| 词组 | quote |
| 释义 | quote 1. The noun quote, short for quotation, was first recorded in 1888: • Stodgy 'quotes' from the ancients? —Pall Mall Gazette, 12 Dec. 1888 (OED) One of its chief early uses was in the world of publishing to denote a passage of favorable criticism quoted as advertisement for a book: • ... three sentences that might have been framed specially to give the publisher an easy 'quote' —Century Mag., February 1919 Its occurrence in general contexts was fairly rare until the 1940s, when we found it being used in a number of popular newspapers and magazines and very often without the distancing quotation marks of earlier years: • Miss Ross works with quotes from letters and diaries —Ernestine Evans, N.Y. Herald Tribune Book Rev., 15 Oct. 1944 • With a quote from the Troy Times —Ben Lucien Burman, Saturday Rev., 28 Dec. 1946 • ... a distorted quote from a speech before the Congress of American-Soviet Friendship —Atlantic, August 1948 • ... riddles his opposition with a salvo of quotes — Richard E. Lauterbach, New Republic, 11 Apr. 1949 • ... some witty quotes picked from their own works —Time, 18 Apr. 1949 Its use since the 1940s has continued to be common and, for the most part, unremarkable. It occurs most often in writing that has a casual tone or, at least, is not highly formal: • It was mighty thoughtful of you to send me that quote from dear old Sam Adams's letter —James Thurber, letter, 3 Dec. 1958 • ... he said something to the effect that sex should be used sparingly, and refused to give Harcourt, Brace a quote for an ad —John O'Hara, letter, 9 Dec. 1961 • To put quotes in the mouths of living people —Seymour Krim, Evergreen, August 1967 • It started with quotes taken out of context —Suzette Haden Elgin, English Jour., November 1976 • ... is obvious even before the quotes are collected —David Harris, N.Y. Times Mag., 9 Mar. 1980 • Only after the sweat has dried comes the quote — Wilfrid Sheed, Harper's, February 1984 This sense of quote has met with strong disapproval in some quarters. Such commentators as Bernstein 1965, Follett 1966, Shaw 1975, and Trimmer & McCrimmon 1988 have disparaged its use in writing, and the Heritage 1969, 1982 usage panel rejected it by a large majority. Some other critics, however, have taken a more tolerant view. Harper 1985, for example, accepts its use in writing that has "a conversational tone"; Bremner 1980 calls it "standard in the publishing business"; and The Right Handbook 1986 suggests that "probably only purists" insist on distinguishing between quote and quotation. The noun quote is now widely used in standard if mostly casual writing, as the above quotations show, but there are still times when it seems more appropriate to choose quotation instead (as we have in writing this sentence). We recommend that you let your own judgment of the writing situation and your sense of idiom be your guide. 2. The noun quote is also used to mean "quotation mark," and it has also been criticized in this sense. Like the "quotation" sense, this "mark" sense is about 100 years old: • The portion of this quotation which we have put within quotes —Scottish Leader, 2 Apr. 1891 (OED) Its use in American English is well established: • ... quotes within quotes are often confusing, and unhinge the minds of thousands of poor copy-readers every year —H. L. Mencken, The American Language, Supplement II, 1948 The written contexts in which it appears are similar in tone to those in which the "quotation" sense of quote appears. Those critics who dislike the "quotation" sense tend naturally to dislike the "quotation mark" sense as well. Again, we recommend that you rely on your own judgment. |
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