George Orwell

George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language," 1946

Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English language is in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do anything about it. Our civilization is decadent and our language -- so the argument runs -- must inevitably share in the general collapse. It follows that any struggle against the abuse of language is a sentimental archaism, like preferring candles to electric light or hansom cabs to aeroplanes. Underneath this lies the half-conscious belief that language is a natural growth and not an instrument which we shape for our own purposes.

Now, it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes: it is not due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual writer. But an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. The point is that the process is reversible. Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional writers. I will come back to this presently, and I hope that by that time the meaning of what I have said here will have become clearer. Meanwhile, here are five specimens of the English language as it is now habitually written.

These five passages have not been picked out because they are especially bad -- I could have quoted far worse if I had chosen -- but because they illustrate various of the mental vices from which we now suffer. They are a little below the average, but are fairly representative examples. I number them so that i can refer back to them when necessary:

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 pamphlet

5. 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

Each of these passages has faults of its own, but, quite apart from avoidable ugliness, two qualities are common to all of them. The first is staleness of imagery; the other is lack of precision. The writer either has a meaning and cannot express it, or he inadvertently says something else, or he is almost indifferent as to whether his words mean anything or not. This mixture of vagueness and sheer incompetence is the most marked characteristic of modern English prose, and especially of any kind of political writing. As soon as certain topics are raised, the concrete melts into the abstract and no one seems able to think of turns of speech that are not hackneyed: prose consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning, and more and more of phrases tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated henhouse. I list below, with notes and examples, various of the tricks by means of which the work of prose construction is habitually dodged:

Dying metaphors. A newly invented metaphor assists thought by evoking a visual image, while on the other hand a metaphor which is technically "dead" (e.g. iron resolution) has in effect reverted to being an ordinary word and can generally be used without loss of vividness. But in between these two classes there is a huge dump of worn-out metaphors which have lost all evocative power and are merely used because they save people the trouble of inventing phrases for themselves. Examples are: Ring the changes on, take up the cudgel for, toe the line, ride roughshod over, stand shoulder to shoulder with, play into the hands of, no axe to grind, grist to the mill, fishing in troubled waters, on the order of the day, Achilles' heel, swan song, hotbed. Many of these are used without knowledge of their meaning (what is a "rift," for instance?), and incompatible metaphors are frequently mixed, a sure sign that the writer is not interested in what he is saying. Some metaphors now current have been twisted out of their original meaning withouth those who use them even being aware of the fact. For example, toe the line is sometimes written as tow the line. Another example is the hammer and the anvil, now always used with the implication that the anvil gets the worst of it. In real life it is always the anvil that breaks the hammer, never the other way about: a writer who stopped to think what he was saying would avoid perverting the original phrase.

Operators or verbal false limbs. These save the trouble of picking out appropriate verbs and nouns, and at the same time pad each sentence with extra syllables which give it an appearance of symmetry. Characteristic phrases are render inoperative, militate against, make contact with, be subjected to, give rise to, give grounds for, have the effect of, play a leading part (role) in, make itself felt, take effect, exhibit a tendency to, serve the purpose of, etc., etc. The keynote is the elimination of simple verbs. Instead of being a single word, such as break, stop, spoil, mend, kill, a verb becomes a phrase, made up of a noun or adjective tacked on to some general-purpose verb such as prove, serve, form, play, render. In addition, the passive voice is wherever possible used in preference to the active, and noun constructions are used instead of gerunds (by examination of instead of by examining). The range of verbs is further cut down by means of the -ize and de- formations, and the banal statements are given an appearance of profundity by means of the not un- formation. Simple conjunctions and prepositions are replaced by such phrases as with respect to, having regard to, the fact that, by dint of, in view of, in the interests of, on the hypothesis that; and the ends of sentences are saved by anticlimax by such resounding commonplaces as greatly to be desired, cannot be left out of account, a development to be expected in the near future, deserving of serious consideration, brought to a satisfactory conclusion, and so on and so forth.

Pretentious diction. Words like phenomenon, element, individual (as noun), objective, categorical, effective, virtual, basic, primary, promote, constitute, exhibit, exploit, utilize, eliminate, liquidate, are used to dress up a simple statement and give an air of scientific impartiality to biased judgements. Adjectives like epoch-making, epic, historic, unforgettable, triumphant, age-old, inevitable, inexorable, veritable, are used to dignify the sordid process of international politics, while writing that aims at glorifying war usually takes on an archaic color, its characteristic words being: realm, throne, chariot, mailed fist, trident, sword, shield, buckler, banner, jackboot, clarion. Foreign words and expressions such as cul de sac, ancien regime, deus ex machina, mutatis mutandis, status quo, gleichschaltung, weltanschauung, are used to give an air of culture and elegance. Except for the useful abbreviations i.e., e.g., and etc., there is no real need for any of the hundreds of foreign phrases now current in the English language. Bad writers, and especially scientific, political, and sociological writers, are nearly always haunted by the notion that Latin or Greek words are grander than Saxon ones, and unnecessary words like expedite, ameliorate, predict, extraneous, deracinated, clandestine, subaqueous, and hundreds of others constantly gain ground from their Anglo-Saxon numbers.* The jargon peculiar to

*An interesting illustration of this is the way in which English flower names were in use till very recently are being ousted by Greek ones, Snapdragon becoming antirrhinum, forget-me-not becoming myosotis, etc. It is hard to see any practical reason for this change of fashion: it is probably due to an instinctive turning away from the more homely word and a vague feeling that the Greek word is scientific.

Marxist writing (hyena, hangman, cannibal, petty bourgeois, these gentry, lackey, flunkey, mad dog, White Guard, etc.) consists largely of words translated from Russian, German, or French; but the normal way of coining a new word is to use Latin or Greek root with the appropriate affix and, where necessary, the size formation. It is often easier to make up words of this kind (deregionalize, impermissible, extramarital, non-fragmentary and so forth) than to think up the English words that will cover one's meaning. The result, in general, is an increase in slovenliness and vagueness.

Meaningless words. In certain kinds of writing, particularly in art criticism and literary criticism, it is normal to come across long passages which are almost completely lacking in meaning.† Words like romantic, plastic, values, human, dead, sentimental, natural, vitality, as used in art criticism, are strictly meaningless, in

† Example: Comfort's catholicity of perception and image, strangely Whitmanesque in range, almost the exact opposite in aesthetic compulsion, continues to evoke that trembling atmospheric accumulative hinting at a cruel, an inexorably serene timelessness . . .Wrey Gardiner scores by aiming at simple bull's-eyes with precision. Only they are not so simple, and through this contented sadness runs more than the surface bittersweet of resignation." (Poetry Quarterly)

the sense that they not only do not point to any discoverable object, but are hardly ever expected to do so by the reader. When one critic writes, "The outstanding feature of Mr. X's work is its living quality," while another writes, "The immediately striking thing about Mr. X's work is its peculiar deadness," the reader accepts this as a simple difference opinion. If words like black and white were involved, instead of the jargon words dead and living, he would see at once that language was being used in an improper way. Many political words are similarly abused. The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies "something not desirable." The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another. In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using that word if it were tied down to any one meaning. Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different. Statements like Marshal Pétain was a true patriot, The Soviet press is the freest in the world, The Catholic Church is opposed to persecution, are almost always made with intent to deceive. Other words used in variable meanings, in most cases more or less dishonestly, are: class, totalitarian, science, progressive, reactionary, bourgeois, equality.

Now that I have made this catalogue of swindles and perversions, let me give another example of the kind of writing that they lead to. This time it must of its nature be an imaginary one. I am going to translate a passage of good English into modern English of the worst sort. Here is a well-known verse from Ecclesiastes:

I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

Here it is in modern English:

Objective considerations of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account.

This is a parody, but not a very gross one. Exhibit (3) above, for instance, contains several patches of the same kind of English. It will be seen that I have not made a full translation. The beginning and ending of the sentence follow the original meaning fairly closely, but in the middle the concrete illustrations -- race, battle, bread -- dissolve into the vague phrases "success or failure in competitive activities." This had to be so, because no modern writer of the kind I am discussing -- no one capable of using phrases like "objective considerations of contemporary phenomena" -- would ever tabulate his thoughts in that precise and detailed way. The whole tendency of modern prose is away from concreteness. Now analyze these two sentences a little more closely. The first contains forty-nine words but only sixty syllables, and all its words are those of everyday life. The second contains thirty-eight words of ninety syllables: eighteen of those words are from Latin roots, and one from Greek. The first sentence contains six vivid images, and only one phrase ("time and chance") that could be called vague. The second contains not a single fresh, arresting phrase, and in spite of its ninety syllables it gives only a shortened version of the meaning contained in the first. Yet without a doubt it is the second kind of sentence that is gaining ground in modern English. I do not want to exaggerate. This kind of writing is not yet universal, and outcrops of simplicity will occur here and there in the worst-written page. Still, if you or I were told to write a few lines on the uncertainty of human fortunes, we should probably come much nearer to my imaginary sentence than to the one from Ecclesiastes.

