英语词汇sophistry的起源、历史背景-英语词源词典

sophistry; sophomore. The Sophists were not really a school of philosophers but individual teachers who toured the cities of Greece in the mid-fifth century b.c. teaching rhetoric and other subjects. They did, however, share common beliefs. Far less idealistic than the Socratic school, they prepared their pupils for public life, placing little store in truth for truth’s sake and accepting money for their teaching, being what might be called pragmatists today. Although their name derived from sophos, the Greek word for wise, it was a contemptuous term among their contemporaries. Because they taught the art of persuasion to young men eager for political careers and the methods they taught were often unscrupulous and overingenious, sophist came to meet someone who tries to mislead people with clever arguments, one who tries to “make the worse seem the better reason.” Sophism is now used to mean a plausible but fallacious argument, and false, specious reasoning is called sophistry. The word has thus had almost a complete reversal in meaning since the time when the wise men of Greece were called sophists— before the Sophists came on the scene. The word sophomore, a second-year college or high school student, probably comes from sophom, an obsolete form of sophism.

词汇	sophistry
词源	sophistry; sophomore. The Sophists were not really a school of philosophers but individual teachers who toured the cities of Greece in the mid-fifth century b.c. teaching rhetoric and other subjects. They did, however, share common beliefs. Far less idealistic than the Socratic school, they prepared their pupils for public life, placing little store in truth for truth’s sake and accepting money for their teaching, being what might be called pragmatists today. Although their name derived from sophos, the Greek word for wise, it was a contemptuous term among their contemporaries. Because they taught the art of persuasion to young men eager for political careers and the methods they taught were often unscrupulous and overingenious, sophist came to meet someone who tries to mislead people with clever arguments, one who tries to “make the worse seem the better reason.” Sophism is now used to mean a plausible but fallacious argument, and false, specious reasoning is called sophistry. The word has thus had almost a complete reversal in meaning since the time when the wise men of Greece were called sophists— before the Sophists came on the scene. The word sophomore, a second-year college or high school student, probably comes from sophom, an obsolete form of sophism.
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