Can context clues save us here? I think the answer is "maybe."
I perused the library's Colorado history offerings.
Straight up, there is nothing in this sentence to help us.
Searching for just the right references for my paper, I perused the library's Colorado history offerings.
This version does suggest close attention. And this next one?
With four hours to kill until Aaron would be ready to walk home with me, I perused the library's Colorado history offerings.
Certainly, the phrasing above leads readers to believe peruse is meant as a leisurely look-through.
So, as your English teachers suggested for years that you use the text surrounding a troublesome word to help you ascertain its meaning for yourself, you can help everyone else "get you" by wording your sentences carefully and arming your readers and listeners with tools of understanding.
1 comment:
I wonder what searching different corpora would show us about frequency of different types of use. I tend to assume definition b. That being said, I avoid using the word myself due to this split meaning. By the time you add all that context, you might as well have "skimmed" or "pored" and been done with it.
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