As I have tried to show, modern writing at its worst does not consist in picking out words for the sake of their meaning and inventing images in order to make the meaning clearer. It consists in gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else, and making the results presentable by sheer humbug. The attraction of this way of writing is that it is easy. It is easier -- even quicker, once you have the habit -- to say In my opinion it is not an unjustifiable assumption that than to say I think. If you use ready-made phrases, you not only don't have to hunt about for the words; you also don't have to bother with the rhythms of your sentences since these phrases are generally so arranged as to be more or less euphonious. When you are composing in a hurry -- when you are dictating to a stenographer, for instance, or making a public speech -- it is natural to fall into a pretentious, Latinized style. Tags like a consideration which we should do well to bear in mind or a conclusion to which all of us would readily assent will save many a sentence from coming down with a bump. By using stale metaphors, similes, and idioms, you save much mental effort, at the cost of leaving your meaning vague, not only for your reader but for yourself. This is the significance of mixed metaphors. The sole aim of a metaphor is to call up a visual image. When these images clash -- as in The Fascist octopus has sung its swan song, the jackboot is thrown into the melting pot -- it can be taken as certain that the writer is not seeing a mental image of the objects he is naming; in other words he is not really thinking. Look again at the examples I gave at the beginning of this essay. Professor Laski (1) uses five negatives in fifty three words. One of these is superfluous, making nonsense of the whole passage, and in addition there is the slip -- alien for akin -- making further nonsense, and several avoidable pieces of clumsiness which increase the general vagueness. Professor Hogben (2) plays ducks and drakes with a battery which is able to write prescriptions, and, while disapproving of the everyday phrase put up with, is unwilling to look egregious up in the dictionary and see what it means; (3), if one takes an uncharitable attitude towards it, is simply meaningless: probably one could work out its intended meaning by reading the whole of the article in which it occurs. In (4), the writer knows more or less what he wants to say, but an accumulation of stale phrases chokes him like tea leaves blocking a sink. In (5), words and meaning have almost parted company. People who write in this manner usually have a general emotional meaning -- they dislike one thing and want to express solidarity with another -- but they are not interested in the detail of what they are saying. A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: 1. What am I trying to say? 2. What words will express it? 3. What image or idiom will make it clearer? 4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? And he will probably ask himself two more: 1. Could I put it more shortly? 2. Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly? But you are not obliged to go to all this trouble. You can shirk it by simply throwing your mind open and letting the ready-made phrases come crowding in. They will construct your sentences for you -- even think your thoughts for you, to a certain extent -- and at need they will perform the important service of partially concealing your meaning even from yourself. It is at this point that the special connection between politics and the debasement of language becomes clear.

In our time it is broadly true that political writing is bad writing. Where it is not true, it will generally be found that the writer is some kind of rebel, expressing his private opinions and not a "party line." Orthodoxy, of whatever color, seems to demand a lifeless, imitative style. The political dialects to be found in pamphlets, leading articles, manifestoes, White papers and the speeches of undersecretaries do, of course, vary from party to party, but they are all alike in that one almost never finds in them a fresh, vivid, homemade turn of speech. When one watches some tired hack on the platform mechanically repeating the familiar phrases -- bestial atrocities, iron heel, bloodstained tyranny, free peoples of the world, stand shoulder to shoulder -- one often has a curious feeling that one is not watching a live human being but some kind of dummy: a feeling which suddenly becomes stronger at moments when the light catches the speaker's spectacles and turns them into blank discs which seem to have no eyes behind them. And this is not altogether fanciful. A speaker who uses that kind of phraseology has gone some distance toward turning himself into a machine. The appropriate noises are coming out of his larynx, but his brain is not involved as it would be if he were choosing his words for himself. If the speech he is making is one that he is accustomed to make over and over again, he may be almost unconscious of what he is saying, as one is when one utters the responses in church. And this reduced state of consciousness, if not indispensable, is at any rate favorable to political conformity.

In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism., question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements. Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them. Consider for instance some comfortable English professor defending Russian totalitarianism. He cannot say outright, "I believe in killing off your opponents when you can get good results by doing so." Probably, therefore, he will say something like this:

"While freely conceding that the Soviet regime exhibits certain features which the humanitarian may be inclined to deplore, we must, I think, agree that a certain curtailment of the right to political opposition is an unavoidable concomitant of transitional periods, and that the rigors which the Russian people have been called upon to undergo have been amply justified in the sphere of concrete achievement."

The inflated style itself is a kind of euphemism. A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outline and covering up all the details. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink. In our age there is no such thing as "keeping out of politics." All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer. I should expect to find -- this is a guess which I have not sufficient knowledge to verify -- that the German, Russian and Italian languages have all deteriorated in the last ten or fifteen years, as a result of dictatorship.

But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. A bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation even among people who should and do know better. The debased language that I have been discussing is in some ways very convenient. Phrases like a not unjustifiable assumption, leaves much to be desired, would serve no good purpose, a consideration which we should do well to bear in mind, are a continuous temptation, a packet of aspirins always at one's elbow. Look back through this essay, and for certain you will find that I have again and again committed the very faults I am protesting against. By this morning's post I have received a pamphlet dealing with conditions in Germany. The author tells me that he "felt impelled" to write it. I open it at random, and here is almost the first sentence I see: "[The Allies] have an opportunity not only of achieving a radical transformation of Germany's social and political structure in such a way as to avoid a nationalistic reaction in Germany itself, but at the same time of laying the foundations of a co-operative and unified Europe." You see, he "feels impelled" to write -- feels, presumably, that he has something new to say -- and yet his words, like cavalry horses answering the bugle, group themselves automatically into the familiar dreary pattern. This invasion of one's mind by ready-made phrases (lay the foundations, achieve a radical transformation) can only be prevented if one is constantly on guard against them, and every such phrase anaesthetizes a portion of one's brain.

I said earlier that the decadence of our language is probably curable. Those who deny this would argue, if they produced an argument at all, that language merely reflects existing social conditions, and that we cannot influence its development by any direct tinkering with words and constructions. So far as the general tone or spirit of a language goes, this may be true, but it is not true in detail. Silly words and expressions have often disappeared, not through any evolutionary process but owing to the conscious action of a minority. Two recent examples were explore every avenue and leave no stone unturned, which were killed by the jeers of a few journalists. There is a long list of flyblown metaphors which could similarly be got rid of if enough people would interest themselves in the job; and it should also be possible to laugh the not un- formation out of existence*, to reduce the amount of Latin and Greek in the average sentence, to drive out foreign phrases

*One can cure oneself of the not un- formation by memorizing this sentence: A not unblack dog was chasing a not unsmall rabbit across a not ungreen field.

and strayed scientific words, and, in general, to make pretentiousness unfashionable. But all these are minor points. The defense of the English language implies more than this, and perhaps it is best to start by saying what it does not imply.

To begin with it has nothing to do with archaism, with the salvaging of obsolete words and turns of speech, or with the setting up of a "standard English" which must never be departed from. On the contrary, it is especially concerned with the scrapping of every word or idiom which has outworn its usefulness. It has nothing to do with correct grammar and syntax, which are of no importance so long as one makes one's meaning clear, or with the avoidance of Americanisms, or with having what is called a "good prose style." On the other hand, it is not concerned with fake simplicity and the attempt to make written English colloquial. Nor does it even imply in every case preferring the Saxon word to the Latin one, though it does imply using the fewest and shortest words that will cover one's meaning. What is above all needed is to let the meaning choose the word, and not the other way around. In prose, the worst thing one can do with words is surrender to them. When you think of a concrete object, you think wordlessly, and then, if you want to describe the thing you have been visualizing you probably hunt about until you find the exact words that seem to fit it. When you think of something abstract you are more inclined to use words from the start, and unless you make a conscious effort to prevent it, the existing dialect will come rushing in and do the job for you, at the expense of blurring or even changing your meaning. Probably it is better to put off using words as long as possible and get one's meaning as clear as one can through pictures and sensations. Afterward one can choose -- not simply accept -- the phrases that will best cover the meaning, and then switch round and decide what impressions one's words are likely to make on another person. This last effort of the mind cuts out all stale or mixed images, all prefabricated phrases, needless repetitions, and humbug and vagueness generally. But one can often be in doubt about the effect of a word or a phrase, and one needs rules that one can rely on when instinct fails. I think the following rules will cover most cases:

(i) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

(ii) Never us a long word where a short one will do.

(iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

(iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active.

(v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

(vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

These rules sound elementary, and so they are, but they demand a deep change of attitude in anyone who has grown used to writing in the style now fashionable. One could keep all of them and still write bad English, but one could not write the kind of stuff that I quoted in those five specimens at the beginning of this article.

