| 词组 | delusion, illusion |
| 释义 | delusion, illusion Although warnings not to confuse these two words have been issued since the late 1800s, delusion and illusion are often used in ways that apparently overlap in meaning. This is probably so because delusion refers to a misleading of the mind and illusion to a misleading of the mind as well as to a misleading of the senses. When illusion refers only to the senses, there is a neat differentiation, and many of the usage books— mostly the older ones—make haste to point it out. But real usage is (predictably) not so neat, as we shall see. Let's begin by setting aside technical use. Psychologists and other scientists interested in phenomena of the mind and senses we will assume to be consistent and unconfused. We will concern ourselves with nontechnical popular use, where the two words appear to have overlapping areas of operation in referring to a misleading of the mind. H. W. Fowler was the first to recognize and come to grips with this situation. His treatment (in both the 1926 and 1965 editions) is the longest and most detailed that has been done. But in spite of its length, it is more suggestive than explicit. We will work with two points implicit in his discussion. First, delusion is the stronger word; it denotes a longer lasting, more tenacious, and sometimes more harmful or dangerous notion. Second, even when the two words are denotatively quite similar, they tend to be used in constructions where they are not actually interchangeable. Sometimes the verb will dictate the selection of one word rather than the other, and sometimes another word or phrase in the context will do so. Some specifics follow the examples. In the first of the examples below, the writer uses both words; delusion appears to be the stronger one. In the rest of the examples, we show both words in various contexts. We think that you will seldom find the words interchangeable in these. • The illusion of continental self-sufficiency persists in an era when technology has utterly demolished it. That self-sufficiency may have been an approximation of the truth fifty years ago. But today it is a delusion endangering our very existence —Marquis Childs, Yale Rev., Spring 1947 • Hess, always a muddled man ... , flew on his own to Britain under the delusion that he could arrange a peace settlement —William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, 1960 • ... seems to be labouring under the delusion that the majority of fore-edge paintings now to be found ... are contemporary with the books they decorate — Times Literary Supp., 29 June 1967 • ... I am under no illusion that such a school can always overcome the strong divisive community attitudes —James B. Conant, Slums and Suburbs, 1961 • ... lived most of our lives with the comfortable illusion of our own enlightenment —Dan Wakefield, Los Angeles Times Book Rev., 25 Apr. 1971 • ... the easygoing world of higher education that I remember—no doubt, with a bit of good-old-days delusion —Tom Wicker, Change, September 1971 • I indulged, on this last trip, the illusion of visiting again the Paris and London of my youth —Edmund Wilson, A Piece of My Mind, 1956 • ... the National Park Service, which in recent years has suffered the delusion that it is a federation of highway departments —Jon Margolis, Esquire, March 1970 • I had the beautiful feeling and illusion that I was young and vital and renewed —E. V. Cunningham, Cosmopolitan, February 1973 • The fighting in Laos is destroying the Buck Rogers delusion behind the Nixon Doctrine —I. F. Stone's Bi-Weekly, 8 Mar. 1971 • ... the shattering of an illusion about a boy with whom she had a long affair —Caroline Seebohm, N.Y. Times Book Rev., 29 July 1979 • ... our short-run delusions about international economics may prove just as damaging —Frank Gibney, Harper's, January 1972 • All the governments of France since 1791 lived in the illusion that they had made themselves popular —Times Literary Supp., 19 Feb. 1971 • But it is sham or delusion or both to label either "urban growth policy" —Donald Canty, City, March-April 1972 • Du Bois was, indeed, nursing an illusion when he thought there could have been a joint Freedmen and Poor White revolution —Times Literary Supp., 4 Nov. 1965 • It is a snare and a delusion, says Herbert Hill — Trans-Action, October 1971 • ... a megalomaniac with unlimited ambitions, few scruples, and the wildest illusions about the capabilities of air power —John Fischer, Harper's, December 1971 • ... when sober he became depressed, and when well-oiled he had delusions of grandeur —James P. O'Donnell, Saturday Evening Post, 15 Jan. 1955 • The fact that Miss Hale comes of a family of painters and has published a number of novels must be said to have given her delusions of competence —John Russell, N.Y. Times Book Rev., 31 Aug. 1975 • ... had no illusions about the kind of people he was dealing with —Andrew M. Greeley, Change, April 1972 • The reporter who regularly goes to dinner with an Undersecretary of Defense ... comes to think of himself as a minister without portfolio. This is an illusion, but it is a seductive one —Lewis H. Lapham, Harper's, January 1972 Delusion and illusion can sometimes be interchanged (the quotations above from Wicker, Times Literary Supp., 4 Nov. 1965, and Fischer are perhaps examples), but in most cases they cannot. The reasons for this are that illusion is the more common word, that delusion tends more often than illusion to be used technically, and that each tends typically to be used in its own surroundings. This last characteristic is more marked with delusion, which tends to be coupled with snare and sham and to occur in such fixed phrases as labor under a delusion and delusions of grandeur. Delusion also tends more often to be used with verbs of negative import, like suffer, while illusion can be used with such verbs as indulge. An illusion can be comfortable or seductive or beautiful, and when it is gone, the illusion has been shattered; such words are seldom found with delusion. And we believe that when you have a context in which either word fits comfortably, you will probably choose illusion—more writers do. |
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