美国英语当代用法词典.pdf

A DICTIONARYOF CONTEMPORARY by BERGEN EVANS and COR.NELIA EVANS R A N D O M H O U S E l N E W Y O R K Fourteenth Printing @Copyright, 1957, by Bergen Evans and Cornelia Evans All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions Published in New York by Random House, Inc., and simultaneously in Toronto, Canada by Random House of Canada Limited. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 57-5379 Manufactured in the United States of America P R E F A C E When we speak or write we want to be interested in “book learning.” They are not understood and respected. We want to con- used by educated people and hence are vey our meaning and we want to do it in a regarded as “incorrect” and serve as the way that will command admiration. To mark of a class. There is nothing wrong accomplish these ends we must know the about using them, but in a country such as meanings of words, their specific meanings ours where for a generation almost every- and their connotations, implications and body has had at least a high school educa- overtones, and we must know how to com- tion or its equivalent few people are willing bine words effectively into sentences. to use expressions that are not generally A dictionary can help us to understand approved as “correct.” the meaning of a word. But the only way A man usually thinks about his work in to understand a word fully is to see it in the language that his co-workers use. Turns use in as many contexts as possible. This of speech that may have been natural to a means that anyone who wants to improve statistician when he was a boy on a farm his vocabulary must read a great deal and simply do not come to his mind when he is must make sure that he understands what talking about statistics. Anybody whose he reads. There is no short cut to this kind work requires intellectual training-and of knowledge. If a man thinks that noisome this includes everybody whose work in- and noisy are synonyms, if he uses focus volves any amo