I have not here been considering the literary use of language, but merely language as an instrument for expressing and not for concealing or preventing thought. Stuart Chase and others have come near to claiming that all abstract words are meaningless, and have used this as a pretext for advocating a kind of political quietism. Since you don't know what Fascism is, how can you struggle against Fascism? One need not swallow such absurdities as this, but one ought to recognize that the present political chaos is connected with the decay of language, and that one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end. If you simplify your English, you are freed from the worst follies of orthodoxy. You cannot speak any of the necessary dialects, and when you make a stupid remark its stupidity will be obvious, even to yourself. Political language -- and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists -- is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. One cannot change this all in a moment, but one can at least change one's own habits, and from time to time one can even, if one jeers loudly enough, send some worn-out and useless phrase -- some jackboot, Achilles' heel, hotbed, melting pot, acid test, veritable inferno, or other lump of verbal refuse -- into the dustbin, where it belongs.

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<论中文之西化> 余光中

余光中：论中文之西化 Aug 19, 2005

论中文之西化
余光中

语言和钱币是人与人交往的重要工具。同胞之间，语言相通，币制统一，往来应无问题，但是和外国人往来，钱币就必须折合，而语言就必须翻译。折合外币，只须硬性规定；翻译外文，却没有那么简单，有时折而不合，简 直要用“现金”交易。所以Kung Fu在英文里大其行道，而“新潮”、“迷你”之类也流行于中文。外来语侵入中文，程度上颇有差别。‘“新潮”只是泽意，“迷你”则是译音。最初的外语音译，例如“巴立门”、“海乙那”、“罗曼蒂克”、“烟土彼里纳”、“德溪克拉西”等等，现在大半改用意译，只有在取笑的时候才偶一引用了。真正的“现金”交易，是直引原文。这在２０年代最为流行：郭沫若的诗中，时而symphony，时而pioneer
，时而gasoline，今日看来，显得十分幼稚。
英国作家常引拉丁文，帝俄作家常引法文，本是文化交流不可避免的现象。今日阿刺伯的数字通行世界，也可算是一种“阿化”：西方书中，仍有少数在用罗马数字，毕竟是渐行淘汰了。中国的文化博大而悠久，语文上受外来的影响历来不大；比起西欧语文字根之杂，更觉中文之纯。英国九百年前亡于法系的诺曼第，至今英文之中法文的成份极重，许多“体面”字眼都来自法文。例如 pretty一字，意为“漂亮”，但要意指美得高雅拔俗，却要说beautiful——究其语报，则pretty出于条顿族之古英文，故较“村野’”；而beautiful出于古法文，更可上溯拉丁文，故较“高责”。在莎剧中，丹麦王子临死前喘息说：
Absent thee from felicity a while，
And in this harsh world draw they breath in pain

