评论
打印
Hello! This week on Ask a Teacher, we answer a question about the adverb “outside” from Philip in China.
大家好! 本周《名师答疑》，我们回答来自中国的菲利普关于副词outside的问题。
He writes: Hi, could you please tell me the difference between outside of and outside?
他写道：你好，你能告诉我outside of和outside有什么区别吗？
Please tell me which is better: We should think outside the box. We should think outside of the box.
请告诉我哪个说法更好：We should think outside the box还是We should think outside of the box(我们应该跳出框框思考问题)。
Dear Philip, thank you for writing to us.
亲爱的菲利普，感谢你的来信。
“Outside” can have one of four uses in English, as a noun, adjective, adverb, or preposition.
outside在英语中有四种用法: 名词、形容词、副词或介词。
It is not surprising that you found it hard to understand.
你发现这很难理解，这并不令人惊讶。
Your question brings up an interesting dispute between grammar experts in the United States and Britain.
你的问题也引发了美国和英国语法专家之间的一场有趣争论。
The Oxford English Dictionary says that “outside” in phrases like “outside of the box” is an adverb.
根据《牛津英语词典》，在outside of the box这样的短语中，outside是副词。
It changes the meaning of the verb, in this case, “think.”
它改变了动词的意思，在这个例子中，动词是think。
Together with the preposition “of” it becomes a two-word preposition.
它与介词of一起构成两个词的介词。
Here are other examples of such two-word prepositions:
这里还有其他这样的双词介词的例句：
A baby bird flew out of the nest.
一只小鸟飞出了鸟巢。
He was never close to his sister.
他和他妹妹的关系从来不怎么亲密。
Your example uses “outside of” or “outside” to talk about the space the subject occupies.
在你的例子中，outside of或outside用来谈论主语所占据的空间。
You can use either “outside” alone or with “of” in that sense.
在这种意义上，可以单独使用out，也可以与of连用。
There is another use where “outside of” means “apart from” or “besides.”
还有一种用法，outside of的意思是“除了”或“此外”。
Here are examples of that use:
这里有一些这种用法的例句：
Outside of their later songs, I do not enjoy the Beatles’ music.
除了他们后来的歌曲，我不喜欢披头士的音乐。
I cannot think of a time outside of high school when I wore a tie.
我想不出除了高中以外的什么时候我会打领带。
The Merriam-Webster Learners Dictionary says “outside of” is a North American use.
根据《韦氏词典》，outside of是美式英语的一种用法。
Another British dictionary, the online Oxford Dictionaries also sees the use of “outside of” to talk about location as “chiefly North American.”
另一个英国词典，也就是牛津词典网页版，也认为用outside of表示地点“主要是美式英语的用法”。
But its use in the “apart from” sense is seen as normal for British and American English.
但outside of表示“除了”时，在英式和美式英语中都很常见。
So in British English, you would usually hear, Think outside the box.
因此，在英式英语中，你通常会听到Think outside the box。
And in American English, you might hear it that way or Think outside of the box.
在美式英语中，你也可能听到这种说法，或者是Think outside of the box。
And that’s Ask a Teacher. I’m Jill Robbins.
以上就是《名师答疑》。我是吉尔·罗宾斯。
