| 词组 | present incumbent |
| 释义 | present incumbent Usage books are prone to get themselves into difficulty when their editors fail to think carefully enough about what they say. Consider this: • Since incumbent means one who holds office at the present time, present incumbent is redundant —Harper 1975, 1985 If that is what incumbent means, we should be able to substitute the definition for the word in typical contexts without a great strain on idiom and without significant change of meaning. • President Grant promptly appointed Bristow the first incumbent —Dictionary of American Biography, 1929 Was Bristow "the first holder of office at the present time"? That is hardly likely since Grant's action occurred more than five decades before this passage was written in the 1920s. • ... Welles held that office longer than any previous incumbent —Dictionary of American Biography, 1936 Could Welles be the "previous holder of office at the present time"? That is clearly impossible. • In January 1841 he succeeded as locum and later as incumbent —Australian Dictionary of Biography, 1967 Can we say, in any conceivable sense, that he "succeeded ... later as holder of office at the present time"? An incumbent is, of course, only the holder of a benefice or an office; an incumbent can exist in the past, present, or future, just like a president, a press agent, or a usage writer. It is embarrassing to admit that a principal source of this problem resides in our own dictionaries; the present can be found in the definition in Webster 1909, and it was carried into Webster's Second unthinkingly. The definition was properly ridiculed in the Houston Press on 23 Feb. 1935. The Texas editorialist pointed out that other important dictionaries such as those of Oxford and Funk & Wagnalls had not fallen into the same error. An editor of Webster's Third fixed the mistake, but its influence may persist until usage commentators stop using Webster's Second. The combination present incumbent is, then, not redundant, since present was erroneous in the definitions of Webster 1909 and Webster's Second. The combination has been in respectable use for a long time: • ... and, though the present incumbent was somewhat of the Independent, yet he ordinarily preached sound doctrine —John Evelyn, Diary, ca. 1682 • We promise to place qualifications on all elective and appointive offices as to honor, integrity and mentality, thus automatically disqualifying ninety-eight percent of the present incumbents —The Intimate Notebooks of George Jean Nathan, 1932 • All that the present incumbent wants is an orderly transfer of authority —Harry S. Truman, diary, 15 Nov. 1952 • Dick Bartleton, the present incumbent, is almost as liberal —Wyndham Lewis, Rotting Hill, 1951 • ... the present incumbent admirably fills the role — Eric Solomon, New York, 15 Dec. 1975 |
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