历来评家交相推许，正因前句死的舒解和后句生的挣扎形成了鲜明的对照，而absent和felicity两个复音字都源出拉丁，从古法文传来， harsh、world、draw、breath四个单音字却都是古英文的土产。在文化上，统治者带来的法文自然比较“高贵”。相对而言，中国两度亡于异族，但中文的“蒙古化”和“满化”却是极其有限的。倒是文化深厚的印度，凭宗教的力量影响了我们近两千年之久。但是，尽管佛教成为我国三大宗教之一，且影响我国的哲学、文学、艺术等等至为深远，梵文对中文的影响却似乎有限。最浅显的一面，当然是留下了一些名词的音译或意译。菩萨、罗汉、浮图、涅醒、头陀、行者、沙弥之类的字眼，久已成为中文的一部分了。我们习焉不察，似乎“和尚”本是中文，其实这字眼也源于梵文，据说是正确泽音“邬波驮耶”在西域语中的讹译。又如中文里面虽有“檀越”一词，而一般和尚却常用“施主”而不叫“檀越”。
梵文对于中文的影响，毕竟限于佛经的翻译，作用的范围仍以宗教为主，作用的对象不外乎僧侣和少数高士。刘禹锡“可以调素琴，阅金经”，李贺“楞枷堆案前，楚辞系肘后”，柳宗元“闲持贝叶书，步出东斋读”，其实真解梵文的读书人，恐怕寥寥无几。到了现代，英文对中国知识分子的影响，不但藉基督教以广传播，而且纳入教育正轨，成为必修课程，比起梵文来，实在普遍得多，但对中文的害处，当然也相应增加。佛教传入中国之初，中国文化正当盛期，中文的生命厚实稳固，自有足够的力量加以吸收。但本世纪以来，西方文化藉英文及翻译大量输入，却正值中国文化趋于式微，文言的生命已经僵化，白话犹在牙牙学语的稚龄，力气不足，遂有消化不良的现象。梵文对中文的影响似乎止于词汇，英文对中文的影响已经渗入文法。前者的作用止于表皮，后者的作者已达周身的关节。
六十年前，新文化运动发轫之初，一般学者的论调极端西化，语文方面的主张也不例外。早在1918年3 月14日，钱玄同在《中国今后文字问题》一文中就说：“中国文字，论其字形，则非拼音而为象形文字之末流，不便于识，不便于写；论其字义，则意义含糊，文法极不精密；论其在今日学问上之应用，则新理新事新物之名词，一无所有；论其过去之历史，则千分之九百九十九为记载孔门学说及道教妖言之记号……欲使中国不亡，欲使中国民族为２０世纪文明之民族，必以废孔学，灭道教为根本之解决，而废记载孔门学说及道教妖言之汉文，尤为根本解决之根本解决。至废汉文之后，应代以何种文字，此固非一人所能论定；玄同之意，则以为当采用文法简赅，发音整齐，语根精良之人为的文字 Esperanto。唯Esperanto现在尚在提倡之时，汉语一时亦未能遽尔消灭；此过渡之短时期中，窃谓有一办法：则用某一种外国文字为国文之补助……照现在中国学校情形而论，似乎英文已成习惯，则用英文也可；或谓法兰西为世界文明之先导，当用法文……从中学起，除国文及本国史地外，其余科目，悉读西文原书。如此，则旧文字之势力，既用种种方法力求灭杀，而其毒焰或可大减——既废文言而用白话，则在普通教育范围之内，断不必读什么“古文’发昏做梦的话……新学问之输入，又因直用西文原 书之故，而其观念当可正确矣。”
在钱文之前，《新世纪》第四十号已发表吴稚晖的意见：“中国文字，迟早必废。欲为暂时之改良，莫若限制字数；凡较僻之字，皆弃而不用，有如日本之限制汉文……老为限制行用之字所发挥不足者，即可搀入万国新语（ 即Esperanto）；以便渐搀渐多，将汉文渐废。” 钱文既刊之后，胡适和陈独秀立表赞同。胡适说： “我以为中国将来应该有拼音的文字。但是文言中单音太多，决不能变成拼音文字。所以必须先用白话文字来代替文言的文字，然后把白话的文字变成拼音的文字。”陈独秀则说：“吴先生‘中国文字，迟早必废’之说，浅人闻之，虽必骇怪；循之进化公例，恐终无可逃，惟仅废中国文字乎？抑并废中国言语乎？此二者关系密切，而性质不同之问题也，各国反对废国文者，皆破灭累世文学为最大理由，然中国文字，既难传载新事新理，且为腐毒思 想之巢窟，废之诚不足惜……当此过渡时期，惟有先废汉文，且存汉语，而改用罗马字母书之。”
六十年后重读这些文章，其幼稚与偏激，令人不能置信。所谓世界语，始终不成气候，将来可见也难成功。至于中文，岂是少数一厢情愿的‘“革命家”所能废止？六十年来，中文不但废止不了，而且随教育的普及更形普及，近年西方学生来中国学习中文的，更是越来越多。我国学者和外国的汉学家，对中国古典文学不但肯定其价值，而且加强其评析，并不当它做“腐毒思想之巢窟”。六十年来，我国的作家一代接一代努力创作，累积下来的成就 足以说明，用白话文也可以写出优秀的诗、散文、小说、评论。
但是六十年前，所谓文学革命的健将，一味鼓吹西化，并未远瞩到这些前景。１９１９年２月１１日，傅斯年在《汉语改用拼音文字的初步谈》长文里说：“近一年来，代死文言而兴的白话发展迅速的很，预计十年以内，国语的文学必有小成。稍后此事的，便是拼音文字的制作。我希望这似是而非的象形文字也在十年后人墓。”
傅斯年此文论调的激烈，和他的那些新派老师是一致的。此文刊出前一个半月，他已发表了一篇长文，叫做《怎样做白话文》。他认为中国白话文学的遗产仍太贫乏，不足借镜，要把白话文写好，得有两个条件。第一就是乞灵于说话，留心听自己说话，也要留心听别人怎样说话。傅氏说：“第一流的文章，定然是纯粹的语言，没有丝毫羼杂。任凭我们眼里看进，或者耳里听进，总起同样的感想。若是用耳听或眼看，效果不同，便落在第二流以下去了。”不过，傅氏立刻指出，语文合一的条件并不充足，因为口语固然有助文章的流利，却无助文章的组织，也就是说，有助造句，却无助成章。所以，要写“独到的白话文，超于说话的白话文，有创造精神的白话文”，尚有赖 于第二个条件。
这第二个条件，傅氏说，“就是直用西洋人的款式，文法、词法、句法、章法、词技（figure of speech）……一切修词学上的方法，造成一种超于现在的国语、欧化的国语，因而成就一种欧化国语的文学”。
傅氏又说，理想的白话文应该包括“1）逻辑的白话文：就是具逻辑的条理，有逻辑的次序，能表现科学思想的白话文。2）哲学的白话文：就是层次极复，结构极密，能容纳最深最精思想的白话文。3）美术的白话文：就是运用匠心做成，善于人人情感的白话文”。照傅氏的看法，“这三层在西洋文中都早做到了。我们拿西洋文当做榜样，去摹仿他，正是极适当极简便的办法。所以这理想的白话文，竟可说是———欧化的白话文”。
最后，傅氏又说：“练习作文时，不必自己出题、自己造词。最好是挑选若干有价值的西洋文学，用直译的笔法去译他；径自用他的字调、句调，务必使他原来的旨趣，一点不失……自己作文章时，径自用我们读西文所得，翻译所得的手段，心里不要忘欧化文学的主义。务必使我们作出的文章，和西文近似，有西文的趣味。这样办法，自然有失败的时节，弄成四不像的白话。但是万万不要因为一时的失败，一条的失败，丢了我们这欧化文学主义。 总要想尽办法，融化西文词调作为我用。”
博斯年的这些意见，六十年后看来，自然觉得过分。实际上，新文学运动初期的健将，例皆低估了文言，高估了西文。胡适在当时，一口咬定“自从三百篇到于今，中国的文学凡是有一些儿价值有一些儿生命的，都是白话的，或最近于白话”。他认为我们爱读陶渊明的诗，李后主的词，爱读杜甫的《石壕吏》、《兵车行》，因为这些全是白话的作品。但是证以近年来的文学批评，不近于白话的李贺、李商隐，也尽多知音，甚至于韩愈、黄庭坚，也不曾全被冷落。杜甫的语言，文白雅俚之间的幅度极大，有白如《夜归》之诗句“峡口惊猿闻一个”和“杖黎不睡谁能那”，也有临终前艰奥多典的《风疾舟中伏枕书怀》那样的作品。年轻一代的学者评析杜诗，最感兴趣的反而 是《秋兴八首》那一组七律。
新文学的先锋人物对旧文学那么痛恨，自有其历史背景，心理的反应该是很自然的。前面引述的几篇文章，大都发表于１９１８年，与废科举（光绪三十一年，公元１９０５年）相距不过十三年，科举的桂桔犹有余悸。年事较长的一辈，如梁启超、吴稚晖、蔡元培、陈独秀等，且都中过举，具有亲身经验。所谓八股文，所谓桐城谬种选学妖孽，对他们说来，正是吞吐已久的文学气候。我们不要忘了，曾国藩死的那年，吴推晖已经七岁，很可能已经在读桐城派的古文了。曾国藩说：“古文无施不宜，但不宜说理耳”，乃被钱玄同抓到把柄。当时的剖记小说多为聊斋末流，正如胡适所嘲，总不外如下的公式： “某地某生，游某地，眷某妓。情好綦笃，遂订白头之约……而大妇妒甚，不能相容，女抑郁以死……生抚尸一恸几绝。”林琴南译小说，把“女儿怀了孕，母亲为她打胎”的意思写成了“其女珠，其母下之”，一时传为笑柄。这些情形，正是新文学先锋人物反文言的历史背景。
不过胡适、博斯年等人毕竟旧学深邃，才能痛陈文言末流之种种弊病。他们自己动笔写起文言来，还是不含糊的。以博斯年为例，他最初发表《文学革新申议》和《文言合一草议》，是用文言，到了发表《怎样做白话文》时，就改写白话了。一个人有了傅斯年这么深厚的中文根底，无论怎么存心西化，大致总能“西而化之”，不至于画虎类犬，陷于“西而不化”之境。１９５０年，孟真先生殁前数月，传来萧伯纳逝世的消息，他一时兴感，写了三千多字的一篇悼文《我对萧伯纳的看法》，刊在《自由中国》半月刊上。文中对那位“滑稽之雄”颇有贬词，但是令我读之再三而低回不已的，却是那简洁有力的白话文。足见真通中文的人，体魄健全，内力深厚，所以西化得起。西化不起，西而不化的人，往往中文原就欠通。今日大学生笔下的中文，已经够西化的了，西化且已过头，他们所需要的，便是“华化”。
１９４６年，朱自清在《鲁迅先生的中国语文观》一文中，说鲁迅“赞成语言的欧化而反对刘半农先生‘归真返朴’的主张。他说欧化文法侵入中国白话的大原因不是好奇，乃是必要。要话说得精密，固有的白话不够用，就只得采取些外国的句法。这些句法比较难懂，不像茶泡饭似的可以一口吞下去，但补偿这缺点的是精密”。在该文结尾时，朱氏又说鲁迅主张白话文“不该采取太特别的土话，他举北平话的‘别闹’、‘别说’做例子，说太土。可是要上口、要顺口。他说做完一篇小说总要默读两遍，有拗口的地方，就或加或改，到读得顺口为止。但是翻译却宁可忠实而木顺；这种不顺他相信只是暂时的，习惯了就会觉得顺了。若是真不顺，那会被自然淘汰掉的。他可是反对凭空生造；写作时如遇到没有相宜的白话可用的地方，他宁可用古语就是文言，决不生造”。
就这两段引文而言，鲁迅的“白话文观”可以归纳为三点：第一，白话文的西化是必要的，因为西文比中文精确，而忠实不顺的直译也有助于西化。第二，白话文不宜太用土语。第三，白话不济的时候，可济之以文言，却不 可生造怪语。这三点意见，我想从后面论起。
白话不足，则济之以文言：这是好办法，我在写散文或翻译时，就是如此。问题在于，今日的大学生和不少作家，文盲读得太少，中文底子脆薄，写起白话文来，逢到笔下周转不灵，山穷水尽之际，胸中哪有文言的词汇和句法可以乞援？倒是英文读过几年，翻译看过多本，于是西化的词汇和句法，或以“折合”，或以“现金”的姿态，一齐奔赴腕底来了。五四人物危言耸听，要全盘西化，毕竟因为复笥便便，文理通达，笔下并没有西化到哪里去。受害的倒是下一代以至下两代，因为目前有些知识分子，口头虽然侈言要回归文化传统，或者以民族主义者自许，而将他人斥为洋奴，却很少检点自己笔下的中文已经有多西化。
至于白话文不宜太用土语，当然也是对的。酌量使用方言，尤其是在小说对话里，当有助于乡土风味，现场感觉，但如大量使用，反成为“外乡人”欣赏的障碍。有所得必有所失：要走方言土语的路子，就不能奢望遍及全国的读者。不过鲁迅说北京话如“别闹”、“别说”之类太土，不直入白话文，却没有说中。“别闹”。“别说”、“别东拉西扯”等等说法，随着国语的推广，早已成为白话文的正宗了。
和本文关系最密切，而我最难接受的，是鲁迅白话文观的第一点。忠实而不顺的译文，是否真为忠实，颇成问题。原文如果本来不顺，直译过来仍是不顺，才算忠实。原文如果畅顺无碍，译文却竟不顺，怎么能算“忠实”？不顺的直译只能助长“西而不化”，却难促进“西而化之”。天晓得，文理不顺的直译误了多少初试写作的青年。至于西化之为必须，是因为西文比中文精确——这一点，不但鲁迅一口咬定，即连钱玄同、胡适、傅斯年等人，也 都深信不疑。西文果真比中文精确周密吗？中文西化之后，失之于畅顺者，果真能得之于精密吗？
凡熟悉英国文学史的人，都知道１６世纪的英国散文有一种“优浮绩思体”（Euphuism），句法浮华而对称，讲究双声等等效果，又好使事用典，并炫草木虫鱼之学。照说这种文体有点近于中国的骈文与汉赋，但因西文文法繁复，虚字太多，语尾不断变换，字的音节又长短参差，所以比起中国骈文的圆美对仗来，实在笨拙不灵，难怪要为文豪史考特所笑。此后厂世纪的文风渐趋艰奥繁复，去清新自然的语调日远，几位散文名家如柏尔敦、布朗、泰勒等都多少染上此体。至于米尔顿，则无论在诗篇或论文中，都好用迂回雕琢的句法，生僻拟古的字眼，而典故之多，也不下于杜甫或李商隐。直到朱艾敦出现，这种矫揉造作的文风才被他朴实劲拔的健笔所廓清，颇有 “文起八代之衰”的气概。
至于英诗的难懂，古则有邓约翰、白朗宁、霍普金斯，现代的诗人更是车载斗量，不可胜数。艾略特、奥登、狄伦•汤默斯等人的作品，即使经人注解诠释，仍是不易把握。拜伦与华兹华斯同时，却嘲其晦涩，说只有妄人才自称能懂华兹华斯的诗。丁尼生与白朗宁，同为维多利亚大诗人，却说白朗宁的长诗《梭德罗》，他只解其首末两句。有这么多难懂的作品而要说英文如何精密，总有点勉强吧。
莎士比亚的诗句：
Most busy lest, when I do it；
有四家的诠释各不相同。莎翁另一名句：
All that glitters is not gold.
按文法意为“凡耀目者皆非黄金”，但原意却是“耀目者未必皆黄金”。这些，也不能叫做精密。也许有人要说，诗总不免曲折含蓄一些，那么，梅礼迪斯、乔艾斯等人的小说，又如何呢？再看《史记》中的名句：
广出猎，见草中石，以为虎而射之，中石，没 镞，视之，石也，因复更射之，终不能复入石矣。汉学名家华兹生（Burton Watson）的英译是：
Li Kuang was out hunting one time when he spied a rock in the grass which he mistook for a tiger. He shot an arrow at the rock and hit it with such force that the tip of the arrow embedded itself in the rock. Later, when he discovered that it was a rock, he tried shooting at it again, but he was unable to piece it a second time.

