評論
打印
As written English is used by increasing millions and f-or more reasons than ever before, the language has become more utilitarian and more informal. Every publication in America today includes pages that would appear, to the purist of forty years ago, unbuttoned gibberish.Not that they are; they simply show that you can't hold the language of one generation up as a model for the next.
由于使用書面英語的人數(shù)急劇增長以及前所未有的諸多原因，英語已傾向于更加實(shí)用，更加通俗。今天美國所出版的每一種書刊都有一些版面在四十年前喜歡咬文嚼字的人看來滿紙盡是信口胡言。可事實(shí)上它們并非毫無意義的胡言亂語，它們的存在只不過表明，我們不能把上一代人所使用的語言當(dāng)作下一代人必須遵守的樣板。
It's not that you mustn't. You can't. For example, in the issue in which Life stated editorially that it would folly the Second International, there were over forty words constructions, and meanings which are in the Third International but not in the Second. The issue of the New York Times which hailed the Second International as the authority to which it would adhere and the Third International as a scandal and a betrayal which it would reject used one hundred and fifty-three separate words, phrases, and constructions which are listed in the Third International but not g the Second and nineteen others which are condemned in the Second. Many of them are used many times, more than three hundred such uses in all. The Washington Post, in an editorial captioned "Keep Your Old Webster's, " says, in the first sentence, "don't throw it away," and in the second, "hang on to it." But the old Webster's labels don't "colloquial" and doesn't include "hang on to," in this sense, at all.
這并不是說你不應(yīng)該這樣做，而是你根本不可能這樣做。比如，《生活》雜志曾在某一期中發(fā)表一篇社論，聲明它要以《韋氏國際英語詞典》(第二版)為準(zhǔn)，可就在這一期的《生活》雜志上卻出現(xiàn)了四十多個(gè)見之于第三版卻未見于第二版的詞匯、結(jié)構(gòu)與意義。有一期《紐約時(shí)報(bào)》上高喊第二版是它堅(jiān)決擁護(hù)的權(quán)威，而第三版則是它要摒棄的愚弄和騙人之作。可這一期的《紐約時(shí)報(bào)》上卻用了一百五十三個(gè)收錄于第三版卻未收進(jìn)第二版的單詞、短語和句法結(jié)構(gòu)，另外還用了十九個(gè)受到第二版指責(zé)的詞語。這些單詞和詞組有的重復(fù)出現(xiàn)多次，因此在一期《紐約時(shí)報(bào)》上出現(xiàn)的這類詞語共達(dá)三百余處。《華盛頓郵報(bào)》在一篇標(biāo)題為"留著你的老韋氏"的社論中，開宗明義第一句話就說，"don't throw it away(別扔掉它)"，第二句又說，"hang on to it(緊緊抱住它)"。然而，在老韋氏詞典中，don't被標(biāo)注為"口語用法"，而"hang on to"的這個(gè)意義則根本沒有收錄。
