| 词组 | crescendo |
| 释义 | crescendo A couple of American newspapermen-commentators, Bernstein 1958, 1965 and Bremner 1980, and a couple of British ones, Howard 1978 and Bryson 1984, object to the use of crescendo to mean "a peak of intensity." The proper use, they say, is to mean "a gradual increase in intensity." Since the increase has to reach some sort of climax, the extension of the word to the climax from the increase hardly seems surprising. The extended use may be American in origin: • In July he was ordered abroad, and their tenderness and desire reached a crescendo —F. Scott Fitzgerald, "The Rich Boy," 1926 • The infrequent lamps mounted to crescendo beneath the arcade of a filling-station at the corner —William Faulkner, Sanctuary, 1931 • ... until it reaches a crescendo of romantic opulence in the emotional climaxes —Mark Schorer, in Forms of Modern Fiction, ed. William Van O'Connor, 1948 • ... the bombardment rose to a deafening crescendo —N.Y. Times, 12 July 1953 • Last week the sound and fury of his performance reached a new crescendo —Time, 2 July 1956 The sense is not limited to the United States, however: • ... the crescendo where for an instant all the trumpets blare —Stuart Cloete, Against These Three, 1945 • ... it was built to order for the flies, and these rose to a crescendo of hungry activity —Farley Mowat, People of the Deer, 1952 • ... gales were well-nigh continuous. One reached its crescendo at one o'clock in the morning with a gust that had everyone wondering what would go —The Countryman, Autumn 1950 And it is still with us: • While no one yet imagines the protests reaching a Vietnam-like crescendo —Roger M. Williams, Saturday Rev., 30 Sept. 1978 • ... its episodes too neatly arranged to build to the quiet crescendo of the boy protagonist's weaning from his family —Tom Dowling, San Francisco Examiner, 19 Nov. 1985 The "peak, climax" sense of crescendo is still a minority use, and it shows no sign of driving the earlier senses from use. You can avoid it if you wish to, but it is clearly a fully established meaning. |
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