华兹生是美国年轻一代十分杰出的汉学家兼翻译家，他英译的这篇《李将军列传》我曾选入政大的《大学英文读本》。前引李广射石之句的英译，就英文论英文，简洁有力，实在是上乘的手笔。为了追摹司马迁朴素刚劲而又明快的语调，华兹生也尽量使用音节短少意义单纯的字眼。但是原文十分浓缩，词组短而节奏快，像“中石，没镞，视之，石也”八字四组，逼人而来，颇有苏拭 “白战不许持寸铁”的气势，而这是英文无能为力的。此句原文仪３３字，英译却用了７０个字。细阅之下，发现多出来的这３７个字，大半是中文所谓的虚字。例如原文只有１个介系词‘中”、３个代名词“之”，但在英文里却有７个介系词，１２个代名词。原文的“因”字可视为连接词，英文里的连接词及关系代词如when、which、that之类却有五个。原文没有冠词，英文里a 、an、the之类却平添了十个。英文文法的所谓“精密”，恐怕有一大半是这些虚字造成的印象。李广射虎中石的故事，司马迁只用了３３个字，已经具体而生动地呈现在我们眼前，谁也不觉得有什么含糊或者遗漏的地方，也就是说，不觉得有欠“精密”。中英文句相比，英译真的更精密吗？原文一句，只有“广”一个主词，统摄八个动词，气贯全局，所以动作此起彼伏，快速发展，令人目不暇瞬。英译里，主词李广却一化为七，散不成形。同时，中文一个单句，英文却繁衍为三个复合句，紧张而急骤的节奏感已无从保留。也许英译把因果关系交代得显眼一些，但是原文的效果却丧失了。我们绝对无意苛求于华兹生，只想说明：英文的“文法机器”里，链条、齿轮 之类的零件确是多些，但是功能不一定比中文更高。
再以贾岛的五绝《寻隐者不遇》为例：
松下问童子，
言师采药去。
只在此山中，
云深不知处。
四句话都没有主词。在英文的“文法机器”里，主词这大零件是缺不得的。为求精密，我们不妨把零件全部装上去，然后发动新机器试试看：
我来松下问童子，
童子言师采药去。
师行只在此山中，
云深童子不知处。
这一来，成了打油诗不打紧，却是交代得死板落实，毫无回味的余地了。这几个主词不加上去，中国人仍然一目了然，不会张冠李戴，找错人的。这正好说明，有时候文法上的“精密”可能只是幻觉，有时候恐怕还会碍事。
有人会说，你倒省力，把太史公抬出来镇压洋人——拿《史记》原文跟英译来比货色，未免不公道。这话说得也是。下面且容我以洋制洋，抬出英文的大师来评英文吧。哲学家罗素举过这么一个例句：
Human beings are completely exempt from undesirable behavior pattern only when certain prerequisites, not satisfied except in a small percentage of actual cases, have, through some fortuitous concourse of favorable circumstances, whether congenital or environmental, chanced to combine in producing an individual in whom many factors deviate from the norm in a socially advantageous manner.
罗素是哲学家里面文笔最畅达用字最淳朴的一位，他最讨厌繁琐又浅陋的伪学术论文。他说，前引的长句可以代表晚近不少社会科学论文的文体，其实这长句翻来覆去说了半天，拆穿了，原意只是：
All men are scoundrels, or at any rate almost all. The men who are not must have had unusual luck, both in their birth and in their upbringing.
罗素只用２８个字就说清楚的道理，社会科学家却用了５５个字，其中还动员了prerequisites, concourse一类的大名词，却愈说愈糊涂。这种伪学术论文在英文里多得很，表面上看起来字斟句酌，术语森严，其实徒乱人意，并不“精密”。
另一位慨叹英文江河日下的英国人，是名小说家欧威尔（George Orwell）。他的《政治与英文》（Politics and the English Language）一文，犀利透彻，是关心此道的志士不可不读的杰作。欧威尔此文虽以英文为例，但所涉政治现象及原理却极广阔，所以也可用其他语文来印证。他认为一国语文之健康与否，可以反映并影响社会之治乱，文化之盛衰，而专制之政权，必须使语言的意义混乱，事物的名实相淆，才能浑水摸鱼，以巩固政权。他指出，由于政党和政客口是心非，指鹿为马，滥用堂皇的名词，诸如“民主”、“自由”、“正义”、“进步”、“反动 ”、“人民”、“革命”、“法西斯”等等字眼已经没有意义。他在文中举出五个例句，证明现代英文的两大通病：意象陈腐，语言不清。下面是其中的两句：
1) I am not, indeed, sure whether it is not true to say that the Milton who once seemed not unlike a seventeenth--century Shelly had not become, out of an experience ever more bitter in each year, more alien to the founder of that Jesuit sect which nothing could induce him to tolerate.
2)All the "best people" from the gentlemen's clubs, and all the frantic fascist captains, united in common hatred of Socialism and bestial horror of 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--bourgeoisie to chauvinistic fervour on behalf of the fight against the revolutionary way out of the crisis.

第一句摘自拉斯基（Harold Laski）教授的《言论自由》一书。拉斯基是牛津出身的政治学家，曾任英国工党主席，在二次大战前后名重士林，当时费孝通等人几乎每文必提此公大名。但是前引论述米尔顿宗教态度转变的例句，在５３个字里竟一连用了５个否定词，乃使文义反复无定，简直不知所云。同时，该用akin（亲近）之处，竟然用alien（疏远），又使文义为之一反。至于第二句，欧威尔说，这样的句子里，语言几乎已和所代表的意义分了家；又说这种文章的作者，通常只有一腔朦胧的情绪，他们只想表示要攻击谁，拉拢谁，至于推理的精密细节，他们并不关心。
欧威尔前文曾说现代英文意象陈腐，语言不清，兹再引用他指责的两个例句，加以印证。其一是： TheFascist octopus has sung its swan song.（法四斯的八脚章鱼已自唱天鹅之歌——意即法西斯虽如百足之虫，如今一败涂地，终于僵毙。）这句话的不通，在于意象矛盾：法西斯政权既然是章鱼，怎么又变成了天鹅呢？章鱼象征势力强大无远弗届的组织，天鹅是一个高雅美妙的形象，而天鹅之歌通常是指作家或音乐家临终前的作品。两个意象由法西斯贯串在一起，实在不伦不类。其．二是： In my opinion it is a not unjustifiable assumption that...（意为“在我看来，下面的假设不见得不能成立”。）其实，只要说I think两个字就已足够。这种迂回冗赘的语法，正是“精密”的大敌。英文里冠冕堂皇，冗长而又空洞的公文体，所谓“高拔的固格” （gobbledygook），皆属此类文字污染。
鲁迅认为中文西化之后，失之于生硬者，得之于精密、傅斯年认为逻辑、哲学、美术三方面的白话文都应以西文为典范，因为西文兼有三者之长。从前引例句的分析看来，西文也可能说理含混，往往不够精密，至于“入人情感”之功，更不见得优于中文。鲁迅、博斯年等鼓吹中文西化，一大原因是当时的白话文尚未成熟，表达的能力尚颇有限，似应多乞外援。六十年后，白话文去芜存菁，不但锻炼了口语，重估了文言，而且也吸收了外文，形成了一种多元的新文体。今日的白话文已经相当成熟，不但不可再加西化，而且应该回过头来检讨六十年间西化之得失，对“恶性西化”的各种病态，尤应注意革除。（1979年7月）

