2021-04-03 ศัพท์ น่าสับสน ชุด – A – absolute & absolutely

Revision A

2021-04-03

ศัพท์ น่าสับสน ชุด – A – absolute & absolutely

แนะนำการใช้ ตามที่ส่วนใหญ่ใช้ แต่ละท้องถิ่น

ความหมาย อาจผันแปร ตาม ตำแหน่ง/หน้าที่ ในประโยค

Dictionary.com

ออกเสียง absolute = ‘AB-suh-loot’ or ‘ab-suh-LOOT’

ออกเสียง absolutely = ‘ab-suh-LOOT-lee’

interjection

(used emphatically to express complete agreement or unqualified assent):

Dictionary.com

SYNONYM STUDY FOR ABSOLUTE

Absolute, unqualified, utter

all mean unmodified.

Absolute implies an unquestionable finality:

an absolute coward.

Unqualified means without reservations or conditions:

an unqualified success.

Utter expresses totalityor entirety:

an utter failure.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language,

ab′so·lute′ness n.

Usage Note:

An absolute term denotes a property

that a thing either can or cannot have.

Such terms include

absolute itself, chief, complete, perfect, prime, unique,

and mathematical terms

such as equal and parallel.

By strict logic,

absolute terms cannot be compared, as by more and most,

or used with an intensive modifier,

such as very or so.

Something either is complete or it isn't—it cannot be more complete than something else.

Consequently,

sentences such as

He wanted to make his record collection more complete, and

You can improve the sketch by making the lines more perpendicular,

are often criticized as illogical.

Such criticism confuses pure logic or a mathematical ideal

with the rough approximations

that are frequently needed in ordinary language.

Certainly, in some contexts

we should use words strictly logically;

otherwise teaching mathematics would be impossible.

But we often think in terms of a scale or continuum

rather than in clearly marked either/or categories.

Thus, we may think of a statement

as either logically true or false,

but we also know that there are degrees of truthfulness and falsehood.

Similarly, there may be degrees of completeness to a record collection,

and some lines may be more perpendicular

• — that is,

they may more nearly approximate

mathematical perpendicularity than other lines.

See Usage Notes at equal, unique.

Dictionary of Problem Words in English

Absolute

This word means “complete,” “unlimited,” “unconditional.”

Logically, absolute admits neither comparison nor shading;

to refer toone’s “very absolute effort”

or “too absolute approval” is illogical.

However, if a qualifying word

such as nearly is used, this objection is removed:

“one’s very nearly absolute approval.”

Dictionary of Problem Words in English

absolutely

This word means “positively” or “definitely.”

All three wordsare overused to

mean “quite,” or “very,” or even “yes”:

“She was absolutely lovely; he was positivelygodlike;

it was definitely the wedding of the year; did you attend it?”

can be gushily answered, “absolutely!”

Suggestion:

omit the italicized words in the question

and supply the simple answer “Yes.”