2022-01-27 ศัพท์ น่าสับสน - Set – C - contact

Revision C

2022-01-27

ศัพท์ น่าสับสน - Set – C - contact

แนะนำการใช้ ตามที่ส่วนใหญ่ใช้ แต่ละท้องถิ่น 

ความหมาย อาจผันแปร ตาม ตำแหน่ง/หน้าที่ ในประโยค

 

Dictionary.com:

ออกเสียง contact = “KON-takt”

 

Dictionary.com:

USAGE NOTE FOR CONTACT

Many verbs in English have derived from nouns. 

One can head an organization or toe the mark; 

butter the bread or bread the cutlet. 

 

Hence, grammatically at least, 

there is no historical justification 

for the once frequently heard criticism 

of contact used as a verb meaning “to communicate with”: 

The managing editor contacted each reporter personally. 

 

Despite the earlier objections to it and probably largely 

because there is no other one-word verb in the language 

to express the same idea, 

this use of contact has become standard 

in all types of speech and writing. 

Contact as a noun meaning 

“a person through whom one can gain access to information and the like” is also standard: 

My contact at the embassy says that the coup has been successful.

 

Dictionary of Problem Words and Expressions:

contact

As a noun, contact denotes 

“a coming together” and also “a connection,” 

“a person who might be of use.” 

In both senses, its use is now considered reputable. 

As a verb meaning 

“to get in touch with,” 

contact is considered an informality or impropriety. 

One should avoid contactingsomeone else, 

and unfortunate recommendation 

since get in touch with says the same thing but says it wordily.

Other possibilities:

telephone, call, call upon, communicate with, write, speak to.

 

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language:

con·tac′tu·al (kən-tăk′cho͞o-əl) adj.

con·tac′tu·al·ly adv.

Usage Note: 

The verb contact is a classic example 

of a verb that was made from a noun 

and of a new usage that was initially frowned upon. 

The noun meaning 

"the state or condition of touching" is 

first recorded in 1626 in the writing of Francis Bacon. 

Some 200 years later it spawned a verb meaning 

"to bring or place in contact." 

This sense of the verb has lived an unremarkable life in technical contexts.

It was only in the first quarter of the 20th century that 

contact came to be used to mean "to communicate with," 

and soon afterward the controversy began. 

Contact was declared to be properly a noun, not a verb—and besides, it was argued, as a verb it was vague. 

Neither of these arguments holds water. 

 

Turning nouns into verbs is one of the most routine ways 

in which new verbs enter English. 

The examples are countless and familiar. 

Curb, date, elbow, interview, panic, and park are but a few. 

 

The verb contact is but another instance of what linguists 

call functional shift from one part of speech to another. 

 

As for the vagueness of contact, 

this seems a virtue in an age 

in which forms of communication have proliferated. 

The sentence 

We will contact you when your application has been processed 

allows for a variety of possible ways to communicate: 

by mail, telephone, email, or fax. 

 

The usefulness and popularity of this verb has worn down resistance to it. 

In 1969, only 34 percent of the Usage Panel accepted the use of contact 

as a verb, but in 1988, 65 percent of the Panel accepted it in the sentence 

She immediately called an officer at the Naval Intelligence Service, 

who in turn contacted the FBI. 

In 2004, fully 94 percent accepted contact in this same sentence. 

See Usage Note at impact.

 

Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms. 

US Department of Defense:

contact

1. In air intercept, a term meaning, "Unit has an unevaluated target."
2. In health services, an unevaluated individual who is known 

to have been sufficiently near an infected individual 

to have been exposed to the transfer of infectious material.

 

Merriam-Webster Dictionary:

Usage Notes

Is 'Contact' a Verb?

Once frowned upon, the verb 'contact' is now widely accepted.

Change is an inevitable thing in a living language; 

even the peeves that cling to it, lamprey-like, will alter over time. 

 

The grumbles, whinges, and peeves surrounding your 

grandparents’ English are often different than those encountered today. 

For evidence of this shift we need look no further 

than the feelings that people for much of the 20th century had for the word contact, when it was used as a verb meaning 

"to call or write to (someone or something)."

 

These are rather mild condemnations of the word, 

and fail to properly show the extent to which contact bothered people. 

Some people took exception to its being used as a verb, 

while others accepted its verbness, 

but thought that it should only be used in an intransitive role 

(meaning it would have no direct object). 

 

Rex Stout, the mid-century mystery novelist, 

had his famous protagonist, Nero Wolfe, 

convey a deep and abiding sense of displeasure 

with people who use contact as a verb of any kind.

Nero Wolfe’s strong feelings on this matter notwithstanding, 

contact is obviously a verb, and well-nigh everyone today uses it as one. 

 

In fact, it appears to have begun being used as a verb not long 

after people began using it as a noun; 

both parts of speech originated in the 17th century. 

For a long time most people had no issue with how either one was used, but in the early 20th century

the use of contact as a transitive verb became common in North America, particularly in business-speak, 

and soon people were waxing apoplectic about it.

 

In terms of pure splenetic inventiveness, 

there have been few complaints that have matched the one 

by F. W. Lienau, an executive at Western Union, 

articulated in a memo sent to his staff: 

“Somewhere there cumbers this fair earth with his loathsome presence a man who, for the common good, should have been destroyed in early childhood. 

He is the originator of the hideous vulgarism of using contact as a verb. 

So long as we can meet, get in touch with, make the acquaintance of, be introduced to, call on, interview or talk to people, there can be no apology for contact.” 

We may all of us have some issues with the way the English language is progressing, but few of us have the requisite peevishness and poetry to begin our complaints with a line such as “somewhere there cumbers this fair earth with his loathsome presence....”

 

One of the initial reports on this memo came from the New York weekly review The Commonweal, 

which approvingly wrote 

“We are all for Mr. Lienau. He sounds like the man to deal with certain other things that afflict us: 

with 'name’naddress,' for example, which is all but universal; with people who 'meet up with' someone; with styles that 'slenderize'…"

By the late 20th century there was a general acceptance of the transitive contact, even among those who thought the language was made poorer by its addition. 

The second edition of the Harpers Dictionary of Contemporary English Usage, published in 1985, wrote 

“When contact first appeared as a verb meaning “to get in touch with” or “to go see,” connoisseurs of language were horrified by it ... 

Usage has outlived the scorn of purists and contact is deemed acceptable by several dictionaries as a colloquial verb.” 

They took pains to note that “’colloquial’ means that it is acceptable for conversation and informal writing but not for formal papers and speeches,” before moving on to ask their in-house panel of linguistic arbiters how they felt about the matter.

Several of them felt just fine with contacting others. 

But Heywood Broun replied “I do not use business jargon.” 

Edwin Newman wrote “No, I did at one time but not since I learned better.” Most of the panelists appeared to have accepted the usage, 

albeit with feelings of misgiving. 

George Cornish wrote 

“I would not say ‘Let’s contact him,’ but I no longer quarrel with those who do.” 

And Walt Kelly sighed in with “I suppose that, having admitted the camel’s nose, we might as well admit the whole camel, but it makes for a messy tent.”

The noise surrounding this odd controversy has died down to barely a murmur (we don’t even get online complaints left in the comments about this use). Yet just in case some of you have heard that this is the sort of thing that one should avoid, you needn’t worry; you may use contact as any sort of verb you want. 

The usage note crafted by our editors for this sense provides an admirably succinct take on the matter: 

“The use of contact as a verb, especially in sense 2b, is accepted as standard by almost all commentators except those who write college handbooks."