<从西而不化到西而化之> 余光中

从西而不化到西而化之

余光中

新文学迄今已有六十年的历史，白话文在当代的优秀作品中，比起二三十年代来，显已成熟得多。在这种作品里，文言的简洁浑成，西语的井然条理，口语的亲切自然，都已驯驯然纳入了白话文的新秩序，形成一种富于弹性的多元文体。这当然是指一流作家笔下的气象，但是一般知识分子，包括在校的大学生在内，却欠缺这种选择和重组的能力，因而所写的白话文，恶性西化的现象正日益严重。究其原因，读英文的直接作用，看翻译的间接默化，都有影响。所谓翻译，并不限于译书与译文，凡举报纸、电视、广播等大众媒介惯用的译文体，也不无污染之嫌。有时候，文言也可以西化的。例如“甘乃迪总统曾就此一举世瞩目之重大问题，与其白宫幕僚作深夜之紧急商讨” 一句，便是半吊子文言纳入西文句法后的产品。中文通达的人面对无所不在的译文体，最多感到眼界不清耳根不静，颇为恼人。中文根抵原就薄弱的人，难逃这类译文体的天罗地网，耳濡目染，久而习于其病，才真是无可救药。

我曾另有文章抽样评析成名作家笔下西化的现象，下文我要从目前流行的西化用语和句法之中，举出 一些典型的例子来，不但揭其病状，还要约略探其病根。我只能说“约略”，因为目前恶性西化的现象，交茎牵藤，错节盘根，早已纠成了一团，而溯其来源，或为外文，或为劣译，或为译文体的中文，或则三者结为一体，浑沌而难分了。

1、那张唱片买了没有？

买了（它了）。

（它）好不好听？

（它）不太好听。

2、你这件新衣真漂亮，我真喜欢（它）。

3、他这三项建议很有道理，我们不妨考虑（它们）。

4、花莲是台湾东部的小城，（它）以海景壮美闻名。

5、舅舅的双手已经丧失了（它们的）一部分的灵活性了。

西化病状很多，滥用代名词是一种。前面五句括弧里的代名词或其所有格，都是多余的，代名词做受词时更常省去。文言里的“之”却是例外：李白诗句“青天有月来几时？我今停杯一问之”正是如此。第五句整句西而不化，问题还不止于滥用代名词所有格。其实“还原”为自然的中文，无非是“舅舅的双手已经有点不灵了”。

6、一年有春、夏、秋和冬四季。

7、李太大的父亲年老和常生病。

8、我受了他的气，如何能忍受和不追究？

9、同事们都认为他的设计昂贵和不切实际。

目前的中文里，并列、对立的关系，渐有给“和”字去包办的危机，而表示更婉转更曲折的连接词如“而”。“又”、“且”等，反有良币见逐之虞。这当然是英文的ａｎｄ在作怪。在英文里，名词与名词，形容词与形容词，副词与副词，甚至介系词与介系词，一句话，词性相同的字眼之间，大半可用ａｎｄ来连接，但在中文里，“和”、“及”、“与”等却不可如此揽权。中文说 “笑而不答”，“顾而乐之”，“顾左右而言他”，何等顺畅；一旦西化到说成“笑但不答”，“顾与乐之”，“顾左右以及言他”，中文就真完了。此外，中文并列事物，往往无须连接词，例如“生老病死”、“金木水火土” 等，都不应动员什么连接词。句６当然应删去“和”字。句７可作 “年老而多病”或“年老多病”。句８可以“而”代“和”，句９亦然。

10、（关于）王教授的为人，我们已经讨论过了。

11、你有（关于）老吴的消息吗？

12、（关于）这个人究竟有没有罪（的问题），谁也不敢判断。

介系词用得太多，文句的关节就不灵活。“关于”。 “有关”之类的介系词在中文里越来越活跃，都是about、concerning、with regard to等的阴影在搞鬼。前面这三句里，删去括弧内的字眼，句法一定干净得多。有人曾经跟我抬杠，说“关于老吴的消息”是听别人说的，而“老吴的消息”是直接得自老吴的，怎可不加区别？英文里 hear from和 hear of确是判然有别，但在中文里，加不加“关于”是否可资区别，却不一定。加上“关于”，是否就成间接听来，不加“关于”，是否就来自老吴自己，在中文里还作不得准。所以这一点“精密”还只是幻觉。

13、作为一个中国人，我们怎能不爱中国？

14、作为一个丈夫的他是失败的，但是作为一个市长的他却很成功。

15、缇萦已经尽了一个作为女儿的责任了。

表示身份的介系词早已渗透到中文里来了。其实在中文里，本来只用一个“做”字。句１４大可简化成：“他做丈夫虽然失败，做市长却很成功。”句１５也可改为：“缇萦已经尽了做女儿的责任了。”句１３的毛病，除了 “作为”之外，还有单复数不相符合，最自然的说法该是：“身为中国人，怎能不爱中国？”

16、（对于）这件事，你们还没有（作出）决定吗？

17、敌方对我们的建议尚未作出任何的反应。

18、对法西斯的暴政他（作出）强烈的抗议。

19、报界对这位无名英雄一致作出哀痛与惋惜。

20、兄弟两人争论一夜，最后还是哥哥（作出）让步。

在英文里，许多东西都可以“作出”来的：赚钱叫“做钱”，求欢叫“做爱”，眉目传情叫“做眼色”，赶路叫“做时间”，生火叫“做火”，生事叫“做麻烦”，设计叫“做计划”，决策叫“做政策”。在中文里，却不是这种做法。近年来，“作出”一语日渐猖撅，已经纂夺了许多动词的正位。这现象目前在祖国大陆上最为严重，香港也颇受波及。结果是把许多现成而灵活的动词，贬成了抽象名词，再把这万事通的“作出”放在前面，凑成了一个刻板无趣苍白无力的“综合动词”。以前“建议”原是自给自足独来独往的动词——例如“他建议大家不妨和解”——现在却变成了“作出建议”综合动词里的受词。其实“建议”之为动词，本来就已是一个动词（建）加名词（议）的综合体，现在无端又在前面加上一个极其空泛的动词（作出），不但重复，而且夺去了原来动词的生命，这真是中文的堕落。近年来这类综合动词出现在报刊和学生习作之中，不一而足：硬牵到“作出”后面来充受词的字眼，至少包括“主动”、“贡献”、“赞叹”、“请求”、“牺牲”、“轻视”、“讨论”、“措施”等等，实在可怕！其实这些字眼的前面，或应删去这万恶的 “作出”，或应代以他词。例如“采取主动”，“加以讨论”， “极表轻视”，就比漫不经心地代人公式来得自然而道地。

在现代英文里,尤其是大言夸夸的官样文章,也颇多这种病状:《一九八四》的作者欧威尔在《政治与英文》(Politics and the English Language: by George Orwell)里早已慨乎言之。例如原来可用单纯明确的动词之处,现在大半代以冗长杂凑的片语原来可说cause,现却说give rise to;同样地, show, lead, serve to, tend to等也扩充门面,变成了make itself felt, play a leading role in, serve the purpose of, exhibit a tendency to。欧威尔把prove, serve, form, play, render等一拍即合的万能动词叫“文字的义肢”(verbal false limb)。“作出”,正是中文里的义肢,装在原是健全却遭摧残的动词之上。

21、杜甫的诗中存在着浓厚的人民性。

22、台北市的交通有不少问题（存在人）

23、中西文化的矛盾形成了代沟（的存在）。

24、旅伴之间总难免会有磨擦（的发生）。

25、我实在不知道他为什么要来香港（的原因）。

“有”在中文里原是自给自足的大好动词，但早期的新文学里偏要添上蛇足，成为“有着”，甚至“具有着”，已是自找麻烦。西化之后，又有两个现象：一是把它放逐，代以貌若高雅的“存在”；一是仍予保留，但觉其不堪重任，而在句未用隆重的“存在”来镇压。这大概也算是一种“存在主义”吧。句２１中“存在着”三字，本来用一个“有”字已足。不然，也可用“富于”来代替“存在着浓厚的”。至于句２４末之“发生”及句25末之“ 原因”，也都是西化的蛇足，宜斩之。

