义 | credence, credibility Phythian 1979 says that credence "is sometimes confused with credibility." A letter to the editor of Nature (6 Dec. 1984) makes the same point, calling the confusion "a new verbal abuse." It isn't very new; Fowler 1926 shows an example of the usage they are talking about in his discussion of the overlap in sense between credence and credit. The crucial constructions here are give credence to and lend credence to. When the subject of the phrase is a person, the meaning of credence is the familiar one of "belief: • ... the directors of information in the Kremlin gave as little credence to their own agents as they did to Churchill —Times Literary Supp., 4 July 1968 • ... though I can't give much credence to that suggestion —Stanley Kubrick, quoted in Playboy, September 1968 • It is a pity if the Premier (Mr. Hamer) as he was reported yesterday is now lending credence to the conspiracy theory Such sentiments are more in line perhaps with the States-rights troglodytes —The Age (Melbourne), 30 Apr. 1975 The familiar sense is being used even when the construction is made passive: • Should baseball statistics since World War II be given the same credence as those from the years ... ? —William Claire, Smithsonian, April 1984 • ... and all that had made charming and delightful earlier American literature can no longer be given simple credence —Irving Howe, N. Y. Times Book Rev., 4 July 1976 It is when the subject of these phrases is inanimate that we get a use closer in meaning to credibility: • Two results stand out... ; neither of these gives any credence to the assertions of Lord Ridley —in Fowler 1926 • The nautical rope molding in the cornices and door trim gives credence to the theory that... —American Guide Series: North Carolina, 1939 • The evidence lends some credence to the view that American electoral politics is undergoing a long-term transition —Walter Dean Burnham, Trans-Action, December 1969 • His theory on the origin of human cancer has lent credence to the idea that cancer can be conquered by a massive infusion of funds —Lucy Eisenberg, Harper's, November 1971 The problem here is not really a question of confused usage. It is a problem created by the limits of lexicography. Credence in these typical constructions is a quality. When it inheres in humans, the lexicographer defines it by the name of a similar quality known to inhere in humans: belief. But when the quality of credence inheres in something inanimate—a theory, an action, evidence—the lexicographer has to resort to a different word—believability—to define the quality because belief is most readily understood as applying to humans. The difficulty for the lexicographer here is with belief and believability, not credence, for credence is applied to both persons and things in exactly the same constructions. We do not mean to suggest that credence, whether applied to persons or things, is limited to the two constructions so far discussed. It is not, although they are the most frequent. Here are two examples differently constructed: • He placed complete credence in everything that anyone said to him —Rebecca West, The Thinking Reed, 1936 • ... the charge has a certain credence —Karl V. Teeter, in Language as a Human Problem, ed. Morton Bloomfield & Einar Haugen, 1974 The criticized use seems to be of 20th-century origin, although the OED has one 19th-century citation referring to the credence of a person's senses. In its usual constructions it is certainly of the 20th century. Our evidence suggests that the application to things is increasing, especially in the construction lend credence to. There is nothing in the sources in which this construction is found to suggest that it is anything less than standard. It is used in both British and American English. The OED notes that credence and credit have historically shared senses—credence, for instance, once had a financial sense that credit has taken over completely. One sense of credit that the OED marks obsolete means "credibility" or "believability."(The obsolete status is doubtful because Fowler's discussion of credence and credit includes two citations of what is apparently this sense.) Perhaps—by way of speculation—the dominance of the financial senses of credit has led to credence's taking over this sense from credit. Compare these two examples: • Many things which are false are transmitted from book to book, and gain credit in the world —Samuel Johnson, in James Boswell, Life of Samuel Johnson, 1791 • The legend gained new credence when dredging operations of recent years brought up several rotting wagon hubs —American Guide Series: Tennessee, 1939 And we note, finally, that credence is used with lend quite a bit more often than credibility is. Here, however, are two examples of lend credibility to. • ... cast him as a Parisian dress designer, a character to which he nevertheless managed to lend some credibility —Current Biography, January 1967 • ... the blacks' report charged that blacks had been invited to the conference only to lend it credibility —Don Mitchell, Harper's, August 1971 In the first example, with its human subject, credence simply would not have been chosen. In the second we have an inanimate subject—an action. But the political overtones militate in favor of credibility. It may be that the recent politicization of credibility has also contributed to the increasing use of credence in other contexts. |
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