July 1990


July 1990

For many years Rudolf Arnheim, known as the leading psychologist of art, has been keeping notebooks in which to jot down observations, ideas, questions, and even (after a stay in Japan for a year) poems in the haiku pattern. Some of these notes found their way into his books—known and prized the world over—such as Art and Visual Perception, Visual Thinking, and The Power of the Center (see list below). Now he has selected, from the remaining riches of his notebooks, the items in this volume. The book will be a joy to ramble through for all lovers of Arnheim's work, and indeed for anyone who shares Arnheim's contagious interest in the order that lies behind art, nature, and human life. It is a seedbed of ideas and observations in his special fields of psychology and the arts. "I have avoided mere images and I have avoided mere thoughts," says Arnheim in the Introduction, "but whenever an episode observed or a striking sentence read yielded a piece of insight I had not met before, I wrote it down and preserved it." There are also glimpses of his personal life—his wife, his cats, his students, his neighbors and colleagues. He is always concrete, in the manner that has become his trademark, often witty, and sometimes a bit wicked.

In the blend of life and thought caught in these jottings, psychology and the arts are of course prominent. But philosophy, religion, and the natural sciences add to the medley of topics—always addressed in a way to sharpen the senses of the reader who, sharing Arnheim's cue from Dylan Thomas, may accompany him through "the parables of sun light and the legends of the green chapels and the twice told fields of childhood."

All of Rudolf Arnheim's books have been published by the University of California Press.


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「恐懼是我一生最大的熱情。」（據R. Barthe說，這是霍布斯的話。）
從Tony獎的驚豔女巫談 "terrific!" (2004/6)

靈感來源 "Kristin Chenoweth appeared at the Tony Awards as the terrifically shallow witch Glinda from "Wicked."

據Parables of Sun Light 一書所記（1977年10月23日），談到所謂用語上的「世風日下」（The corrosion of language）。 ---它談一位青年人打電話到旅館，要陪作者Rudolf Arnheim （著名的藝術-心理學家）去演講處。作者說兩分鐘之後用大廳見，該青年答：「terrific! 」
作者覺得，這字眼的原先意思是「可怕的、嚴重的、嚇唬人的、難以忍受的……」
而現在竟然淪為「太好了！」

這樣一來，萬一有一天，地球真的與某一慧星相撞，那時候，不知道還有什麼形容詞可用。這簡直是語言的「腐蝕」。

HC認為，作者的有感而發，也沒什麼道理，因為語言是約定俗成的東西。 根據牛津大學出版的《20世紀新字選》，此用法1930年開始使用。《牛津英語同義詞詞典》：各代有其「驚奇、崇拜」熱情的口語，其中最為耐用的是terrific。我在1980年代才懂得它的意義。

它的說明，我認為思果翻譯的可參考，所以改寫、錄抄：

「terrific這詞和terrible一樣，都與拉丁文terrere（嚇唬）有關，也和英文terror有關。不過terrific現在的意思含 糊，日常可以用來形容任何極端的事務（extreme）、極大的（extreme big）、極好的（extreme good）等等。」

例子：
We faced a terrific problem.（我們碰到極棘手的問題。）
My fish was a terrific size. （我的魚極大尾。）
We had a terrific time.（我們過一段極歡樂的時光。）

terrific (VERY GREAT) adjective INFORMAL
used to emphasize the great amount or degree of something:
The police car drove past at a terrific speed.

terrific (VERY GOOD) [Show phonetics]
adjective INFORMAL 1930
very good:
a terrific opportunity
You look terrific!

terrific

Line breaks: ter|rif¦ic

Pronunciation: /təˈrɪfɪk 

  

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Derivatives

terrifically

ADVERB

[AS SUBMODIFIER]: she’s been terrifically busy lately

MORE EXAMPLE SENTENCES