26、截至目前为止，劫机者仍未有明确的表示。

27、《汉姆莱特》是莎士比亚的名剧（之一）。

28、李白是中国最伟大的诗人之一。

29、在一定的程度上，我愿意支持你的流行歌曲净化运动。

30、陈先生在针灸的医术上有一定的贡献。

英文文法有些地方确比中文精密，但绝非处处如此。有时候，这种精密只是幻觉，因为“精密”的隔壁就住着“繁琐”。中文说“他比班上的同学都强”，英文却要说“他比班上的任何其他同学都强”。加上“任何其他”，并不更精密多少，就算精密一点，恐怕也被繁琐抵消了吧。英文的说法，如果细加分析，当会发现“任何”的意思已经包含在“都”里；至于“其他”二字，在表面上的逻辑上似乎是精密些，但是凭常识也知道；一个学生不会比自己强的。同样，英文说“汉城气候比台北的（气候）热”，也不见得就比中文的“汉城的气候比台北 热”精密多少。句２６之首六字如改为“迄今”，意义是一样的。句２７删去“之一”，毫无损失，因为只要知道莎士比亚是谁，就不会误会他只有一部名剧。句２８如写成“李白是中国的大诗人”或者“李白是中国极伟大的诗人”，意思其实是一样的。英文“最高级形容词十名词十之一”的公式，其客观性与精密性实在是有限的：除非你先声明中国最伟大的人在你心目中是三位还是七位，否则李白这“之一”的地位仍是颇有弹性的，因为其他的“之一”究有多少，是个未知数。所以“最伟大的某某之一”这公式，分析到底，恐怕反而有点朦胧。至于“之一 ”之为用，也常无必然。例如“这是他所以失败的原因之一”，就等于“这是他所以失败的一个原因”，因为“一个原因”并不排除其他原因。如果说“这是他所以失败的原因”，里面这“原因”就是唯一无二的了。同样，“这 是他所以失败的主要原因之一”，也可说成“这是他所以失败的一大原因”。

至于句２９，有了句首这七字，反而令人有点茫然，觉得不很“一定”。这七字诀的来源，当是to a certain degree，其实也是不精密的。如果说成“我愿意酌量（或者：有限度地）支持你的……运动”，就好懂些了。句３０里的“一定”，也是不很一定的。中文原有“略有贡献”，“颇有贡献”，“甚有贡献”，“极有贡献”，“最有贡献”之分；到了“一定的贡献”里，反而分不清了。更怪的用法是“他对中国现代化的途径有一定的看法”。附带可以一提，“肯定”原是动词，现在已兼营副词了。找真见人这么写过：“你作出的建设，肯定会 被小组所否定。”前述“一定”和“肯定”的变质，在祖国大陆上也已行之有年，实在令人忧虑。

31、本市的医师（们）一致拒绝试用这新药。

32、所有的伞兵（们）都已安全着陆。

33、全厂的工人（们）没有一个不深深感动。

中文西化以前，早已用“们”来表示复数：《红楼梦》里就说过“爷们”、“丫头们”、“娼妇们”、“姑娘们”、“老先生们”，但多半是在对话里，而在叙述部分，仍多用“众人”、“众丫鬟”、“诸姐妹”等。现在流行的“人们”却是西化的，林语堂就说他一辈子不用“人们”。其实我们有的是“大家”、“众人”、“世人”、“人人”、“人群”，不必用这舶来的“人们”。 “人人都讨厌他”岂不比“人们都讨厌他”更加自然？句31至３３里的“们”都不必要，因为“一致”、“所有”、“都”、“全厂”、“没有一个”等语已经表示复数了。

34、这本小说的可读性颇高。

35、这家伙说话太带侮辱性了。

36、他的知名度甚至于超过了他的父亲的知名度，虽然他本质上仍是一个属于内向型的人。

37、王维的作品十分中国化。

中文在字形上不易区别抽象名词与其他同性，所以 a thing of beauty和 a beautiful thing之间的差异，中文难以翻译。中文西化之后，抽象名词大量渗入，却苦于难加标识，俾与形容词、动词等分家自立。英文只要在字尾略加变化，就可以造成抽象名词，甚至可以造出withness之类的字。社会科学、自然科学的术语传入中国或由日本转来之后，抽象名词的中译最令学者头痛。久而久之，“安全感”、“或然率”、“百分比”、“机动性”、“能见度” 等词也已广被接受了。我认为这类抽象名词的“汉化”应有几个条件：一是好懂，二是简洁，三是必须。如果中文有现成说法，就不必弄得那么“学术化”，因为不少字眼的“学术性”只是幻觉。句３４其实就是“这本小说好看”。句３５原意是“这家伙说话太无礼”或“这家伙说话太侮辱人了”。跟人吵架，文绉绉还说什么“侮辱性”，实在可笑。句３６用了不少伪术语，故充高级，反而噜苏难明。究其实，不过是说：“他虽然生性内向，却比他父亲还更有名。”１６个字就可说清的意思，何苦扭捏作态，拉长到３６个字呢？句３７更有语病，因为王维又不是外国人，怎么能中国化？发此妄言的人，意思无非是“王维的作品最具中国韵味”罢了。

38、这一项提案已经被执行委员会多次地讨论，而且被通过了。

39、那名间谍被指示在火车站的月台上等候他。

40、这本新书正被千千万万的读者所抢购着。

41、季辛吉将主要地被记忆为一位翻云覆雨的政客。

42、他的低下的出身一直被保密着，不告诉他所有的下属。

英语多被动语气，最难化入中文。中文西化，最触目最刺耳的现象，是这被动语气。无论在文言或白话里，中文当然早已有了被动句式，但是很少使用，而且句子必短。例如“为世所笑”，“但为后世嗤”，“被人说得心动 ”，“曾经名师指点”等，都简短而自然，绝少逆拖倒曳，喧宾夺主之病。还有两点值得注意：其一是除了“被”、“经”、“为”之外，尚有“受”、“遭”、 “挨”、“给”。“教”、“让”、“任”等字可以表示被动，不必处处用“被”。其二是中文有不少句子是以（英文观念的）受词为主词：例如“机票买好了”，“电影看过没有”，就可以视为“机票（被）买好了”，“电影（被）看过没有”。也可以视为省略主词的“（我）机票买好了” ，“（你）电影看过没有”。中文里被动观念原来很淡，西化之后，凡事都要分出主客之势，也是自讨麻烦。其实英文的被动句式，只有受者，不见施者，一件事只呈现片面，话说得谨慎，却不清楚。“他被怀疑并没有真正进过 军校”：究竟是谁在怀疑他呢？是军方，是你，还是别人？

前引五句的被动语气都很拗口，应予化解。句３８可改成：“这一项提案执行委员会已经讨论多次，而且通过了。”向３９可改成：“那名间谍奉命在火车站的月台上等候他。”以下三句也可以这么改写：句４０：“千千万万的读者正抢购这本新书。”句４１：“季辛吉在后人的记忆里，不外是一位翻云覆雨的政客。”（或者：“历史回顾季辛吉，无非是一位翻云覆雨的政客”。）句４２：“他出身低下，却一直瞒着所有的部属。”

43、献身于革命的壮烈大业的他，早已将生死置之度外。

44、人口现正接近五百万的本市，存在着严重的生存空间日趋狭窄的问题。

45、男女之间的一见钟情，是一种浪漫的最多只能维持三四年的迷恋。

英文好用形容词子句，但在文法上往往置于受形容的名词之后，成为追叙。中文格于文法，如要保留这种形容词子句的形式，常要把它放在受形容的名词之前，颤巍巍地，像项大而无当的高帽子。要化解这种冗赘，就得看开些，别理会那形容词子句表面的身份，断然把它切开，为它另找归宿。前引三句不妨分别化为：句４３：“他献身于革命的壮烈大业，早已将生死置之度外。”句４４：“本市人口现正接近五百万，空间日趋狭窄，问题严重。” 句４５：“男女之间的一见钟情，是一种浪漫的迷恋，最多只能维持三四年。”’英文里引进形容词子句的代名词和副词如which､who､where､ when等等，关节的作用均颇灵活，但在中文里，这承先启后的重担，一概加在这么一个小“的”字上，实在是难以胜任的。中文里“的，的”成灾，一位作家如果无力约束这小 “的”字，他的中文绝无前途。

