英語寫作終極指南：簡潔才是王道

南京環亞西文現代英語025-84721008 What is good writing?

什麼樣的文章是好文章？

It depends on what country you’re from. We all know what’s considered “good writing” in our own country. We grow up immersed in the cadences and sentence structure of the language we were born into, so we think, “That’s probably what every country considers good writing; they just use different words.” If only! I once asked a student from Cairo, “What kind of language is Arabic?” She said, “It’s all adjectives.”

這取決於你來自何處。我們都知道在自己的國家好文章是什麼樣的。我們從小到大，已經熟知我們母語的抑揚頓挫和句子結構，於是我們認為，其他國家所謂的好文章也應該是這樣，只不過用的語言不同。要是這樣就好了！我有次問一個來自開羅的學生：“阿拉伯語是什麼樣的語言？”她回答說：“都是形容詞。”

Well, of course it’s not all adjectives, but I knew what she meant: it’s decorative, it’s ornate, it’s intentionally pleasing. But all those adjectives and all that

decoration would be the ruin of any journalist trying to write good English. No proverbs, please.

當然，不可能都是形容詞，我知道她的意思：阿拉伯語是一種注重雕飾和閱讀快感的語言。但是太多形容詞和太多雕飾都不利於英文的新聞寫作。千萬別使用那麼多諺語。

Spanish also comes with a heavy load of beautiful baggage that will smother any journalist writing in English.

西班牙語也一樣，有太多不利於英文寫作的修飾語。

English is not as musical as Spanish, or Italian, or French, or as ornamental as Arabic, or as vibrant as some of your native languages. But I’m hopelessly in love with English because it’s plain and it’s strong. It has a huge vocabulary of words that have precise shades of meaning; there’s no subject, however

technical or complex, that can’t be made clear to any reader in good English—if it’s used right. Unfortunately, there are many ways of using it wrong. Those are the damaging habits I want to warn you about today.

英語不像西班牙語、義大利語或者法語那樣富有音律美，也不像阿拉伯語那樣華麗，可能也不像你們的母語那樣生動鮮活，但我就是無可救藥地熱愛英語，因為它平實有力，擁有海量意義鮮明的詞彙。描述一樣事物，不管多高科技多複雜，在標準英語中讀者都看懂——如果描述準確。不幸的是很多人都不能正確使用英語。以下就是我希望大家避免的一些錯誤習慣。

First, a little history. The English language is derived from two main sources. One is Latin, the other is Anglo-Saxon. The words derived from Latin are the enemy—they will strangle and suffocate everything you write. The Anglo-Saxon words will set you free.

首先，瞭解英語的歷史。英語來源於拉丁語和安格魯-撒克遜語。來自拉丁語的單詞是我們的宿敵——它們會使你的寫作佶屈聱牙。安格魯-撒克遜語才能解開你的束縛。

How do those Latin words do their strangling and suffocating? In general they are long, pompous nouns that end in -ion—like implementation and

maximization and communication (five syllables long!)—or that end in

-ent—like development and fulfillment. Those nouns express a vague concept or an abstract idea, not a specific action that we can picture. Here’s a typical sentence: “Prior to the implementation of the financial enhancement.” That means “Before we fixed our money problems.”

拉丁詞語是怎麼束縛你的文體的呢？一般來說都是些長並華而不實的單詞，以ion結尾，像implementation、maximization、communication（五個音節那麼長！）或者以ent結尾，像development和fulfillment。這些詞語描述的都是一個模糊或抽象的概念，不是我們能夠明確說明的行動。一個典型句子就是：財政強化計劃實施之前。其實就是說：解決錢的問題之前。

Believe it or not, this is the language that people in authority in America

routinely use. They think those long Latin words make them sound important. It no longer rains in America; your TV weatherman will tell that you we’re experiencing a precipitation probability situation.

不管你信不信，這些就是美國的高層人士常用語。他們認為這些長長的拉丁單詞能突顯自己的身份。美國已經沒有下雨這一說了，天氣預報員只會提到降水概率這個詞。

I’m sure all of you, newly arrived in America, have already been driven crazy trying to figure out the instructions for ordering a cell phone or connecting your computer, or applying for a bank loan or a health insurance policy, and you assume that those of us who were born here can understand this stuff. I assure you that we don’t understand it either.

我相信你們所有人剛來美國的時候，都曾為訂購手機、上網、申請銀行貸款、購買健康保險的流程說明而抓狂，並認為我們美國人讀得懂這些東西。其實我們一樣看不懂。