奥威尔·政治与英语语言(DOC)

大多数为英语而烦心的人都会承认，英语的处境不佳，并且我们不能通过有意识的行动而使这种情形有所改观。

我们的文明颓废不堪，语言也不能幸免，她不可避免的成为整体衰落的一份子。

随之而来，任何反对滥用语言的努力都是感情上的复古主义者，就像那些倾向于蜡烛而非电灯，或是偏爱马车而非飞机的努力一样。

言外之意，这里隐藏着一种并不十分明晰的信念，即语言是自然衍生的结果，并不是我们为自身之便而创造的工具。

现在可以明白了，一种语言的衰落归根结底都会有政治和经济上的原因：而不能简单的归因于一两个蹩脚作家的不良影响。

但这种影响也可以是原因之一，而且能增强最初的原因并且在一种增强了的形式中产生同样的效果，如此无限循环，越搞越糟。

一个人可以由于感到失败而溺于饮酒，而后由于饮酒从而导致更大的失败；几乎同样的事情就发生在英语语言自身之上。

她由于我们愚笨的想法而变得粗陋不堪、难以精确，而杂乱懒散的语言又使我们更容易产生愚笨的想法。

问题的关键在于，此二者互为因果、相互激荡。

现代英语，尤其是书面语，充斥着由于因袭而来的不良表达，而某人如果愿意为此多费心神，则可以完全避免。

如果一个人可以丢掉这些不良表达，他将可以更清晰准确的思考，而清晰准确的思考，则是迈向政治重生的必要的第一步：由此，对抗不良的英语表达并非妄动之举，也并非唯有职业作家才关注的内容。

过会儿我再来论谈这点，希望届时我所表达的内容将更为清晰。

眼下，这里有五个英语表达的样本，他们采用的都是目前习惯性的写法。

这五段短文并没有经过挑选，因为他们着实糟糕——而要是挑选的话，我将会找出更烂的文章来——但是他们阐明了我们目前遇到的种种想法。

这些文章略低于平均水平，但作为有代表性的例子却已足够。

我将其一一编号，以便必要时的引用：（译者按：为展现作者所批评的问题，原文未翻译）1. I am not, indeed, sure whether it is not true to say that the Milton who once seemed not unlike a seventeenth-century Shelley had not become, out of an experience ever more bitter in each year, more alien [sic] to the founder of that Jesuit sect which nothing could induce him to tolerate.Professor Harold Laski (Essay in Freedom of Expression)2. Above all, we cannot play ducks and drakes with a native battery of idioms which prescribes egregious collocations of vocables as the Basic put up with for tolerate, or put at a loss for bewilder .Professor Lancelot Hogben (Interglossa)3. On the one side we have the free personality: by definition it is not neurotic, for it has neither conflict nor dream. Its desires, such as they are, are transparent, for they are just what institutional approval keeps in the forefront of consciousness; another institutional pattern would alter their number and intensity; there is little in them that is natural, irreducible, or culturally dangerous. But on the other side, the social bond itself is nothing but the mutual reflection of these self-secure integrities. Recall the definition of love. Is not this the very picture of a small academic? Where is there a place in this hall of mirrors for either personality or fraternity?Essay on psychology in Politics (New York)4. All the "best people" from the gentlemen's clubs, and all the frantic fascist captains, united in common hatred of Socialism and bestial horror at the rising tide of the mass revolutionary movement, have turned to acts of provocation, to foul incendiarism, to medieval legends of poisoned wells, to legalize their own destruction of proletarian organizations, and rouse the agitated petty-bourgeoise to chauvinistic fervor on behalf of the fight against the revolutionary way out of the crisis.Communist pamphlet5. If a new spirit is to be infused into this old country, there is one thorny and contentious reform which must be tackled, and that is the humanization and galvanization of the B.B.C. Timidity here will bespeak canker and atrophy of the soul. The heart of Britain may be sound and of strong beat, for instance, but the British lion's roar at present is like that of Bottom in Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream -- as gentle as any sucking dove. A virile new Britain cannot continue indefinitely to be traduced in the eyes or rather ears, of the world by the effete languors of Langham Place, brazenly masquerading as "standard English." When the Voice of Britain is heard at nine o'clock, better far and infinitely less ludicrous to hear aitches honestly dropped than the present priggish, inflated, inhibited, school-ma'amish arch braying of blameless bashful mewing maidens!Letter in Tribune每段文章的文句都有问题，遑论避免行文粗陋了。

但他们却有两点却是共同的：比喻陈腐和缺少精确性。

作者或者有某种想法却苦于表达，或者在不经意间传达了其他信息，又或者他根本不在乎他的字句是否表达了什么。

这种含混不清与全然无力的表达，是当今英语文章最显著的特点，而在任何政治性的写作中，更是莫此为甚。

一旦选中特定的论题，具体就化为抽象，几乎没人有能力思考说话的口吻，而这都已司空见惯。

文章的选词越来越少的考虑词本身的含义，反倒是越来越多的由短语堆砌而成，一如预制的鸡窝那样叠床架屋。

我将各式各样的手法罗列在下面，并且加上了具体的例子和评注，如此，文章的遣词造句将不再是问题：陈腐的比喻。

一个新造的比喻能够激发视觉联想从而帮助思考，但是从另一方面来说，那些技术上已经“老套”的比喻（例如钢铁般的意志）也已经成为普通词汇，不过仍可随意使用而不失生动。

但是此二者之间却充斥着那些早已丧失激发功能、用烂了的拙劣比喻，之所以仍在使用则仅仅由于他们省去人们自创新词的麻烦。

例如：Ring the changes on(用调包方式骗人), take up the cudgel for（打抱不平）, toe the line(听话), ride roughshod over（欺凌）, stand shoulder to shoulder with(并肩作战), play into the hands of(占便宜), no axe to grind（无个人企图）, grist to the mill（能赚钱）, fishing in troubled waters（浑水摸鱼）, on the order of the day（在议事日程上）, Achilles' heel（致命弱点）, swan song（最后作品）, hotbed(温床).很多人使用这些词都不明就里，（例如，什么叫做“断裂”？），并且相互矛盾的比喻经常掺杂在一起，很多作家根本就不关心自己在说什么是最明显不过的标志。

而一些比喻已经歪曲了自身的原始意义，意识到这一点的人则没有犯这个错误。

例如，toe the line经常写成tow the line；还有另一个例子，the hammer and the anvil，现在通常用来暗示最糟糕的砧板，不过在现实生活中砧板经常震坏了铁锤，那些作者从不会停下来思考他在说什么，从而避免将原始意义本末倒置。