密歇根新闻广播 人们为什么对使用“sensitive”敏感

 

For several months now, English Professor Anne Curzan has been combing through various editions of the New York Times Manual of Style and Usage to see how usage rules have changed over time.

This project is the quintessential labor¹ of love for a language geek and has yielded some interesting ideas for That’s What They Say, including this week’s highly "sensitive" topic.

As it turns out, the New York Times is sensitive about using "sensitive" to describe things like documents or issues.

The 1999 edition says, "Sensitive" means easily hurt or having keen sensibilities. Its use to mean secret, important or diplomatically fragile is jargon²." The 2015 style manual includes the same meaning, but it goes on to say that "in the sense of secret, important or diplomatically fragile, ['sensitive'] is overused."

For the most part, New York Times writers do seem to avoid using "sensitive" to describe things like data or issues. This is clear in the Times’ coverage³ of Facebook’s data scandal involving Cambridge Analytica. When the writers mention the data, they use words like "private" to describe it.

"Sensitive" comes into English in the 15th century with the meaning to have sensation or sense perception. By the 18th century, emotions become part of the definition -- that’s when we start to see "sensitive" used to refer to someone who has delicate feelings or is easily hurt or offended.

Despite the New York Times' concern, using "sensitive" to describe things like issues or data is actually a fairly old use of the word. As early as 1825, "sensitive" is used to describe something that has the potential to cause offense⁴, alarm or controversy⁵.

Curzan checked the Corpus of Contemporary American English to see which words tend to appear alongside "sensitive." Words like "very" and "highly" are most common. When it comes to nouns, "information" and "issue" both top the list ahead of "skin."

From what we can tell, using "sensitive" to describe something that is secret, problematic or delicate is extremely common. Do you use "sensitive" this way or do you tend to agree with the New York Times?

1 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

2 jargon   

n.术语，行话

参考例句：

• They will not hear critics with their horrible jargon.他们不愿意听到评论家们那些可怕的行话。
• It is important not to be overawed by the mathematical jargon.要紧的是不要被数学的术语所吓倒.

3 coverage   

n.报导，保险范围，保险额，范围，覆盖

参考例句：

• There's little coverage of foreign news in the newspaper.报纸上几乎没有国外新闻报道。
• This is an insurance policy with extensive coverage.这是一项承保范围广泛的保险。

4 offense   

n.犯规，违法行为；冒犯，得罪

参考例句：

• I hope you will not take any offense at my words. 对我讲的话请别见怪。
• His words gave great offense to everybody present.他的发言冲犯了在场的所有人。

5 controversy   

n.争论，辩论，争吵

参考例句：

• That is a fact beyond controversy.那是一个无可争论的事实。
• We ran the risk of becoming the butt of every controversy.我们要冒使自己在所有的纷争中都成为众矢之的的风险。