Samuel Johnson | Quotations from this Dictionary<5>
Quotations from Dictionary of the English Language by Samuel Johnson. This is a dictionary in which the words are deduced from their originals and all the following quotations are from it.
My lord it is, though time has plow’d that face
With many furrows since I saw it first;
Yet I’m too well acquainted with the ground quite to forget it.
Dryden
Appreciation & Critical Comments:
Time is mighty, for it plows so many faces with so
many furrows, but time affects some people very little, for they never allow anything plow furrows in their hearts.
Suspense of judgment and exercise of charity were safer and seemlier for Christian men, than the hot pursuit of these controversies.
Hooker
Appreciation & Critical Comments:
Here the word “seemly” means “decent”, “suitable” ,
“proper” or “fit.” Sometimes, it is more suitable that we suspend judgment, and practice charity rather than vehemently pursue heated controversies.
My we enjoy
Our humid products, and with seemly draughts
Enkindled mirth and hospitable love.
Appreciation & Critical Comments:
We can learn two collocations here: 1) enkindled
(inflamed) mirth; and 2) hospitable love. One problem with most of us when our English sounds less idiomatic is that we often “invent” our own collocations which are more often than not awkward and even wrong as we are affected by our Chinese thinking pattern though we seem to be writing and talking in English. I feel that we should pay sufficient heed to the idiomatic usages by reading extensively English magazines, newspapers, books, and literary works in particular.
非商业性援引，需注明出处来源于史话英语，史志康教授保留所有权利。
