Inception. It feels utterly magical to start this journey, after all the winding and twisting, destruction and distortion, that this should be the new beginning of another turn of the wheel of fate.
I’ve always seen myself as un homme de lettres, even though shamefully I’ve never written anything deep and long enough to fill a cafe menu brochure. But I am always looking for and mesmerised by intriguing languages, from articles of well-known publications to transcripts of British sitcoms. So it’s only faithful to the mission of this blog that I shall dedicate the inaugural post to something I think as core to the English language. The words. Sure, what else but words are there in a language? Yes and no, but perhaps another time.
The Economist publishes many non-biz-econ articles of multifarious genres, such as this one on the English language, which I have been keeping since 2004. The origin and history de la langue anglais is has always been an intriguing and obscure topic - I shall write more on this in future blogs - but, if we were to take a rather large grain of salt, this article is hailing the classic idea on favouring words of the short, sharp Anglo-Saxon origin. Sure, the length of a word is but a rough metric and the definition of Anglo-Saxon is anything but definitive.
Contrary to what most of foreigners learn about English, I would argue that the quintessential English vocabulary is the so-called short, Anglo-Saxon words. If you compare English with other European siblings you’ll find this to be one of the unique characteristics of the language - and one that I strongly believe contributes significantly to the efficacy of English being the dominant language for global commerce and, specifically to my interest, computer programming. Of course, this is my own glancing view not founded on any serious research.
Below is the original article with my comments in bracket.
Title: Out with the long. Byline: “Short words are best”, said Winston Churchill, “and old words when short are the best of all” Published: Oct 7th 2004
(again, I find this is a long-running theme and common understanding in good English writing, echoed also in the famous “Element of Style”, “On Writing Well” and “Write to the Point”, that short words should be preferred)
AND, not for the first time, he was right: short words are best.
Plain they may be, but that is their strength. They are clear, sharp and to the point.
You can get your tongue around them. You can spell them. Eye, brain and mouth work as one to greet them as friends, not foes.
For that is what they are. They do all that you want of them, and they do it well.
On a good day, when all is right with the world, they are one more cause for cheer. On a bad day, when the head aches, you can get to grips with them, grasp their drift and take hold of what they mean. And thus they make you want to read on, not turn the page.
(I truly see the point and beauty of the English language through words like “clear, sharp, spell, work, greet, friend, foe, cheer, ache, grip, grasp, take, hold, mean, read, turn”, one or two syllables, like tiny little fairies sparkling through the text)
Yes, yes, you may say, that all sounds fine. But from time to time good prose needs a change of pace - a burst of speed, a touch of the brake, a slow swoop, a spring, a bound, a stop.
Some might say a shaft of light and then a dim glow, some warp as well as weft, both fire and ice, a roll on the drum as much as a toot on the flute.
(Oh how much I love this paragraph! I love the clever, satirical rebuttal embedded in laying out the criticism itself. 多么有趣的词：pace, burst of speed, touch of the brake, a slow swoop 俯冲, shaft of light 一束光, dim glow, warp and weft 经纱与纬纱, roll on drum, toot on flute 吹奏长笛)
Call it what you will. The point is that to get a range of step, stride and gait means you have to use some long words, some short and some, well, just run of the mill, those whose place is in the mid range.
What’s more, though you may find you can write with just short words for a while, in the end don’t you have to give in and reach for one of those terms which, like it or not, is made up of bits, more bits and yet more bits, and that adds up to a word which is long?
(还是一如既往的风格，短词。gait 步态, run of the mill 平凡的)
Then there is the ban on new words, or at least a puff for the old. Why? Time has moved on. The tongues of yore need help if they are to serve the way we live now. And, come to that, are you sure that the Greeks and Gauls and scribes of Rome were as great as they are cracked up to be?
Singe my white head, they could make long words as well as any Hun or Yank or French homme de lettres who piles his trade these days.
(puff for the old 对老词的推崇, tongue of yore 古早的语言, come to that 正好说到这个, cracked up to be 符合预期的, singe 轻微烧焦)
Well, yes, some of those old folks’ words were on the long side, but long ones were by no means the rule. And though the tongue in which you read this stole words from here and there, and still does, at the start, if there was one, its words were short.
Huh, you may say, those first “words” were no more than grunts. Yet soon they grew to be grunts with a gist, and time has shown that, add to the length of word words as you may, it is hard to beat a good grunt with a good gist.
(是的，英语作为全球通用语言 lingua franca，它不断的在增加外来词。grunt 咕哝, gist 要点)
That is why the short words, when old, are still the tops. Tough as boots or soft as silk, sharp as steel or blunt as toast, there are old, short words to fit each need.
You want to make love, have a chat, ask the way, thank your stars, curse your luck or swear, scold and rail?
Just pluck an old, short word at will. If you doubt that you will find the one you seek, look at what can be done with not much: “To be or not to be?” “And God said, Let there be light; and there was light,” “We are such stuff as dreams are made on,” “The year’s at the sprint/And day’s at the morn…/The lark’s on the wing;/The snail’s on the thorn.”
(“tough as boots”, “soft as silk”, “sharp as steel”, “blunt as toast”. 优雅。)
It can be done, you see. If you but try, you can write well, and say what you want to say, with short words. And you may not need a lot of them: some words add just length to your prose.
That piece of string, the one whose length you all the time have to guess, is no less fine if it is short than if it is long; on its own, its length is not good, not bad, just the sum of its two halves.
So it is with words. The worth of each lies in the ends to which it is put. Tie your string well, or ill, and its length counts for naught.
Make your point well with short words, and you will have no use for long ones. Make it not so well, and you will be glad that you kept them crisp. So, by God, will those who have to read you.
(我对这篇文章一直记忆犹新，因为它代表着我对英语认知的一个重要的方面。无论是外语学习者还是英语母语者，写作的提高都是会经历一样过程。开始时学了用很多“外来”词，从新闻媒体，政经，科研等写作中学习到的用词，到深入了解写作，特别是小说与文学，会发现“短小“的词用的更多。短词，或者姑且 label 它为”安格鲁萨克森“词，不仅是因为“干练”，还有它们的精确，能在音节上搭配出顺口的节奏，以及它们更能“代表”英语)
(另外，除了写作，在日常口语中，这类短词与动词短语占有很高的比例。经典的”Idioms and Phrasal Verbs”系列 by Ruth Gairns and Stuart Redman 里面基本都是这类型的词。所以，多认识一些这些“小精灵”，它们会帮助你提升“纯正”的英语)