词组 | as per |
释义 | as per As per is a compound preposition whose origins are somewhat obscure. It appears to have originated sometime during the 19th century, probably in that area of life where business and law intersect: contracts, bills of exchange, and the like. We have very little actual 19th-century evidence, no one seems to have paid any attention to the phrase until the 1920s, when it turns up in a few glossaries in such phrases as as per advice and as per invoice. About the same time it also pops up in Whipple 1924 and Krapp 1927 as a term to be avoided. Such later commentators as have troubled to notice as per—Partridge 1942, Janis 1984, Freeman 1983, Guth 1985—belong to the avoidance school, but many apparently are not sufficiently troubled by it to give it space. In the May 1926 issue of American Speech, Maurice H. Weseen reported that as per was on its way out of use in business correspondence. The business letter, said Weseen, was no longer considered a formal legal document, and legalistic jargon was falling out of use in it. His crystal ball seems to have been somewhat clouded, since we find as per being used more than a half century later in about the same ways it was in 1926. If Weseen seems to have thought business letters were becoming less formal, Freeman 1983 thinks the opposite: he thinks as per inappropriate in formal style. Whether as per is too formal or not formal enough, it has caused little trouble in the legal world. It is defined in various law citations as meaning "in accordance with" or "in accordance with the terms of." It is not listed in David Mel-linkoffs The Language of the Law (1963) as a troublesome term. We find as per used in two ways. It is still in use in business correspondence and in straightforward but somewhat stiff prose similar to such correspondence: • The second flight singles out a rear element, as per training method —H. H. Arnold & Ira C. Eaker, Army Flyer, 5th ed., 1942 • The computer justifies and hyphenates the copy as per typographical specifications —John Markus, American Documentation, April 1966 • ... perform a few moves with this as per the sleight of hand section in this book —Ian Adair, Conjuring as a Craft, 1970 • Just pre-heat or pre-chill as per directions on the bottom —mail order catalog, Spring 1980 More curious, perhaps, is the use of as per in contexts quite unlike business letters or "how-to" prose. Some of these examples are using the business-letter style for fun. • Here we were arranged at table as per diagram — Henry Adams, letter, 17 May 1859 • I note, as per your esteemed letter, that you cannot beg —George Bernard Shaw, letter, 2 Apr. 1913 • When we say we do not like big girls, as per our letter of yesterday, we do not mean ... —H. L. Mencken, in The Intimate Notebooks of George Jean Nathan, 1932 • The opening scene is fantastic. The Devil calling in his coach as per family arrangement for the Marquis — Times Literary Supp., 8 Feb. 1936 • When challenged by the Committee for Nuclear Responsibility for not having properly inserted the negative points in the A.E.C. statement—as per President Nixon's shiny new Environmental Policy Act — New Yorker, 20 Nov. 1971 • As our class of Old Blues sang "For God, for Country and for Yale" and (as per tradition) waved our pocket handkerchiefs —Carll Tucker, Saturday Rev., 22 July 1978 Your decision to use as per or not would seem to be a matter of personal choice and taste; the tonal needs of a particular passage may make it useful at times even if you avoid it ordinarily. See also per. |
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