| 词组 | rack, wrack |
| 释义 | rack, wrack The prescriptions of the critics are usually stated along the following lines: the verb rack, which is related to the noun designating an instrument of torture, properly means "strain" or "torment" and is the correct choice in nerve-racking, rack one's brains, and similar expressions; the verb wrack and noun wrack, on the other hand, are etymologically related to wreck and should therefore be used when wreckage or destruction is being described, as in storm-wracked and wrack and ruin. The facts of actual usage are somewhat different. Wrack is commonly used as a verb synonymous with the figurative senses of rack: • Perpetual longing perpetually denied was too wracking —Amy Lowell, John Keats, 1925 • ... if a society is wracked with internal conflicts — Kenneth E. Boulding, Center Mag., May/June 1971 • ... a world wracked by change —Harrison E. Salisbury, N. Y. Times Book Rev., 6 Nov. 1966 • ... wracking his brain for the next day's copy —William Irvin, Saturday Rev., 24 Dec. 1955 Nerve-wracking is an established variant of nerve-racking: • ... a business more nerve-wracking and exhausting than reading a newspaper —H. L. Mencken, Prejudices: Second Series, 1920 • ... nerve-wracking period —John Gunther, Inside Europe, rev. ed., 1937 • ... less nerve-wracking —Richard J. Barnet, N. Y. Times Book Rev., 17 Oct. 1976 • ... this nerve-wracking chapter in so many American lives —Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., Saturday Rev., 6 Jan. 1979 The noun rack is sometimes used as a synonym of wrack, especially in the phrase rack and ruin: • ... the Bank was going to rack and ruin without him —Rudyard Kipling, Plain Tales from the Hills, 1888 • ... let the business go to rack and ruin —Punch, 15 June 1966 Wrack (verb) meaning rack was first recorded in 1553, rack (noun) meaning wrack was first recorded in 1599. The tendency among modern commentators is to regard rack and ruin as acceptable, but to persist in regarding such usage as "he wracked his brain" as incorrect. Why one should be acceptable and the other unacceptable is not easily discerned. Probably the most sensible attitude would be to ignore the etymologies of rack and wrack (which, of course, is exactly what most people do) and regard them simply as spelling variants of one word. If you choose to toe the line drawn by the commentators, however, you will want to write nerve-racking, rack one's brains, storm-wracked, and for good measure wrack and ruin. Then you will have nothing to worry about being criticized for—except, of course, for using too many clichés. |
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