2020-08-30
170408-1 คำชวนสับสน ในการใช้ ชุด C – Complex & complicated
การใช้ภาษาอังกฤษ ที่ถือว่า ถูกต้อง ในที่นี้ เป็นไป ตามมาตรฐาน ของภาษา
ภาษาอังกฤษ ไม่กำหนดมาตฐาน ถือตามส่วนใหญ่ ที่ใช้แต่ละท้องถิ่น
ความหมาย อาจยืดหยุ่น ขึ้นอยู่กับ ตำแหน่ง/หน้าที่ ในประโยค
Dictionary.com
ออกเสียง “complex” =
คุณศัพท์ และกริยา เน้นได้ทั้ง พยางค์ สอง หรือ แรก
ว่า “kuh m-PLEKS” หรือ “KOM-pleks”
เมื่อเป็น นาม = “KOM-pleks”
Dictionary.com
ออกเสียง คุณศัพท์ “complicate” = “KOM-pli-kit”
กริยา = “KOM-pli-keyt”
A2Z of Correct English Common Error in English
อธิบายว่า ทั้ง “complex” และ “complicated”
ต่างหมายถึง “made up of many different ‘intricate’ and ‘confusing’ aspects.”
หากแต่ ควรใช้ “complex” เมื่อให้หมายถึง “intricate”
และใช้ “complicated” เมื่อให้หมายถึง “difficult to understand.’
Collins Thesaurus of the English Language
อธิบายว่า ถึงแม้ ความหมาย “complex” และ “complicated” จะใกล้เคียงกัน
หากแต่ ในการใช้ ต้องระวัง มิให้แทนกัน เป็นคำพ้องความหมาย
ควรใช้ “complex” เพื่อกล่าวว่า “บางสิ่ง ‘ที่ประกอบด้วยหลายส่วน’”
แทน “complicated” ที่หมายถึง “บางสิ่ง ‘ที่เข้าใจ/วิเคราะห์/หรือจัดการ’ ได้ยาก”
ประโยคที่แสดง ความแตกต่าง ของทั้งสองคำ ได้ชัดเจน เช่น
‘the British benefits system is phenomenally complex and is administered by a complicated range of agencies.
COLLINS ENGLISH DICTIONARY
USAGE FOR COMPLEX
Complex is sometimes wrongly used where complicated is meant.
Complex is properly used to say only that something consists of several parts.
It should not be used to say that, because something consists of many parts, it is difficult to understand or analyse.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Choose the Right Synonym for complex
Adjective
COMPLEX, COMPLICATED, INTRICATE, INVOLVED, KNOTTY
mean having confusingly interrelated parts.
COMPLEX suggests the unavoidable result of a necessary combining and does not imply a fault or failure. a complex recipe
COMPLICATED applies to what offers great difficulty in understanding, solving, or explaining. complicated legal procedures
INTRICATE suggests such interlacing of parts as to make it nearly impossible to follow or grasp them separately. an intricate web of deceit
INVOLVED implies extreme complication and often disorder. a rambling, involved explanation
KNOTTY suggests complication and entanglement that make solution or understanding improbable. knotty ethical questions
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
The Complex Origins of Complex
The word complex lives up to its name,
as it contains multiple parts of speech and senses.
It serves as an adjective, a noun, and, less commonly, as a verb.
The verb use is the oldest of the three,
with an original meaning of “to join or unite.”
Complex comes from the Latin complecti,
which means “to entwine around, to embrace,”
a word that is based in part on plectere (“to braid”).
English has a number of other words that can be traced to plectere, including perplex, plexus
(“an intricately interwoven combination of elements or parts in a cohering structure”),
and amplexus (“the mating embrace of some amphibians, such as frogs and toads”).
Dictionary of Unfamiliar Words by Diagram Group
complex
An idea which is partly or wholly repressed,
but which determines your opinion of yourself, may produce a complex.
A woman may not consciously recall being teased as a child for being fat, for instance, but the idea may remain in her unconscious and as a result she may develop a complex about her appearance, whatever her adult build.
Dictionary of Collective Nouns and Group Terms
Complex
an object or framework made up from parts; a group of buildings forming part of related whole.
Examples: complex of doctrine, 1862; of fluid atoms, 1652; of planets, 1672; of psychoanalysts—Lipton, 1970
Collins English Dictionary
อธิบาย การใช้ “complex” ที่บางครั้ง
ใช้ผิด ในความหมายของ “complicated”
การใช้ “complex” ที่ เหมาะสม ได้เพียงกับ
“บางสิ่งที่ประกอบด้วยหลายส่วน”
โดย ไม่ควรใช้ให้หมายถึง
“เพราะบางสิ่ง ประกอบด้วยหลายส่วน ‘จึงยากจะเข้าใจหรือวิเคราะห์ได้’”
ตัวอย่างประโยค ใช้กับ “complex” และ “complicated”
‘The complex structure of the human brain.ง
‘A complex road system.’
