In Praise of the Humble Comma

小小逗號(hào)贊

Pico Lyer

皮科·埃爾

The gods, they say, give breath, and they take it away. But the samesaid-could be said-could it not?-of the humble comma. Add it to the present clause, and, all of a sudden, the mind is, quite literally, given pause to think; take it out if you wish or forget it and the mind is deprived of a resting place. Yet still the comma gets no respea. It seems just a slip of a thing, a pedant's tick, a blip on the edge of our consciousness, a kind of printer's smudge almost. Small, we claim, is beautiful (especially in the age of the microchip). Yet what is so often used, and so rarely called, as the comma-unless it be breath itself?

人都說(shuō)神仙把氣賜予生靈，又把氣奪走。不過這話用在小小的逗號(hào)上，何嘗不是如此？給現(xiàn)在這句加上逗號(hào)，腦子里真會(huì)，突然，停下來(lái)想想；若隨意去掉，或忘了它，就剝奪了腦子休息的空間。盡管如此，逗號(hào)仍然不受人算重。它似乎只是一個(gè)小撇，書呆子手下的一個(gè)小點(diǎn)兒，是我們意識(shí)邊緣上的一個(gè)記號(hào)，甚至排字工人沾上的一點(diǎn)污。我們好說(shuō)以小為美（尤其在這集成電路時(shí)代）。然而，還有什么東西是像逗號(hào)那樣頻頻使用而又那樣默默無(wú)聞的呢？——不就是氣嗎？

Punctuation, one is taught, has a point: to keep up law and order. Punctuation marks are the road signs placed along the highway of our communication——to control speeds，provide directions and prevent head-on collisions. A period has the unblinking finality of a red light, the comma is a flashing yellow light that asks us only to slow down, and the semicolon is a stop sign that tells us to ease gradually to a halt, before gradually starting up again. By establishing the relations between words, punctuation establishes the relations between the people using words. That may be one reason why school teachers exalt it and lovers defy it ("we love each other and belong to each other let’s don’t ever hurt each other Nicole let's don't ever hurt each other,” wrote Gary Gilmore to his girlfriend )A comma ，he must have known, "separate inseparables" ，in the clinching words of H. W. Fowler, King of English Usage.

我們都學(xué)過，標(biāo)點(diǎn)有一個(gè)目的：維持法律與秩序。標(biāo)點(diǎn)符號(hào)正是我們交通要道上一路設(shè)置的路標(biāo)——用以控制速度，指示方向，避免迎頭相撞。句號(hào)具有紅燈的一絲不茍，說(shuō)一不二；逗號(hào)是一閃一閃的黃燈，要求我們只是放慢速度；分號(hào)則是停車標(biāo)記，指示我們緩緩煞車，然后再緩緩啟動(dòng)標(biāo)點(diǎn)建立起詞與詞之間的關(guān)系，從而建立起用詞人之間的關(guān)系。教師捧它，情人煩它，其原因蓋出于此。（蓋瑞·基爾摩爾給女友寫道：“我愛你你愛我我是你的你是我的我們永遠(yuǎn)誰(shuí)也別傷誰(shuí)的心科爾我們永遠(yuǎn)誰(shuí)也別傷誰(shuí)的心。”）他一定學(xué)過英語(yǔ)慣用法大王福勒的斷言：逗號(hào)是“把不可分開的東西分開”。

Punctuation, then, is a civic prop, a pillar that holds society upright. (A run on sentence, its phrases piling up without division, is as unsightly as a sink piled high with dirty dishes.)Small wonder,then,that punctuation was one of the first proprieties of the Victorian age, the age of the corset, that the modernists threw off the sexual revolution might be said to have begun when Joyce's Molly Bloomis spilled out all her private thoughts in 36 pages of unbridled, almost unperioded and officially censored prose: and another are bellion was surely marked when E.E.Cummings first felt free to commit "God" to the lower case.

如此說(shuō)來(lái)，標(biāo)點(diǎn)乃是百姓的支柱，是支撐社會(huì)不至于垮掉的棟梁冗長(zhǎng)的句子，詞組堆砌成贅而不分彼此，就好比洗碗槽堆滿了臟碗，很不雅觀。）也難怪在維多利亞時(shí)代，風(fēng)行緊身胸衣的時(shí)代，標(biāo)點(diǎn)是講禮貌的頭等大事，而現(xiàn)代派一概棄之門外。性的革命可以說(shuō)就是始于喬伊斯筆下的莫莉·布魯姆，她將全部私衷一吐為快，洋洋36頁(yè)文字信口道來(lái)，幾乎沒有句號(hào)，遭到官家查禁。再就是卡明斯，肯定也算造反，他當(dāng)初為所欲為，擅自將“Cod”貶為小寫。

