| 词组 | plethora |
| 释义 | plethora 1. Sometimes the remarks of a usage commentator will alert the lexicographer to the development of a new sense of a word, and sometimes they can remind the lexicographer that dictionary treatment has not been quite as perspicuous as it should have been. The complaint of Bryson 1984 that a plethora "is not merely a lot, it is an excessive amount" seems to indicate the latter problem. Lexicographers have tended to elect a lumping treatment of the common uses of the word (it has technical senses too), and "excessive amount" is the primary organizing notion. Reader's Digest 1983, however, descries two closely related but slightly different senses—"abundant supply" and "overabundant supply"—which more accurately describe 20th-century usage. Perhaps we could combine the two in a definition something like "a large and often undesirable or hampering supply." We can shed a bit more light on this matter by showing some examples of how the word has been used in the 20th century (it seems not to have been much used in nontechnical contexts earlier). First, here are some examples of the undesirable or hampering plethora: • Organization chokes now and then on the plethora of detail —Wallace Stegner, N. Y. Times Book Rev., 24 Feb. 1985 • ... a tendency to overdress his materials with a plethora of ornaments —Igor Kipnis, Stereo Rev., October 1971 • ... one needs the patience of Job and the leisure of Sardanapalus to plough through the plethora of references —Dwight Macdonald, New Yorker, 29 Nov. 1952 These all connote excess. We could perhaps call this "the reviewer's plethora." In the next two examples we see the undesirable or hampering plethora without any clear connotation of excess: • ... the term began with a plethora of irritating duties —Harold J. Laski, letter, 29 Sept. 1917 • Early meetings experienced, as most early ones do, a dearth of good horses and a plethora of complaints —Red Smith, Saturday Evening Post, 29 June 1957 And we can sometimes find the notion of excess without a strong suggestion of undesirability or hampering: • Callow, inexperienced, and unripe despite his plethora of wives —Irving Howe, Harper's, October 1970 Then we have the plain "abundance, profusion" sense of plethora in which there are connotations neither of excess nor of undesirability: • ... Leonardo, with his plethora of talents —Atlantic, February 1939 • ... the dressing case on the rack above her head. It was a beautiful one, but abominably heavy. It had been given her in the days of lady's maids and a plethora of porters —Elizabeth Goudge, Pilgrim's Inn, 1948 • With a plethora of "colyumnists," as they were called in that period, the World printed two facing pages of editorials, commentary, and interpretive articles —Hillier Krieghbaum, Saturday Rev., 13 Nov. 1971 • The ads for the six gadgets promise a plethora of benefits —Consumer Reports, November 1978 • ... he also dangles the names of a plethora of other suspected traitors —Edward Jay Epstein, N.Y. Times Book Rev., 18 May 1980 • Daily the world enters our homes through the newspapers, magazines, television, and a plethora of new books, to feed the natural curiosity of the young — Milton S. Eisenhower, Johns Hopkins Mag., February 1966 This use is first attested in our files from the celebrated eleventh edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica: • The decade between 1870 and 1880 may be termed the first Golden Age of yachting. Of races there was a plethora; indeed no fewer than 400 matches took place in 1876, as against 63 matches in 1856 — Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1 Ith ed., vol. 28, 1911 Plethora, then, may connote an undesirable excess, an undesirably large supply but not an excess, an excess that is not necessarily or not greatly undesirable, and simply an abundant supply. All of these uses are well attested and standard. 2. Plethora is a singular noun with a plural plethoras that is seen only once in a while. It often occurs in the phrase a plethora of followed by a plural noun. When this unit governs the verb of a sentence, notional agreement holds sway. Writers who view the plethora as a lump use a singular verb; those who view it as a collection of discrete items use a plural verb: • ... the plethora of retellings which descends on the market —Times Literary Supp., 22 Oct. 1971 • ... a plethora of spurious Rodin drawings were glutting the market —Katharine Kuh, Saturday Rev., 25 Dec. 1971 |
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