suffer的用法小结

suffer

def : have sth unpleasant happen to you (p.352)*

e.g. heart attack/a stroke/pain

head injuries/brain damage consequences/defeat/loss/blow

side-effects from treatment

setback/humiliation/decline/fate/indignity

occasional periods of unemployment

suffer from

def : to be badly affected by a disease, an illness, sadness, a bad condition or

a lack of sth (p. 753)*

e.g. bug/cancer/AIDS/virus/flu/cold/headache

arthritis/diarrhoea/allergy/disorder/asthma/bad back

ill health/heart condition/genetic disease/poverty

breathing difficulties/lack of water/defects/shock/depression

pollution/shortage of staff

* 這二個解釋取自Diana Lea (eds), Oxford Learner’s Thesaurus: A

Dictionary of Synonyms (2008)

現在讓我們來分析一下. 首先, suffer 和suffer from都可用於疾病和非疾病所引致的痛苦上. 先說和疾病有關的. 驟眼一看, 好像沒有甚麼規則可言. Heart

attack和stroke只跟suffer, 但cancer, flu, asthma, allergy等其它疾病卻和suffer from連用, 令人有點無所適從. 這已跟一般性或長、短時間扯不上任何關係. 雖然同是「風」, 我們總不能說中風是一般性的痛苦, 而傷風則是長期的或習慣性的痛苦. 同樣地, 若心臟病是短期的苦楚, 那偶發的一、二天感冒可算是長期性的痛苦嗎? 所以,以上這二種說法都不能完滿地解釋為甚麼老外會這樣用.

當今之世, 著書立說者有很多是良莠不齊的,我們學習時(不單是英文, 其它學科也一樣)不能將所學到的東西照單全收. 要細心咀嚼, 分析, 這才是學習之道. 我想現在suffer 和suffer from的用法極可能是英美在過去百多年間慢慢演化而成的慣用法或collocations. 而這也不是完全無規可循的. 我自己就理出了一點緒如下:

我認為suffer是用於疾病的突然發作或侵襲時(sudden start of an illness,

usually severe), 如heart attack, stroke, nervous collapse, migraine attack,

stomach cramp, an acute attack of food poisoning等. 另外, 意外受傷和痛楚也只跟動詞suffer. 例如head injuries, broken leg, brain damage, pain等. 對此,

Cambridge Learner’s Dictionary (Kate Woodford ed., 2007) 的suffer目裡也

清楚地說明suffer an illness就是〝experience an injury or other sudden health

problems〞.

除了那些突發性的病痛或受傷外, 基本上絕大部份的疾病和不適(包括精神上的困擾)都應和suffer from連用, 如acne, headache, rheumatism, airsickness,

hangover, high blood pressure, shock, mental disorder, loss of memory等. 這裡要注意的是suffer所帶出的突發性病痛或受傷是強調病發或事發時那一刻. 相對來說, 牛津高階英語詞典在第四版裡曾指出suffer from 其實帶有often have的意思. 但這個解釋從第六版的牛津高階英語詞典開始便給當時新的總編輯Sally Wehmeier删去了, 可能從她的角度來看,這個說明並不是太重要吧. 這也印證了為甚麼在同類的高階詞典都不到這二組字詞的區別.

所以我們在Longman (2009) 可以看到這樣的例句:

suffer a heart attack (心臟病發作) , but

suffer from heart conditions (長期或經常受心臟問題困擾/折磨)

suffer an asthma attack (哮喘病發作), but

suffer from asthma (長期或經常受哮喘病問題困擾/折磨).

後來我又在另一本書發現了以下的解釋，再一次印證我的想法是正確的。這是一本較舊的書，但在七、八十年代也算是權威之作。書名是Oxford Dictionary of Current Idiomatic English，作者

是AP Cowie（OALD第四版的編輯）和R Mackin，書分二冊。當中目suffer from有這樣的解釋：

def : be regularly afflicted by; have as a weakness

e.g. He suffers terribly from hay fever in the summer. (pp. 316)

另外，LDOCE5的Managing Editor，Chris Fox也說suffer from的意思是sth bad keeps

happening to you （cf suffer = sth bad happens to you）。根據這說法，我們知道Cobuild字典的解釋是有問題的。它說：

def : If you suffer from an illness or some other bad condition, you are badly affected by it.

e.g. He was eventually diagnosed as suffering from terminal cancer.

cancer固然是嚴重疾病，但心臟病發（heart attack）同樣badly affect sb，但為什麼說suffer a

heart attack呢？所以badly affected在這裏應理解為長期、持續地、經常性的受某疾病困擾比較恰當。Cobuild的解說不夠明確！

至於在跟疾病無關的情況下, 何時用suffer, 何時用suffer from就更加模糊. 經我整理手上的資料後, 我認為suffer 適用於下列幾種情況:

1.