‘An industrial complex.’ (= สถานที่ที่มีโรงงานมากมาย)
‘This is just one of a whole complex of issues.’
‘The complex of shopping malls, houses, and roads created a new town.’
‘Don’t mention her weight – she has a complex about it.’
‘There’s no point having a complex about losing your hair.’
‘The issue is complicated by the fact that a vital document is missing.’
‘The story is extremely complicated.’
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Word History
Both 'complicit' and 'complicate' share a root in the Latin 'complicare.'
A Brief History of 'Complicit'
It literally means 'folded together'
Languages depend upon patterns,
both for forming words and for connecting them in ways that can be understood.
We tend to notice unusual words like thrice,
which is less frequently heard than twice,
and “made-up” terms that we understand
because they follow patterns a bit too far, like throuple
(based on couple) or eleventy-first.
Other words are transparently modeled on existing ones,
like workaholic.
Following patterns is one of the ways that words are created,
and in some cases we are more likely to recognize the pattern than the word itself:
burgle (from burglar)
buttle (from butler)
locomote (from locomotion)
quantitate (from quantitative
Even if we’ve never encountered any of these verbs,
the familiar forms make them easy to figure out.
Such words were formed by a process known as back-formation,
by which a part of a longer word is removed to form a shorter word.
Words created by back-formation often follow tried-and-true patterns,
and many are unremarkable and transparent in meaning,
even if they are rarely used (such as rabble rouse or flappable.
Others stand on their own and become frequently used words
(unlike the oddballs cited above), like escalate or enthuse. Or complicit.
complicit is a relatively recent addition to English vocabulary,
arriving in the mid-1800s.
It is a back-formation from complicity,
which came straight from the French word complicité in the 1600s.
The oldest English word in this family is the now-obsolete complice (pronounced \KAHM-plus\)
—defined as “an associate or accomplice especially in crime”
—which dates back to the 1400s, when it came from French
(the modern word in French for “accomplice” is still complice,
pronounced \kohn-pleess\).
These words ultimately derive from the Latin verb meaning
“to fold together,”
complicare, formed by combining com- (meaning “with,” “together,” or “jointly”)
and the verb plicare, meaning “to fold.”
Complicit literally means “folded together.”
Of course, “folded together” may be the literal meaning of this Latin root, but it has become the figurative meaning in the English word complicit:
its definition “helping to commit a crime or do wrong in some way”
is a description of individuals thick as thieves,
with their motives and actions “folded together” metaphorically.
Complicity and its cousins accomplice, complicitous,
and complice are all part of this gang.
Complicare is also the root word of another English word,
one that expresses its etymological meaning more literally than figuratively: complicate.
In this case, the idea of things “folded together”
makes sense as an image of twists and turns of fabric.
The -pli- of these words is from plicare (“to fold”),
and is also the root of ply,
the verb meaning “to twist together”
or the noun meaning “one of several layers.”
Other words that derive from plicare are also illuminated by their etymologies:
explicit is “unfolded” and implicit is “folded in.”
When different building blocks of words like com-, ex-, and im-
combine their respective meanings with a single root,
each resulting word expresses a slightly different facet of the literal and figurative potential of language.
Whether we're adding or removing parts of words,
when meanings are folded together, things can get, you know, complicated.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Complicit and Its Accomplices
Complicit is a relatively recent addition to English vocabulary,
arriving in the mid-1800s.
It is a back-formation from complicity “
association or participation in a wrongful act,”
which came straight from a French word of the same meaning,
complicité, in the 1600s.
The oldest English word in this family is the now-bsolete complice
(pronounced /COMP-liss/)
—defined as “an associate or accomplice especially in crime”
—which dates back to the 1400s, when it came from French.
These words ultimately derive from the Latin verb meaning
“to fold together,”
complicare, formed by combining com-
(meaning “with,” “together,” or “jointly”)
and the verb plicare, meaning “to fold.”
This literal meaning evolved into a figurative one:
the definition of complicit, “helping to commit a crime or do wrong,”
describes individuals who are “folded together” metaphorically.
Complicity and the its cousins accomplice, complicitous, and complice are all part of this gang.
Complicare, in a second of its Latin senses, “to twist together,”
is the root of another English word,
complicate, which originally meant “to unite intimately by intertwining.”
In this case, the idea of things “twisted together” makes sense as an image of something composed of many elements, that is, something complicated.
The -pli- of these words is from plicare (“to fold”),
which is also the root of ply,
the verb meaning “to twist together” or the noun meaning “one of several layers.”
Other words that derive from plicare are also illuminated by their etymologies:
explicit “revealed without ambiguity” ultimately comes from Latin explicare, meaning “to unfold,”
while implicit, meaning “implied,” descends from a Latin verb whose roots literally mean “to fold in.”
