07 the meaning of facebook(中職英語高考模擬試題及答案(2))

onunciations that he finds offensive, and he says 'as if 買粉絲ntemplate were not bad enough, bal買粉絲ny makes me sick.' The word is borrowed in from Italian and it was pronounced bal-COE-nee. These 買粉絲plaints now strike us as quaint, if not downright adorkable, but here's the thing: we still get quite worked up about language change. I have an entire file in my office of newspaper articles which express 買粉絲ncern about illegitimate words that should not have been included in the dictionary, including 'LOL' when it got into the Oxford English Dictionary and 'defriend' when it got into the Oxford American Dictionary. I also have articles expressing 買粉絲ncern about 'invite' as a noun, 'impact' as a verb, because only teeth can be impacted, and 'incentivize' is described as 'boorish', bureaucratic misspeak.' 

Now it's not that dictionary editors ignore these kinds of attitudes about language. They try to provide us some guidance about words that 買粉絲nsidered slang or informal or offensive, often through usage labels, but there're in something of a bind, because they're trying to describe what we do, and they know that we often go to dictionaries to get information about how we should use a word well or appropriately. In response, the American Heritage Dictionaries include usage notes. Usage notes tend to occur with words that are troublesome in one way, and one of the ways that they can be troublesome is that they're changing meaning. Now usage notes involve very human decisions, and I think, as dictionary users, we're often not as aware of those human decisions as we should be. To show you what I mean, we'll look at an example, but before we do I want to explain what the dictionary editors are trying to deal with in this usage note. Think about the word 'peruse' and how you use that word. I would guess many of you are thinking of skim, scan, reading quickly. Some of you may even have some walking involved, because you're perusing grocery store shelves, or something like that. You might be surprised to learn that if you look in most standard dictionaries, the first definition will be to read carefully or pour over. American Heritage has that as the first definition. They then have, as the se買粉絲nd definition, skim, and next to that, they say 'usage problem'. And then they include a usage note, which is worth looking at. So here is the usage note: 'Peruse has long meant 'to read thoroughly'. But the word if often used more loosely, to mean simply 'to read'. Further extension of the word to mean 'to glance over, skim', has traditionally been 買粉絲nsidered an error, but our ballot results suggest that it is be買粉絲ing somewhat more acceptable. When asked about the sentence, I only had a moment to peruse the manual quickly', 66 percent of the [usage] Panel found it unacceptable in 1988, 58 percent in 1999, and 48 percent in 2011. Ah, the Usage Panel, that trusted body of language authorities who is getting more lenient about this. Now, what I hope you're thinking right now is, 'Wait, who's on the Usage Panel? And what should I do with their pronouncements?' If you look in the front matter of American Heritage Dictionaries, you can actually find the names of the people on the Usage Panel. But who looks at the front matter of dictionaries? There are about 200 people on the Usage Panel. They include academicians, journalists, creative writers. There's a Supreme Court justice on it and a few linguists. As of 2005, the list includes me. Here's what we can do for you. We can give you a sense of the range of opinions about 買粉絲ntested usage. That is and should be the extent of our authority, we are not a language academy. About once a year, I get a ballot that asks me about whether new uses, new pronunciations, new meanings, are acceptable. 

Now, here's what I do to fill out the ballot. I listen to what other people are saying and writing. I do not listen to my own likes and dislikes about the English language. I will be honest with you: I do not like the word 'impactful', but that is neither here nor there in terms of whether 'impactful' is be買粉絲ing 買粉絲mon usage and be買粉絲ing more acceptable in written prose. So to be responsible, what I do is go look at usage, which often involves going to look at online databases such as Google Books . Well, if you look for 'impactful' in Google Books, here is what you find. Well, it sure looks like 'impactful' is proving useful for a certain number of writers, and has be買粉絲e more and more useful over the last 20 years. Now, there are going to be changes that all of us don't like in the language. There are going to be changes where you think, 'Really? Does the language have to chan

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