2021-04-05
ศัพท์ น่าสับสน ชุด – A – access & excess
แนะนำการใช้ ตามที่ส่วนใหญ่ใช้ แต่ละท้องถิ่น
ความหมาย อาจผันแปร ตาม ตำแหน่ง/หน้าที่ ในประโยค
Dictionary.com
ออกเสียง access = ‘AK-ses’
ออกเสียง excess -noun-verb = ‘ik-SES’
ออกเสียง excess -noun -adj. -verb = ‘EK-ses’
Abused, Confused, & Misused Words by Mary Embree
Excess = an extreme amount or degree:
an excess of food and drink;
= superabundance
= immoderate indulgence:
A hundred pairs of shoes is an excess.
Not to be confused with:
access = permission to use, speak with, or enter;
= a way to approach:
Access to the stage is through the back door.
Common Errors In English Usage Dictionary
Access
“Access” is one of many nouns
that’s been turned into a verb in recent years.
Conservatives object to phrases like “you can access your account online.”
Substitute“use,” “reach,” or “get access to” if you want to please them.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
accessvs. excess
Access is used as a noun referring to the ability to enter,
as in "access to the building,"
and as a verb meaning "to enter," ‘
as in "accessthe stage from the rear."
Excess functions as a noun or adjective
that typically has to do with
an amount that is more than usual ornecessary,
as in "an excess of salt" and "excess baggage."
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Usage Notes
'Access' and 'Excess'
This article provides access to an excess of information.
What to Know
Access can be used as a verb meaning
"to gain the ability to use something"
(as in "access the internet")
or as a noun meaning "a way to enter somewhere"
(as in "roof access")
or "a way of being able to use something"
(as in "internet access").
Excess is used to describe something that is “too much”
and can function as a noun ("an excess of sugar")
or adjective (“excess baggage").
Although they do not come from the same root,
their earliest usages are very similar.
The fact that access and excess resemble each other as words
is because of a family resemblance
they brought to Englishfrom Latin,
their shared language of origin.
They also came into English at the same time, in the 14th century,
a period when the French used by the ruling classes in England
was contributing new words to English vocabulary,
and the educated people of the time often also had a knowledge
of Latin that influenced the early uses of these words.
Meaning and Usage of 'Access'
This combination of influences
is evident in the oldest meaning of access in English,
a meaning that today is much more common in French:
“an attack or onset of illness or disease.”
This was one of the word’s meanings
taken fromthe Latin word accessus: “onset (of fever or illness).”
Our more common and more general meanings of access,
however, descend from the other meanings of accessus
derived fromthe ultimate Latin root, the verb accēdere,
meaning "to approach."
This gave the Latin noun the meanings
“approach,” “means of entry,” and “right of approach.”
Our modern word retains all of these meanings.
One can see the link between the word's earliest use,
meaning “beginning,”
or, figuratively, “opening,” and a literal opening
—something that gives access.
By Shakespeare’s time,
this was by far the most common use of the word,
in phrases like “denied access” or “free access.”
The use relating to connectivity to networks or the internet,
“freedom or ability to obtain or make use of something,”
dates to the late 1950s, as does the corresponding verb use,
which was initially regarded as computer jargon
but has become so common since the 1990s as to be unremarkable.
Its use now even goes beyond tech contexts:
accessthe internet
accessinformation
accessfunds
access memories
The use of access as a verb became established in many of our lifetimes, but it’s not criticized as so many recent usages are,
probably becauseof its utility and ubiquity,
as well as the word’s familiarity as a noun.
Sometimeslanguages make big changes that are hardly noticed.
Meaning and Usage of 'Excess'
Excess comes from the Latin noun excessus
meaning “departure” or “projection,”
and ultimately from excedere, the verb meaning “to exceed.”
“Exceeding” brings the idea of “too much,”
and to the neutral use of excess
(meaning “an amount more than needed”)
another meaningwas almost immediately added,
giving the worda moral component, or a connotation
that this was a bad thing.
This senseis what Samuel Johnson referred to as
“faulty superfluity” and Noah Webster called, more simply, “indulgence.”
As night follows day, what happened was a return of the excesses of the 1920s.
— Huffington Post, 31 March 2011
Excess is most often encountered as a noun or adjective,
but there is also a rare verb use of excess,
meaning “to eliminate the position of,”
a usage that is redolent of the impersonal bureaucratic business jargon
that people seem to love to hate.
It’s also found in legal contexts.
Unsurprisingly, it’s a very recent development,
first recordedaround 1970.
It should be notedthat
a preferred list for a particular title or position is a "moving target"
as names are added to it
to reflectthe reinstatement rights of individuals excessed
as the result of subsequent layoffs.
— New York Public Personnel Law, 28 March 2019
Overlap Between 'Access' and 'Excess'
The coincidenceof the resemblance of spelling and sound
of the words excess and access
sometimes leads to their confusion today.
But, if they seem to intersect in usage
—what would be called an error by most editors and teachers
—it turns out that, according to the Oxford English Dictionary,
these words have been confusedfrom the very beginning,
and at the very least a slight overlap in meaning
was presentat the origin of the use of these words in English in the late 1300s.
That original meaningof access, “attack” or “onset of a disease,”
was very nearly the same meaning as the oldest, now obsolete,
use of excess in phrases like “excess of mind” or “excess of soul,”
referring to a “trance” or the attackor onset
of an unusual or unnatural state of mind,
sometimes a kind of prayerful ecstasy.
Indeed, in the famous Middle English translation of the Bible
known as the “Wycliffe’s Bible,”
two different passagesseem to use the words interchangeably:
excess of my soule
axcess of soule
One could almost interpret these uses
using more modern distinctions:
an “access” orattack could come from an “excess”
of feelingsor emotions.
The fact is, in a period without universal literacy,
standard spellings, or (gasp) dictionaries,
words that resembled each otherwere often used interchangeably
by different writers, translators, editors, or printers.
To summarize their usage,
then: access can be used as a noun:
access to beaches
wheelchair access
internet access
Or as a verb:
access my email
While excess is commonly used either as a noun:
an excess of 10 gallons
excess of sugar
the worst excesses of greed
Or as an adjective:
excess baggage
Or, you might just say
that this article
provides access to an excess of information.
