I stumbled upon this article in The Atlantic (a culture magazine) recently. It discusses the possibility of the “end” of reading as a human activity in the age of social media and A.I.
This inspired me to write today’s email on the word “contemporary” and its different meanings and grammatical roles.
Let’s look at this sentence from the article first:
But contemporary historians tend to dismiss the importance of these dramatic incidents in favor of a more mundane cause of death: negligence.
不過，當代歷史學家往往淡化這些戲劇性事件的重要性，認為圖書館消亡的更主要、也更平凡的原因，是人們的疏忽。
The sentence brings up the point that, while historians in the past attributed the disappearance of the ancient Library of Alexandria to dramatic events like war, “contemporary” historians think the collections there could just have been neglected by people.
I want to discuss the word “contemporary” because it comes up quite often in English, especially in writing about history (which we can call “historiography”).
The word has two grammatical versions -- one is an adjective, and the other is a noun.
As an adjective, “contemporary” has two distinct, non-overlapping meanings. The first is “from the time in context,” and the second is “from our current time.”
For example:
Contemporary accounts of the battle described it as unusually violent.
當時的記載把那場戰役描述為異常激烈。
In this sentence, the adjective “contemporary accounts” means “accounts from the time of these battles.” “Contemporary” is pointing at the time mentioned in context.
However:
Contemporary historians tend to dismiss the importance of these dramatic incidents in favor of a more mundane cause of death: negligence.
當代歷史學家往往淡化這些戲劇性事件的重要性，認為圖書館消亡的更主要、也更平凡的原因，是人們的疏忽。
In our sentence from the article, “contemporary historians” means “historians now” and not “historians from the time of the Library’s disappearance.” We know this from the context of the sentence because it is arguing that historians now have a different take from their predecessors.
It has always struck me as interesting that this same word can express these two distinct meanings about time.
Remember that, in our “Boost Your Vocabulary” course, I keep stressing the importance of making etymological, semantic, and thematic connections between vocabulary words.
In this case, etymologically, the word “contemporary” has Latinate roots, with the prefix “con-” meaning “with” or “together,” and the word root “temp-” meaning “time.” If you have this background knowledge about this Latinate prefix and word root, you can learn and/or remember the word “contemporary” and its meanings much more readily--because it has to do “with time” in a particular “context.”
Namely, the “context” for the time that is referred to can come from the sentence itself, or it can be “our context now, as we read this sentence.”
It is interesting to note that we would use different words to translate “contemporary” in Chinese depending on which of the two possible temporal meanings it is expressing (當時 vs. 當代/現代).
“Contemporary” also has a noun version, which is also a very common word. As a noun, though, it only has one meaning, which is “a person from the same time period as someone else.” For example:
Haydn was a contemporary of Mozart.
海頓與莫札特是同時代的人。
Shakespeare and Cervantes were contemporaries.
莎士比亞和塞萬提斯是同一時代的人。
Next time you see this word, try to work out which grammatical version it is, and, if it is adjective, determine whether it is referring to “the time in context” or “our time.”
最近，我偶然看到文化雜誌《The Atlantic》的一篇文章。文章探討的是：在社交媒體與人工智能的時代，「閱讀」這種人類活動，會否有可能在未來不再存在。
這啟發我在今天的電郵中談談 “contemporary” 這個字，以及它不同的意思和文法角色。
我們先看看文章中的這句話：
But contemporary historians tend to dismiss the importance of these dramatic incidents in favor of a more mundane cause of death: negligence.
不過，當代歷史學家往往淡化這些戲劇性事件的重要性，認為圖書館消亡的更主要、也更平凡的原因，是人們的疏忽。
這句說的是，過去的歷史學家將古代亞歷山大圖書館的消失歸因於戰爭等戲劇性事件，但現代歷史學家則認為，館內的藏書可能只是因為人們的疏忽而逐漸消失。
我想談談 “contemporary” 這個字，因為經常會出現，尤其在有關歷史的寫作中（歷史書寫在英文的學術名稱是 “historiography”）。
這個字有兩個文法版本——一個是形容詞，另一個是名詞。
作為形容詞時，“contemporary” 有兩個不同、互不重疊的意思。第一個是「來自語境所指的那個時代」，第二個是「來自我們目前身處的時代 / 現代」。
例如：
Contemporary accounts of the battle described it as unusually violent.
當時的記載把那場戰役描述為異常激烈。
在這句中，“contemporary accounts” 中的形容詞 “contemporary”，是指「來自這場戰役發生的時代的（記載）」。“Contemporary” 指向的是語境中提到的戰役的那個時代。
然而：
Contemporary historians tend to dismiss the importance of these dramatic incidents in favor of a more mundane cause of death: negligence.
當代歷史學家往往淡化這些戲劇性事件的重要性，認為圖書館消亡的更主要、也更平凡的原因，是人們的疏忽。
在文章的這句中，“contemporary historians” 的意思則是「現今的歷史學家」，而不是「亞歷山大圖書館消失時的歷史學家」。我們可以從句子的語境知道這一點，因為它所說的是：現今的歷史學家與前人有不同的看法。
我一直覺得很有趣：同一個字，竟然可以表達這兩個截然不同的時間意思。
大家記得，在我們的 “Boost Your Vocabulary” 課程中，我一直強調，在不同的單字之間建立字源、語義和主題上的連繫，是非常重要的。
就這個例子而言，從字源上看，“contemporary” 有拉丁詞源：前綴 “con-” 的意思是「與」或「一起」，而字根 “temp-” 的意思則是「時間」。如果你有這些關於拉丁文前綴和字根的背景知識，就可以更容易學懂或記住 “contemporary” 這個字及其意思——因為它所表達的，正是在某個特定語境中「與時間」相關的概念。
也就是說，所指的時間可以是句子本身內容中的時間，也可以是「我們現在閱讀這句話時所身處的時間」。
值得留意的是，視乎 “contemporary” 所表達的是兩個時間意思中的哪一個，我們在中文會用不同方式來翻譯它（例如「當時」vs.「當代／現代」）。
“Contemporary” 也有一個名詞版本，同樣非常常見。不過，作為名詞時，它只有一個意思，就是「（與另一個人）同一時代的人」。例如：
Haydn was a contemporary of Mozart.
海頓與莫札特是同時代的人。
Shakespeare and Cervantes were contemporaries.
莎士比亞和塞萬提斯是同一時代的人。
下次看到這個字時，可以嘗試判斷它是哪一個文法版本；如果它是形容詞，就再判斷它所指的是「語境中的那個時代」，還是「我們身處的時代」。