核心畫面

You can think of propriety as what belongs to a situation. Every room comes with things that are its own — a voice, a distance, a way of sitting — and propriety is the sense of what this room has been given. Behaving with propriety is handing the room back what is properly its own.

可以想成:每一個場合都有「屬於它的東西」——該有的音量、該有的距離、該有的坐法。propriety 就是對這一整套東更多收起可以想成:每一個場合都有「屬於它的東西」——該有的音量、該有的距離、該有的坐法。propriety 就是對這一整套東西的感覺。做得得體,等於把這個場合本來該有的樣子交回去。這個字的重點從來不是「違不違規」,而是「合不合這個場合」。

From the word’s history

Propriety is a doublet of property: both come from Latin proprietas, what is one's own. In late Middle English it still meant ownership. The step from what belongs to a person to what belongs to a situation is what gives us the modern meaning.

propriety 和 property(財產)是同一個字的兩個分身,都來自拉丁文 proprietās(屬於自己的東西)。中古英文晚期它的意思還是「所有權」。從「屬於某人的東西」走到「屬於這個場合的東西」,就是今天「得體」這個意思的來路。Wiktionary 也把它拆成 prop(e)r + -iety,所以它跟 proper 是一家人。

Wiktionary entry for propriety, etymology section (packet source_ref kaikki:3f6f69a190036ae4:789853063:30241)

One branch

屬於這個場合的樣子

單數講的是那份分寸本身,複數講的是分寸拆開來的那些條目。

noun · C1

The quality of being right and suitable for the situation, judged by the rules of good behaviour that the people around you accept. It is also used when people ask whether an action was a proper thing to do at all.

得體;妥當