| 词组 | assist |
| 释义 | assist 1. A Japanese correspondent wrote us a few years ago asking about the verb complements that go with the transitive verb assist and a direct object. He was puzzled because the reference works in which he had looked up these constructions differed as to the propriety of assist followed by the object and to and the infinitive, or the infinitive without to. Evans 1957, for instance, says that the infinitive forms are not standard; other sources our correspondent quoted found them standard, and one declared the construction formal. On investigating the subject, we found that it has not been especially well documented. Here, therefore, are examples—several supplied by our correspondent—of the chief verb complements that occur with assist. The most commonly met construction is assist + object + in + gerund: • The main effort, however, is to assist these young people in obtaining employment —James B. Conant, Slums and Suburbs, 1961 • ... call upon our allies ... to assist this country in formulating a program of land reform —Representative Morris K. Udall, in A Center Occasional Paper, June 1968 • These same techniques assisted him in evaluating the molecular structure —Current Biography 1949 • Children are assisted in making notes —American Guide Series: Minnesota, 1938 Standard but somewhat less common is assist + object + to + infinitive: • Mr. A. is assisting his wife to show a book of photographic portraits —Punch (in Poutsma 1904-26) • And a spanking will probably assist you to bear that in mind —Clarence Day, Life With Mother, 1937 (from correspondent) • ... assisted slum schools... to demonstrate that... —M. A. Farber, N.Y. Times, 9 Jan. 1969 • ... it may assist some tourists to set out with a better appreciation —N. Y. Times, 9 May 1952 Still less frequent is assist + object + infinitive (without to): • ... an information service to assist British publishers and audio-visual manufacturers make contact with appropriate Japanese bodies, both trade and professional —Catalog, Tokyo English Language Book Fair, 1980 (from correspondent) • ... we have with the benefit of informed advice tried to assist the developing world gain a better understanding of its language problems —Melvin J. Fox & Betty P. Skolnick, Ford Foundation Report, 1975 Sometimes assist occurs without a noun or pronoun object but with to and an infinitive complement: • ... it is also true that they assist to give the place its character —Alfred Buchanan (1907), in Wanderers in Australia, ed. Colin Roderick, 1949 • "... I assisted to carry him there." —Dorothy L. Sayers, Murder Must Advertise, 1933 • ... which suggested that imagination had often assisted to improve memory —Antony Flew, A New Approach to Psychical Research, 1953 2. When assist means "to be present," it regularly takes at: • The lady is one of the most intelligent and best-bred persons I have known in any country. We assisted at her conversazione, which was numerous —Tobias Smollett, Travels Through France and Italy, 1766 • The picture of a saint being slowly flayed alive ... will not produce the same physical sensations of sickening disgust that a modern man would feel if he could assist at the actual event —Roger Fry, Vision and Design, 1920 • She waited there, hesitant, not exactly on the watch, not exactly unwilling to assist at an interview between Amy and Amy's mistress —Arnold Bennett, The Old Wives' Tale, 1908 • ... compare the ugly, grinning peasant bystanders surrounding an Adoration or a Nativity in northern painting with the ideal figures assisting at Italian holy scenes —Mary McCarthy, Occasional Prose, 1985 It is not certain that every assist at means no more than "to be present at": • The Russian party moves through the streets at a clip that suggests they have been called to assist at a rather serious fire —Mollie Panter-Downes, New Yorker, 5 May 1956 • ... invited me to assist at the burning of a huge pile of manuscripts —Henry Miller, The Air-Conditioned Nightmare, 1945 • My conscience stirs as if, in my impulse to do violence to my enemy, I had assisted at his crime — Katherine Anne Porter, The Never-Ending Wrong, 1977 When assist clearly means "help," however, in and with are usual. In can be used before a noun or a gerund: • The teacher, college students, and seventh-grade students all assist in the project —Rexine A. Langen, The Instructor, March 1968 • ... was assisted in the preparation of a manual — Annual Report, National Bureau of Standards, 1950 • ... have assisted in making plans —Robert M. Hutchins, Center Mag., September 1969 • ... turned to stage design in 1948, when he assisted Salvador Dali with the extraordinary sets —Current Biography, December 1964 • The Captain and the cook was playing a duet on the mouth harp while your correspondent assisted with the vocals —Richard Bissell, Atlantic, December 1954 A few other prepositions—to, into, by ( + gerund)—are found occasionally: • ... the artist could assist all humanity to a similar flight —Thomas Munro, The Arts and Their Interrelations, 1949 • ... a fetish used to assist a childless woman to fertility —R. E. Kirk, Introduction to Zuni Fetishism, 1943 • ... 120 (24 per cent) were assisted into the world by instrumental and other operative methods —Ira S. Wile & Rose Davis, in Personality in Nature, Society, and Culture, ed. Clyde Kluckhohn & Henry A. Murray, 1948 • ... assisted the war effort by broadcasting messages —Current Biography 1947 Towards was formerly used: • He never ... heard a circumstance, which might assist towards her moral instruction that he did not haste to tell it her —Mrs. Elizabeth Inchbald, Nature and Art, 1796 3. Most of the quibbles about the propriety of this or that sense of assist have receded into the past. The propriety of assist at meaning "be present at" was an exciting issue in the 1920s—Fowler 1926, Krapp 1927, Lurie 1927 all discussed it—but no one seems to care any more. In the 1940s it was fashionable to call assist overworked and recommend help instead. Since help in the Brown Corpus (Kucera & Francis 1967) appears more than 14 times as often as assist, that recommendation need give you no pause. |
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