經歴一些不愉快的事 (undergo unpleasant experience), 中文解作遭受/蒙受/承受/經歴/承担:

loss, humiliation, regret, death, ill-treatment,consequences, disadvantage,

discrimination, harassment, indignity, injustice, rudeness, bad manners, insults

2. 容忍/承受/忍受疼痛

a cold winter, hunger, torture, pain, burn-out

3. 受到傷害

damage, hardship, harm, injury, loss

4. 遇到問題/挫折

blow, crisis, difficulties, problem, setback, defeat, failure

5.

遭受攻擊

abuse, attack, violence, persecution

6.

經歴減少/下跌

decrease, decline, fall, drop in sales

而suffer from 則可用於以下幾種情況:

1. 一些負面的情況(unpleasant situations), ,

pollution, shortage of food, recession, drought, flooding

substandard housing, overcrowding, loss/lack of sth

2. 遭受苦難或精神上的折磨

evil dreams, trauma, feelings of guilt and shame, mental illness

3. 身體受損害/變差

chronic malnutrition, health suffered from overwork

e.g. overworked managers suffering from stress and anxiety. (Macmilan, p.

1480)

e.g. to suffer from stress. (Oxford, p. 1530)

e.g. If you are suffering from stress, you may be more likely to become

ill. (Longman, p. 1745)

從以上看來, suffer當和stress連用時, 是一個intransitive verb, 需由給介系詞from帶出後面所遭受的痛苦. 然而, 我們也的確在一些著名的英美報刊上見到這樣的標題:

The New York Times (16 May, 2010)

U.S. Troops Suffer More Stress Than Britons, Study Says

BBC News (12 Oct, 2007)

Primary Children ‘suffer stress’

Time (21 July, 2010)

After a Disaster, Kids Suffer Posttraumatic Stress Too

The Telegraph (25 Feb, 2011)

Pets suffer from stress of marriage break-ups

上面各種說法, 莫衷一是, 令人無所適從. 為此, 我做了一些研究. 先再看看下列的報紙標題和內文:

The Telegraph (19 Jan, 2010)

標題: Third of Chinese primary school children suffer stress, study says

內文: A Third of Chinese primary school children suffer from psychological

stress as a result of China ’s pressure-cooker schooling system and pushy

parenting, a study by a leading British researcher found.

內文: Chinese children as young as six are suffering from serious stress at

school

CNBC (31 May, 2010)

標題: Most Americans Still Suffer Debt-Related Stress

內文: About 46 pecent surveyed say they are suffering from debt-related

stress.

很有趣吧?我們會發覺在一些報紙標題上用suffer stress的, 到了內文時的卻改了用suffer from stress. 這是甚麽原因呢?

首先, 我認為正確的用法應是suffer from stress, 這也是最普遍及為人所接受的用法. 至於為何標題上的用法和內文不同, 我猜想原因可能有二. 原因之一是suffer 這動詞既可以是transitive verb 或是intransitive verb, 那說成suffer

stress也是可以的. 還記得我說過「不愉快的經歷」用suffer from, 而「負面的情況」就用suffer嗎? Stress這字可算是borderline case(二者皆是), 同類的字還有poverty, 如以下的例子:

BBC News (10 Sept, 2009)

Pupils suffer ‘shocking’ poverty

BBC News (2 Oct, 2008)

標題: Million more suffer fuel poverty

內文: The United union said thousands more people were likely to suffer from

fuel poverty this year.

The Telegraph (24 Feb, 2011)

Britain's problem children suffer from poverty

The Telegraph (27 Oct, 2008)

標題: One in four suffer from ‘green poverty’

內文: The National Trust survey found one in eight people living in England,

Wales and Northern Ireland suffer from ‘green place poverty’ …….. In urban

areas the figure rose to one in four.

另一個原因我認為是報紙標題通常盡量以簡潔為主, 所以介系詞from有時會被略去也不足為奇, 何況suffer stress如上所述也不能算是錯.

Suffer from stress 和 suffer stress(較少見)意思上沒有甚麽分別, 但我提議learner of English還是用前者比較正宗一些, 而這也是老外的多年來English

collocation的習慣. 但要注意不是每個字均可以和suffer/suffer from搭配連用,

如defeat, loss, injury這些字,我們便只能說suffer defeat/loss/injury, 而這也不一定有理由可解釋. 希望大家寫作時能留意.

留意suffer後面除了跟from外, 有時也可跟介系詞with, 如suffer with

migraines. 另外, 你們也可能見到一些句子如suffered death 〔for his crime〕,

suffered losses 〔through the inefficiency of its management〕, suffered〔in an

accident〕, suffer〔under disadvantages/repressive regimes〕, suffer〔in

silence〕等句式. 但這並不代表這些介系詞是慣常和suffer連用的; 這些介系詞只是和suffer後面的詞組一起搭配而已.