Punctuation thus becomes the signatrire of cultures. The hot-blooded Spaniard seems to be revealed in the passion and urgency of his doubled exclamation points and question marks ( "iCaramba! LQuien sabe?"), while the impassive Chinese traditionally added to his so-called inscrutability by omitting directions from his ideograms. The anarchy and commotion of the 60s were given voice in the exploding exclamation marks, riotous capital letters and Day-Glo italics of Tom Wolfe's spray-paint prose; and in Communist societies, where the State is absolute, the dignity-and divinity-of capital letters is reserved for Ministries, Sub-Committees and Secretariats.

于是，標(biāo)點(diǎn)成了不同文化的標(biāo)志。西班牙人性好激動(dòng)，打驚嘆號(hào)打問號(hào)都用雙重的（“jCaramba! LQuien sabe?”見鬼啦！誰(shuí)能明白？）情真意切，如見其人；中國(guó)人則不好動(dòng)聲色，表意字的文言自古就不注標(biāo)點(diǎn)，所謂胸有城府，益見其深。湯姆·沃爾夫那種噴漆式的散文體，驚嘆號(hào)一哄而起，大寫字母泛濫成災(zāi)，斜體字像是涂了熒光漆，無(wú)不表達(dá)了60年代的無(wú)法無(wú)天和亂作一團(tuán)；而在共產(chǎn)黨當(dāng)政的社會(huì)，國(guó)家至上，大寫字母的尊嚴(yán)——與神威——只留給政府各部委和書記處享用。

Yet punctuation is something more than a culture's birthmark; it scores the music in our minds, gets our thoughts moving to the rhythm of our hearts. Punctuation is the notation in the sheet music of our words, telling us when to rest, or when to raise our voices; it acknowledges that the meaning of our discourse, as of any symphonic composition, lies not only in the units but in the pauses, the pacing and the phrasing. Punctuation is the way one bats one's eyes, lowers one's voice or blushes demurely. Punctuation adjusts the tone and color and volume till the feeling comes into perfea focus: not disgust exactly, but distastes; not lust, or like, but love.

然而，標(biāo)點(diǎn)又不僅是某一種文化的胎記；它記下我們心中的樂曲，指引我們的思想與我們的心聲合拍。標(biāo)點(diǎn)是我們作詞的歌篇上的樂譜，它告訴我們何時(shí)休止，何時(shí)提高嗓門；它表明，我們說(shuō)話著文，猶如譜寫交響樂曲，情意所至，不僅見于整體段落，也見于起落有間、快慢有節(jié)以及長(zhǎng)短有致。標(biāo)點(diǎn)就像人眨眨眼睛，低聲細(xì)語(yǔ)，或忸怩作態(tài)。標(biāo)點(diǎn)可調(diào)整音調(diào)、音色和音量，直至找準(zhǔn)了感情，萬(wàn)無(wú)一失：未必是厭惡，而是厭煩；并非情欲之類，而是情愛。

Punctuation, in short, gives us the human voice, and all the meanings that lie between the words. "You aren't young, are you?" loses its innocence when it loses the question mark. Every child knows the menace of a dropped apostrophe (the parent's "Don't do that" shifting into the more slowly enunciated "Do not do that"), and every believer, the ignominy of having his faith reduced to "faith." Add an exclamation point to "To be or not to be..." and the gloomy Dane m has all the resolve he needs; add a comma, and the noble sobriety of "God save the Queen" becomes a cry of desperation bordering on double sacrilege.

簡(jiǎn)言之，標(biāo)點(diǎn)給我們傳來(lái)話音，傳來(lái)字里行間的全部含義。“你不小了，是吧？”這話去掉問號(hào)，無(wú)心便成了有意。做父母的先是說(shuō)“Don't do that”（“別做那事”），轉(zhuǎn)而又慢聲慢氣交代清楚：“Do not.dothat”（不要做那事），每個(gè)孩子都聽得明白，拿掉了撇號(hào)可就把話說(shuō)絕了。每個(gè)信徒也都明白，把他的信教加上引號(hào)，所謂“信教”，那可是在污辱他。給“生存或者滅亡……”一句添上個(gè)驚嘆號(hào)，那位憂心忡忡的丹麥人便是毅然決然萬(wàn)死不辭之士。在“上帝保佑女王”中間加個(gè)逗號(hào)，那崇高的莊嚴(yán)則成了絕望的呼號(hào)，簡(jiǎn)直是對(duì)雙方的褻瀆。

Sometimes, of course, our markings may be simply a matter of aesthetics.Popping in a comma can be like slipping on the necklace that gives an outfit quiet elegance, or like catching the sound of running water that complements as it completes the silence of a Japanese landscape. When VS.

