2020-12-05
ศัพท์ น่าสับสน ชุด P – prescribe & proscribe
แนะนำการใช้ ตามที่ส่วนใหญ่ใช้ แต่ละท้องถิ่น
ความหมาย อาจผันแปร ตาม ตำแหน่ง/หน้าที่ ในประโยค
Dictionary.com
ออกเสียง prescribe = pri-SKRAHYB’
ออกเสียง proscribe = ‘proh-SKRAHYB’
Abused, Confused, & Misused Words by Mary Embree
Prescribe = appoint;
to order a medicine: prescribe a painkiller
Not to be confused with:
proscribe – prohibit, censure, repudiate;
to banish: proscribe drinking in a public park
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Proscribe vs. Prescribe
Proscribe and prescribe each have a Latin-derived prefix
that means "before" attached tothe verb "scribe"
(from scribere, meaning "to write").
Yet the two words have very distinct, often nearly opposite meanings. Why?
In a way, you could say it's the law.
In the 15th and 16th centuries both words had legal implications.
To proscribe was to publish the name of a person who had been condemned, outlawed, or banished.
To prescribe meant "to lay down a rule," including legal rules or orders.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
prescribe & proscribe
Usage Notes
On 'Prescribe' and 'Proscribe'
Just what the doctor ordered (or forbadeyou from doing).
What to Know
Prescribe means to instruct or dictate a rule for others to follow.
A doctor prescribes medicine for treatment.
Proscribe, although it sounds similar, is the opposite and means to forbid something.
The Meaning of 'Prescribe'
To prescribe means to lay down or dictate a rule or instruction for others to follow.
To take a common example, a doctor prescribes a medicine as a remedy for an ailment.
But there are other uses:
Now, as the assistant fire management officer - or "burn boss"
- for the Karuk Tribe in Northern California, Rubalcaba's job is to ignite and control prescribed burns. The forest management technique guides the destruction of vegetation that could fuel future wildfires.
— Anton L. Delgado and Dustin Patar, ABCNews.com, 14 Aug. 2019
Both the Spokane Regional Health District Board of Health bylaws and state law prescribe how a health officer can be removed or approved.
The SRHD Board bylaw states “the board of health shall approve the appointment and termination of a District Health Officer.”… State law also prescribes protocols for removing a health officer, including a hearing about the reasons for that person’s removal.
— Arielle Dreher, The Spokesman-Review (Spokane, Wash.), 2 Nov. 2020
Prescribe comes from the Latin praescribere, meaning "to write at the beginning, dictate, order." It attaches the prefix prae- ("before") to scribere, meaning "to write."
The Meaning of 'Proscribe'
Another verb in English,
proscribe,also derives from a Latin prefix meaning "before" (pro-) and scribere.
But proscribe has a meaning essentially the opposite of that of prescribe.
To proscribe something means to forbid it as harmful or unlawful.
Here is the potter David Drake, who, at a time when literacy was proscribed for enslaved people, inscribed his work with rhyming couplets about family separation in slavery (“I wonder where is all my relations / Friendship to all — and every nation”).
— Parul Seghal, The New York Times, 10 Nov. 2020
The UK Parliament is set to pass new rules classifying Hezbollah as a terrorist group. Parts of the Lebanese organisation have been proscribed since 2001, with its military wing banned since 2008.
— BBC.com, 25 Feb. 2019
In the 15th century, proscribe had a more specific legal application,
referring to the action of publishing the name of a person
who had been condemned, outlawed, or banished.
Hence its derivation from the Latin word for "to write" that it shared with prescribe.
Prescribe is generally the more common of the two words,
and anyone who uses the formal verb proscribe in their regular discourse
is usually keen to the distinction.
Keeping them separate, therefore, is often more difficult for the reader or listener (especially since they sound alike when spoken quickly).
Context will usually tell you if an action
is being ordered (prescribed) or prohibited (proscribed).
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Usage Notes
A Word on 'Descriptive' and 'Prescriptive' Defining
When it comes to words, we're the descriptive sort.
What to Know
Merriam-Webster is a descriptive dictionary in that
it aims to describe and indicate how words
are actually used by English speakers and writers.
Generally, the descriptive approach to lexicography
does not dictate how words should be used or set forth rules of "correctness,"
unlike the prescriptive approach.
Readers of our online content might occasionally encounter
the juxtaposition of two basic schools of thought in lexicography:
descriptivism and prescriptivism.
At Merriam-Webster, we embrace the descriptive approach
—that is, we write definitions that describe or, if you will,
reflect how words are actually usedby writers and speakers of the English language.
Prescriptivism, on the other hand, is an approachthat attempts to prescribe
(some might say recommend or even dictate) how words ought to be used.
A purely prescriptive dictionary would
disregard usage of the living language and
instead rely on ideas of"correctness" set forth in "rules"
that he prescriptivist imagines should be imposed upon the language.
In addition, all dictionaries may be classified as descriptive or prescriptive, and some seek to be both types.
A descriptive dictionary is one that attempts to describe how a word is used,
while a prescriptive dictionary is one that prescribes how a word should be used.
For example,
a descriptive dictionary might define desert asa place with little water,
such as the Sahara,
while a prescriptive dictionary might define it asa place that averages less than 10 inches of rain a year,
which would make the Arctic and Antarctic deserts,
because neither gets that much rain,
although both of them have a great deal of water,
which happens to be frozen.
There is more agreement among descriptive dictionaries than among prescriptive dictionaries…. — Martin Naparsteck, Honesty in the Use of Words, 2005
There are two main approaches to the study of usage: prescriptive and descriptive. Prescriptivism involves the laying down of rules by those claiming to have special knowledge of or feeling for a language. Prescriptive advice tends to be conservative, changes being regarded with suspicion if not disdain. Descriptivism involves the objective description of the way a language works as observed in actual examples of the language. Descriptive advice—almost an oxymoron—about the acceptability of a word or construction is based solely on usage. If a word or expression is not found in careful or formal speech or writing, good descriptive practice requires the reporting of this information. — Jesse Sheidlower, The Atlantic, December 1996
Dictionaries that record and catalogue the language
thus cannot ever be prescriptive;
they must always be entirely descriptive,
telling of the language as it is, not as it should be — Simon Winchester, The Meaning of Everything, 2003
How Descriptivism Works
The task of the descriptive lexicographer is to record the existence of words in the living language and to discover and define how they are used by searching through linguistic corpora
(corpora is the plural of corpus,a word for a searchable text database).
The corpora of a language provide the lexicographer with usage evidence of words, including that which may be considered incorrect or objectionable by some people, to mull over in their defining work.
In cases in which a particular word is largely disparaged
(for example, ain't and irregardless), the descriptive dictionary consultant is given guidance that informs them that usage of the word may be received unfavorably.
At the entry for irregardless, we provide a paragraph in which we note that the use of the word is still met with considerable objection, and we even go so far as to advise the reader to use regardless instead—which is about as close as we get to offering a usage prescription in our dictionaries.
As language descriptivists,
we aim to provide unbiased and accurate reports on the ways words are used today
and how they were used in the past.
We are chroniclers of the English language, not prescriptivists,
and we are happy to share our findings with you.
Common Errors In English Usage Dictionary
Prescribe
You recommend something when you prescribeit,
but you forbid it when you proscribe it.
The usually positive function of “pro-” confuses many people.
Dictionary of Problem Words and Expression
Prescribe & proscribe
Prescribe means “to direct,” “to order.”
Proscribe means “to banish” “to outlaw.”
“What did the nurse prescribe for your cough?”
“Playing the radio after midnight is proscribed.
