| 词组 | criterion, criteria, criterions |
| 释义 | criterion, criteria, criterions Criterion is a learned word taken from the Greek in the 17th century; in those more learned times, the OED informs us, it was not uncommon for writers to spell the word in Greek letters. Things are different in these less learned times, as we shall see. Criterion has two plural forms, the classical criteria and the analogical English form criterions. The English criterions seems to have more approvers in usage books than actual users, if our citation file represents the matter fairly. It had a spate of popularity in the late 1940s and early 1950s, but is quite rare since then. It is still in occasional use, however: • ... insisted in his lecture that language levels should be distinguished by social criterions —Harold B. Allen, The Linguistic Institute in the Days of Bloom-field, 1983 But the usual plural is criteria, by an overwhelming margin. Criteria is in fact so common that it is met more often than the singular criterion. And it is undoubtedly this frequency of criteria that has led to its perception by many as a singular. We cannot be sure when use of criteria as a singular first began. It probably occurred in speech before writing and in casual writing before print, but we have no direct evidence. Our first singular example appeared—perhaps fittingly, some would say—in a pamphlet on education published by an agency of" the U.S. government: • In some cities the area to be covered, or number of schools rather than number of children, is the criteria considered in visiting teacher assignments — Katherine M. Cook, The Place of Visiting Teacher Services in the School Program, 1945 Our next example is from a publisher's advertising. It appears in a rather fancily printed flyer—with ligatured cts and sts: • Dr. Harbage is writing about a criteria for great literature of all times —advt. flyer, Macmillan Co., October 1947 Then we found it in philosophy: • ... Hsuntze proposes another criteria by which "we will not suffer from the misfortune of being misunderstood " —Jack Kaminsky, Philosophy & Phe-nomenological Research, September 1951 It is nearly 20 years from our earliest example of the singular criteria to the first mention of the singular in a usage book, Copperud 1964. Bernstein 1965, Follett 1966, and Watt 1967 followed closely. The lapse of time is not surprising, however, as our evidence for the singular is fairly rare until the mid 1960s. Since the remarks of the first commentators, there has been a crescendo of warnings against using criteria as a singular. We now have about 20 in our files. The increase in comment is not to be mistaken for a revival of classical letters—one commentator firmly (through three editions) believes criteria to be Latin. The singular criteria seems pretty well established in speech. The following examples were all taken from radio or television broadcasts: • ... to act independently and with complete liberty with only one criteria, the greatest good for the greatest number —Lyndon B. Johnson (in Harper 1985) • Let me now return to the third criteria —Richard M. Nixon, 20 Apr. 1970 • ... that really is the criteria because ... —Bert Lance, former Director of the Office of Management and Budget, 15 or 16 Sept. 1977 • ... predisposition is not the criteria —Wiiliam Webster, former Director of the FBI, 4 Mar. 1980 • The criteria was ... —Caspar Weinberger, former U.S. Secretary of Defense, 14 Apr. 1986 If this sort of spoken testimony were all we had, it would be easy to dismiss the singular criteria as one of those inadvertences to which the spoken language is always liable. But there is this sort of evidence in cold print: • I find it difficult, for instance, to believe that Daniel Aaron wrote, "His own esthetic criteria emerges ... ," and yet that is what I find in his introduction —Granville Hicks, Saturday Rev., 1 May 1966 • Professor Kira then examines the modern American bathroom from the standpoint of ergonomics or human engineering, whose criteria is that form follows function —TV. Y. Times, 9 May 1966 • ... the criteria for motivating a constituent is not well established —Bruce Fraser, "Some Remarks on the Verb-Particle Construction in English," in Monograph Series on Languages & Linguistics, ed. F. P. Dinneen, 1966 • The historically dominant criteria for adopting particular technological innovations was ... —Raymond Bauer, Center Mag., January/February 1972 • No criteria, however, exists for gauging the longevity of a "new word" —Donald B. Sands, College English, March 1976 • There is as yet no widely accepted test criteria for mopeds —Consumer Reports, June 1978 • Into this he includes a criteria which assures proper and decent working conditions —advt. flyer, Oxford University Press, April 1981 The number of examples above could easily be extended by examples from sources with more modest pretensions to an elevated style and from printed reported speech. Two commentators stand apart from the rest. Howard 1978 is more interested in how such singulars as criteria develop than in complaining about them: "... English grammar evolves with majestic disregard for the susceptibilities of classical scholars." Barnard 1979 believes that criterion is rare in ordinary usage and that criteria is the regular singular as well as plural. Our evidence, however, shows that criterion still has plenty of use as a singular. We have, incidentally, heard criterias used as the plural of criteria, but we have yet to see it in print. Some foreign plurals are so well established as singulars that no one notices them: stamina, agenda, candelabra, for instance. Criteria is certainly not in that class. Others have become established as singulars but are still disputed. Data, for instance, is a mass noun with either a singular or plural verb. But data is rarely, if ever, a count noun, and criteria is regularly a count noun, whether singular or plural. Media and strata are used as singular count nouns in certain specialized fields, but criteria seems to have no specialized haven. Criteria is at this point: it definitely exists as a singular count noun, and it is definitely criticized. Only time will tell whether it will reach the unquestioned acceptability of agenda. In the meantime you should be aware that the singular criteria is still a minority use and that its legitimacy is disputed. For other foreign plurals, see Latin plurals. |
| 随便看 |
英语用法大全包含2888条英语用法指南，基本涵盖了全部常用英文词汇及语法点的翻译及用法，是英语学习的有利工具。