Naipaul , in his latest novel, writes, "He was a middle-aged man, with glasses," the first comma can seem a little precious. Yet it gives the description a spin, as well as a subtlety, that it otherwise lacks, and it shows that the glasses are not part of the middle-agedness, but something else.

當(dāng)然，’有時(shí)我們的標(biāo)點(diǎn)符號(hào)也許只是個(gè)審美的問題。插進(jìn)一個(gè)逗號(hào)，猶如給一套服裝悄然配上項(xiàng)鏈，使之顯得嫻靜優(yōu)雅，又如在日本園林的一片幽靜之外還聽到潺潺流水聲，使園景更加充實(shí)。奈保爾在他新近的一部小說(shuō)中寫道：“他是個(gè)中年人，戴著一副眼鏡。”前一個(gè)逗號(hào)看似有點(diǎn)做作。然而它使描述更為婉轉(zhuǎn)，也更為微妙，否則都顯不出來(lái)；它還表明，那副眼鏡并非人到中年就非戴不可，而是別有由來(lái)。

Thus all these tiny scratches give us breadth and heft and depth. A world that has only periods is a world without inflections. It is a world without shade. It has a music without sharps and flats. It is a martial music. It has a jackboot rhythm. Words cannot bend and curve. A comma, by comparison,catches the gentle drift of the mind in thought, turning in on itself and back on itself, reversing, redoubling and returning along the course of its own sweet river music; while the semicolon brings clauses and thoughts together with all the silent discretion of a hostess arranging guests around her dinner table.

可見所有這些小來(lái)小去的一深度。只有句點(diǎn)的世界是個(gè)千篇撇一點(diǎn)都給我們?cè)黾恿藦V度、分量和一律的世界。是個(gè)沒有差別的世界。它的樂曲不分升調(diào)降調(diào)。是一首軍樂曲。是長(zhǎng)筒靴的節(jié)奏。文字不能彎曲。相形之下，逗號(hào)卻能捕捉頭腦里思路的涓涓細(xì)流，任它沿著自己娓娓動(dòng)聽的河上樂曲的航線，自行蜿蜒曲折，倒流，重疊。分號(hào)則將分句與思想融為一體，猶如女主人不露聲色地把來(lái)賓一一妥善安排入席。

Punctuation, then, is a matter of care. Care for words, yes, but also, and more important, for what the words imply. Only a lover notices the small things: the way the afternoon light catches the nape of a neck, or how a strand of hair slips out from behind an ear, or the way a finger curls around a cup. And no one scans a letter so closely as a lover, searching for its small print, straining to hear its nuances, its gasps, its sighs and hesitations, poring over the secret messages that lie in every cadence. The difference between"Jane (whom I adore)" and "Jane, whom I adore," and the difference between them both and "Jane-whom I adore-" marks all the distance between ecstasy and heartache. "No iron can pierce the heart with such force as a period put at just the right place," in Isaac Babel's lovely words; a comma can let us hear a voice break, or a heart. Punctuation, in fact, is a labor of love. Which brings us back in a way to gods.

由此說(shuō)來(lái)，標(biāo)點(diǎn)符號(hào)又是個(gè)要謹(jǐn)慎從事的問題。用詞要慎，不錯(cuò)，但更要緊的是對(duì)詞的涵義尤宜慎重。只有情人才注意到這些細(xì)節(jié)：下午的陽(yáng)光如何照在后頸上，一縷發(fā)絲如何從耳后根滑下來(lái)，手指如何勾住杯子。誰(shuí)看信也不會(huì)像情人那般仔細(xì)，苦苦尋覓信中的微小印跡，極力聽出其間的細(xì)微差別，其中的喘息、感嘆和猶豫不決，潛心揣摩那抑揚(yáng)頓挫中的秘密信息。“簡(jiǎn)（我深愛她）”與“簡(jiǎn)，我深愛她”兩句之間的差別，以及這兩句與“簡(jiǎn)——我深愛她——”之間的差別，標(biāo)明了醉心與傷心之間的距離。巴別爾有句話說(shuō)得多好：“句點(diǎn)用得其所，可穿透人心，雖刀槍力莫能及。”逗號(hào)則可使我們聽到聲咽或心碎。標(biāo)點(diǎn)符號(hào)其實(shí)是一項(xiàng)心甘情愿而為之的工作。它多少使我們重新成為主宰。

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