首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
(1)WHY SHOULD anyone buy the latest volume in the ever-expanding Dictionary of National Biography? I do not mean that it is bad,
(1)WHY SHOULD anyone buy the latest volume in the ever-expanding Dictionary of National Biography? I do not mean that it is bad,
admin
2019-05-24
26
问题
(1)WHY SHOULD anyone buy the latest volume in the ever-expanding Dictionary of National Biography? I do not mean that it is bad, as the reviewers will agree. But it will cost you 65 pounds. And have you got the rest of volumes? You need the basic 22 plus the largely decennial supplements to bring the total to 31. Of course, it will be answered, public and academic libraries will want the new volume. After all, it adds 1,068 lives of people who escaped the net of the original compilers. Yet in 10 years’ time a revised version of the whole caboodle, called the New Dictionary of National Biography, will be published. Its editor, Professor Colin Matthew, tells me that he will have room for about 50,000 lives, some 13,000 more than in the current DNB. This rather puts the 1,068 in Missing Persons in the shade.
(2)When Dr. Nicholls wrote to The Spectator in 1989 asking for names of people whom readers had looked up in the DNB and had been disappointed not to find, she says that she received some 100,000 suggestions.(Well, she had written to "other quality newspapers" too.)As soon as her committee had whittled the numbers down, the professional problems of an editor began. Contributors didn’t file copy on time; some who did sent too much: 50,000 words instead of 500 is a record, according to Dr. Nicholls.
(3)There remains the dinner-party game of who’s in, who’s out. That is a game that the reviewers have played and will continue to play. Criminals were my initial worry. After all, the original edition of the DNB boasted: Malefactors whose crimes excite a permanent interest have received hardly less attention than benefactors. Mr. John Gross clearly had similar anxieties, for he complains that, while the murderer Christie is in, Crippen is out. One might say in reply that the injustice of the hanging of Evans instead of Christie was a force in the repeal of capital punishment in Britain, as Ludovie Kennedy(the author of Christies entry in Missing Persons)notes. But then Crippen was reputed as the first murderer to be caught by telegraphy(he had tried to escape by ship to America).
(4)It is surprising to find Max Miller excluded when really not very memorable names get in. There has been a conscious effort to put in artists and architects from the Middle Ages. About their lives not much is always known.
(5)Of Hugo of Bury St Edmunds, a 12th-century illuminator whose dates of birth and death are not recorded, his biographer comments, "Whether or not Hugo was a wall-painter, the records of his activities as carver and manuscript painter attest to his versatility". Then there had to be more women, too(12 per cent, against the original DNB’s 3), such as Roy Strong’s subject, the Tudor painter Levina Teerlinc, of whom he remarks, "Her most characteristic feature is a head attached to a too small, spindly body. Her technique remained awkward, thin and often cursory". Doesn’t seem to qualify her as a memorable artist. Yet it may be better than the record of the original DNB, which included lives of people who never existed(such as Merlin)and even managed to give thanks to J. W. Clerke as a contributor, though, as a later edition admits in a shamefaced footnote, "except for the entry in the List of Contributors there is no trace of J. W. Clerke".
Throughout the passage, the writer’s tone towards the DNB was .
选项
A、complimentary
B、supportive
C、sarcastic
D、bitter
答案
C
解析
纵观全文,作者对该词典的编纂方法与内容是持否定态度的。A、B显然与文章语气不符。D(刻薄怀恨的)也是不正确的。作者在对词典的不足之处进行评述时有理有据,并无恶意攻击之意。相比之下,只有C(讽刺的)最恰当,因为整篇文章充满着讽刺、挖苦的语言。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/LobK777K
0
专业英语八级
相关试题推荐
Thoseofusinvolvedintheinternationalizationofhighereducationrelyonaseriesofassumptionsthatareoftennotsupport
Thoseofusinvolvedintheinternationalizationofhighereducationrelyonaseriesofassumptionsthatareoftennotsupport
PASSAGETHREEWhatmighthappentothebigwheelstylepatients?
Englishservesasafunctionalalternativelanguageinseveralareasofpublicactivityforthemanynationsoftheworldwhich
Englishservesasafunctionalalternativelanguageinseveralareasofpublicactivityforthemanynationsoftheworldwhich
OnPublicSpeakingI.People’sfrequentresponsetogivingtheirfirstspeech:feel【T1】______【T1】______II.Thespeaker’ssecret
ThefollowingtwoexcerptsareaboutthepracticeofrentingboyfriendsandgirlfriendsfortheChineseNewYear.Fromtheexcer
TypesofLanguageTestingI.Placement—sortnewstudentsinto【T1】______【T1】______—testthestudent’s【T2】______ratherthansp
TypesofLanguageTestingI.Placement—sortnewstudentsinto【T1】______【T1】______—testthestudent’s【T2】______ratherthansp
随机试题
反向大豆提油套利的做法是()。
垂直结构的优缺点是什么?
因屈光不正引起的是
某女,22岁。经后小腹绵绵作痛,少腹柔软喜按,月经量少,色淡,神疲乏力,舌淡,脉细。针灸治疗宜取
案例H铸钢公司有职工4000人。2009年1月17日7时15分,H铸钢公司发生中频电炉钢水喷炉灼烫事故,导致4人死亡,1人重伤,直接经济损失190余万元。2009年1月16日23时,H铸钢公司夜班工人根据当日生产安排,开始通电熔化。17
甲企业与乙企业签订了一项租赁协议,甲企业将其原先自用的一栋写字楼出租给乙企业使用,租赁期开始日为20×2年12月31日。20×2年12月31日,该写字楼的账面余额为50000万元,已计提累计折旧5000万元,公允价值为47000万元。假定转换前该写字楼的计
略述晚清政府发展近代工商业的措施。
ThebeginningsoftheCoca-Colawerebumble.In1886,anAtlantapharmacist,JohnPemberton,madetheoriginalmixture,【C1】_____
WhenDonaldarrivedforhisfirstgroup-therapysessionhewasinawheelchair,sufferingfrommalignantmelanomaandseverelyd
【B1】【B9】
最新回复
(
0
)