首页
登录
职称英语
(1)WHY SHOULD anyone buy the latest volume in the ever-expanding Dictionary
(1)WHY SHOULD anyone buy the latest volume in the ever-expanding Dictionary
游客
2023-11-27
9
管理
问题
(1)WHY SHOULD anyone buy the latest volume in the ever-expanding Dictionary of National Biography? I do not mean that it is bad, as the reviewers will agree. But it will cost you 65 pounds. And have you got the rest of volumes? You need the basic 22 plus the largely decennial supplements to bring the total to 31. Of course, it will be answered, public and academic libraries will want the new volume. After all, it adds 1,068 lives of people who escaped the net of the original compilers. Yet in 10 years’ time a revised version of the whole caboodle, called the New Dictionary of National Biography, will be published. Its editor, Professor Colin Matthew, tells me that he will have room for about 50,000 lives, some 13,000 more than in the current DNB. This rather puts the 1,068 in Missing Persons in the shade.
(2)When Dr. Nicholls wrote to The Spectator in 1989 asking for names of people whom readers had looked up in the DNB and had been disappointed not to find, she says that she received some 100,000 suggestions.(Well, she had written to "other quality newspapers" too.)As soon as her committee had whittled the numbers down, the professional problems of an editor began. Contributors didn’t file copy on time; some who did sent too much: 50,000 words instead of 500 is a record, according to Dr. Nicholls.
(3)There remains the dinner-party game of who’s in, who’s out. That is a game that the reviewers have played and will continue to play. Criminals were my initial worry. After all, the original edition of the DNB boasted: Malefactors whose crimes excite a permanent interest have received hardly less attention than benefactors. Mr. John Gross clearly had similar anxieties, for he complains that, while the murderer Christie is in, Crippen is out. One might say in reply that the injustice of the hanging of Evans instead of Christie was a force in the repeal of capital punishment in Britain, as Ludovie Kennedy(the author of Christies entry in Missing Persons)notes. But then Crippen was reputed as the first murderer to be caught by telegraphy(he had tried to escape by ship to America).
(4)It is surprising to find Max Miller excluded when really not very memorable names get in. There has been a conscious effort to put in artists and architects from the Middle Ages. About their lives not much is always known.
(5)Of Hugo of Bury St Edmunds, a 12th-century illuminator whose dates of birth and death are not recorded, his biographer comments, "Whether or not Hugo was a wall-painter, the records of his activities as carver and manuscript painter attest to his versatility". Then there had to be more women, too(12 per cent, against the original DNB’s 3), such as Roy Strong’s subject, the Tudor painter Levina Teerlinc, of whom he remarks, "Her most characteristic feature is a head attached to a too small, spindly body. Her technique remained awkward, thin and often cursory". Doesn’t seem to qualify her as a memorable artist. Yet it may be better than the record of the original DNB, which included lives of people who never existed(such as Merlin)and even managed to give thanks to J. W. Clerke as a contributor, though, as a later edition admits in a shamefaced footnote, "except for the entry in the List of Contributors there is no trace of J. W. Clerke". [br] What is the role of the entries quoted in the last paragraph?
选项
答案
To emphasize the author’s argument.
解析
作者在最后一段引用了词典中的一些人物条目,并加以评述。其目的决不是赞美讴歌,而是强调说明自己的观点:DNB的编纂方法与内容存在问题,故答案可表述为To emphasize the author’s argument。
转载请注明原文地址:https://tihaiku.com/zcyy/3223513.html
相关试题推荐
ShouldYouLearnThai?HereareeightfeaturesaboutThailanguagetohelpstude
ShouldYouLearnThai?HereareeightfeaturesaboutThailanguagetohelpstude
ShouldYouLearnThai?HereareeightfeaturesaboutThailanguagetohelpstude
ShouldYouLearnThai?HereareeightfeaturesaboutThailanguagetohelpstude
ShouldYouLearnThai?HereareeightfeaturesaboutThailanguagetohelpstude
ShouldYouLearnThai?HereareeightfeaturesaboutThailanguagetohelpstude
ShouldYouLearnThai?HereareeightfeaturesaboutThailanguagetohelpstude
Doctorsbaffledbyanunexplainedrashonpeople’searsorcheeksshouldbe
Doctorsbaffledbyanunexplainedrashonpeople’searsorcheeksshouldbe
Doctorsbaffledbyanunexplainedrashonpeople’searsorcheeksshouldbe
随机试题
TheBirthofScientificEnglishA)Worldscienceisdominate
轻钢龙骨隔断施工,纸面石膏板接缝做法有()。A.平缝 B.凹缝 C.压条缝
患者,男,40岁,素体肥胖,近日双下肢突觉瘙痒,皮肤表面可见水疱,经检查诊断为多
荷兰画家霍贝玛代表作《林荫道》的空间表现方式是()。A.成角透视B.散点透视
引起婴儿缺铁性贫血的最主要原因是A.吸收障碍 B.消耗增加 C.需铁量增加
A.舌苔由白转黄 B.舌苔由厚转薄 C.舌苔由薄转厚 D.舌苔由燥变润
在我国,疫苗的研究、试验、审批和生产环节由药检系统监督,而接种和运输环节主要由
下列各项会计业务处理要求中,符合谨慎性原则的有()。A.不导致夸大资产 B.不
A.HSV-1 B.HSV-2 C.VZV D.CMV E.EBV感染可
女,28岁。劳累后心悸、气短6年,加重伴咳粉红色泡沫痰1周。查体:心界扩大,心律
最新回复
(
0
)