46、当你把稿子写好了之后，立刻用挂号信寄给编辑。

47、当许先生回到家里看见那枝手枪仍然放在他同事送给他的那糖盒子里的时候，他放了心。

48、你怎么能说服他放弃这件事，当他自己的太太也不能说服他的时候？

英文最讲究因果、主客之分——什么事先发生，什么事后来到，什么事发生时另一件事正好进行到一半，这一切，都得在文法上交待清楚，所以副词子句特别多。如此说来，中文是不是就交代得含糊了呢？曰又不然，中文靠上下文自然的顺序，远多于文法上字面的衔接，所以貌若组织松懈。譬如治军，英文文法之严像程不识，中文文法则外弛内张，看来闲散，实则机警，像飞将军李广。“当……之后”、“当……的时候”一类的副词子句，早已滥于中文，其实往往作茧自缚，全无必要。最好的办法，就是解除字面的束缚，句法自然会呼吸畅通。句４６可简化为：“你稿子一写好，立刻用挂号信寄给编辑。” 句４７只须删去“当……的时候”之四字咒，就顺理成章，变成：“许先生回到家里，看见那枝手枪仍然放在他同事送给他的那糖盒子里，就放了心。”句４８的副词子句其实只关乎说理的层次，而与时间的顺序无涉，更不该保留“当……的时候”的四字咒。不如动一下手术，改作：“这件 事，连他自己的太太都无法劝他放手，你又怎么劝得动他？”

49、我决不原谅任何事先没有得到我的同意就擅自引述我的话的人。

50、那家公司并不重视刘先生在工商界已经有了三十多年的经历的这个事实。

51、他被委派了明天上午陪伴那位新来的医生去病房巡视一周的轻松的任务。

英文里的受词往往是一个繁复的名词子句，或是有繁复子句修饰的名词。总之，英文的动词后面可以接上一长串字眼组成的受词，即使节外生枝，也顿挫有致，不嫌其长。但在中文，语沓气泄，虎头蛇尾，而又尾大不掉，却是大忌。前引三句话所以累赘而气弱，是因为受词直到句末才出现，和动词隔得太远，彼此失却了呼应。这三句话如果是英文，“任何人”一定紧跟在“饶恕”后面，正如“事实”和“任务”一定分别紧跟着‘“重视”和“委派 ”，所以动词的作用立见分晓，语气自然贯串无碍。中文往往用一件事做受词（字面上则为短句），英文则往往要求找一个确定的名词来承当动词：这分别，甚至许多名作家都不注意。例如“张老师最讨厌平时不用功考后求加分的学生”，句法虽不算太西化，但比起“张教师最讨厌学生平时不用功，考后求加分”来，就没有那么纯正、天然。同样，“我想到一条可以一举两得的妙计”也不如“我想到一条妙计，可以一举两得”。关键在受词是否紧接动词。兹再举一例以明。“石油涨价，是本周一大新闻”比“石油的涨价是本周一大新闻”更像中文，因为前句以一件事（石油涨价）为主词，后句以一个名词（涨价）为主词。

要化解句４９至５１的冗赘，必须重组句法，疏通关节，分别改写如下：句４９：“任何人事先没有得到我同意就擅自引述我的话，我决不原谅。”句５０：“刘先生在工商界已经有了三十多年的经历，这件事，那家公司并不重视。”句51：“院方派给他的轻松任务，是明天上午陪伴那位新来的医生去病房巡视一周。”（或者：他派定的任务轻松，就是明天上午陪伴那位新来的医生，去病房巡视一周。）

以上所论，都是中文西化之病。当代的白话文受外文的影响，当然并不尽是西化。例如在台湾文坛，日本文学作品的中译也不无影响，像林文月女士译的《源氏物语》，那里面的中文，论词藻，论句法，论风格，当然难免相 当“和化”。读者一定会问我：“中文西化，难道影响全是反面效果，毫无正面价值吗？”

当然不尽如此。如果六十年来的新文学，在排除文言之余，只能向现代的口语，地方的戏曲歌谣，古典的白话小说之中，去吸收语言的养分——如果只能这样，而不曾同时向西方借镜，则今日的白话文面貌一定大不相同，说不定文体仍近于《老残游记》。也许有人会说，今日许多闻名的小说还赶不上《老残游记》呢。这话我也同意，不过今日真正杰出的小说，在语言上因为具备了多元的背景，毕竟比《老残游记》来得丰富而有弹性。就像电影的黑白片杰作，虽然仍令我们吊古低回，但看惯彩片之后再回头去看黑白片，总还是觉得缺少了一点什么。如果六十年来，广大的读者不读译文，少数的作家与学者不读西文，白话文的道路一定不同，新文学的作品也必大异。中文西化，虽然目前过多于功，未来恐怕也难将功折罪，但对白话文毕竟不是无功。犯罪的是“恶性西化”的“西而不化”，立功的是“善性西化”的“西而化之”以致 “化西为中”。其间的差别，有时是绝对的，但往往是相对的。除 了文笔极佳和文笔奇劣的少数例外，今日的作者大半出没于三分善性七分恶性的西化地带。

那么，“善性西化”的样品在哪里呢？最合理的答案是：在上乘的翻译里。翻译，是西化的合法进口，不像许多创作，在暗里非法西化，令人难防。一篇译文能称上乘，一定是译者功力高强，精通截长补短化淤解滞之道，所以能用无曲不达的中文去诱捕不肯就范的英文。这样的译文在中西之间折冲樽俎，能不辱中文的使命，且带回俯首就擒的西文，虽不能就称为创作，却是“西而化之”的好文章。其实上乘的译文远胜过“西而不化”的无数创作。 下面且将夏济安先生所译《古屋杂忆》（The Old Manse: by Nathaniel Hawthorne）摘出一段为例：

新英格兰凡是上了年纪的老宅，似乎总是鬼影幢幢，不清不白，事情虽怪，但家家如此，也不值得一提了。我们家的那个鬼，常常在客厅的某一个角落，喟然长叹；有时也翻弄纸张，簌簌作响，好像正在楼上长廊里研读一篇 讲道文——奇怪的是月光穿东窗而入，夜明如画，而其人的身形总不得见。

夏济安的译文纯以神遇，有些地方善解原意，在中文里着墨较多，以显其隐，且便读者，不免略近意译，但译文仍是上乘的，不见“西而不化”的痕迹。

再从乔志高先生所译《长夜漫漫路迢迢》（Long Day's Journey into Night: by Eugene O'Neill）录一段对话：

你的薪水也不少，凭你的本事要不是我你还赚不到呢。要不是看你父亲的面子没有一家戏园老板会请教你的，你的名声实在太臭了。就连现在，我还得不顾体面到处替你求情，说你从此改过自新了——虽然我自己知道是撒谎 ！

夏济安的译文里，成语较多，语气较文，句法较松动。乔志高的译文句法较紧，语气较白，末句更保留倒装句式。这是因为夏译要应付１９世纪中叶的散文，而乔译面对的是２０世纪中叶的对白。二译在文白上程度有异，恐 怕和译者平日的文体也有关系。兹再节录汤新楣先生所译《原野长宵》（My Antonia: by Willa Cather）：

隆冬在一个草原小镇上来得很猛，来自旷野的寒风把夏天里隔开一家家庭院的树叶一扫而光，一座座的房屋似乎凑近在一起。屋顶在绿荫中显得那么远，而现在却暴露在眼前，要比以前四周绿叶扶疏的时候难看得多。

三段译文相比，夏译不拘小节，几乎泯灭了原作的形迹；乔译坚守分寸，既不推衍原作，也不放任译文；汤译克己礼人，保留原作句法较多，但未过分委屈中文。换句话说，夏译对中文较为照顾，汤译对于原作较为尊重，乔译无所偏私。三段译文都出于高手，但论“西而化之”的程度，夏译“化”得多，故“西”少；汤译“化”得少，故“西”多；乔译则行平中庸之道。纯以对中文的西化而言，夏译影响不大——输入的英文句法不多，当然“教唆 ’读者的或然率也小。汤译影响会大些－－输入的英文句式多些，“诱罪率”也大些；当然，汤译仍然守住了中文的基本分寸，所以即使“诱罪”，也无伤大雅。

本文旨在讨论中文的西化，无意深究翻译，为了珍惜篇幅，也不引英文原作来印证。“善性西化”的样品，除了上乘的译文之外，当然还有一流的创作。在白话文最好的诗、散文、小说，甚至批评文章里，都不难举出这种样品。但是并非所有的一流创作都可以用来印证，因为有些创作的语言纯然中国韵味，好处在于调和文白，却无意去融会中西。例如梁实秋先生精于英国文学，还译过莎氏全集，却无意在小品文里搞西化运动。他的《雅舍小品》享誉已久，里面也尽多西学之趣，但在文字上并不刻意引进英文语法。梁先生那一辈，文言底子结实，即使要西化，也不容易西化。他虽然佩服胡适，但对于文言的警策，不肯全然排斥，所以他的小品文里文白相济，最有弹性。比 他年轻一辈而也中英俱佳的作家，便兼向西化发展。且看张爱玲的《倾城之恋》：

流苏吃惊地朝他望望，蓦地里悟到他这人多么恶毒。他有意的当着人做出亲狎的神气，使她没法可证明他们没有发生关系。她势成骑虎，回不得家乡，见不得爷娘，除了做他的情妇之外没有第二条路。然而她如果迁就了他，不但前功尽弃，以后更是万劫不复了。她偏不！就算她枉担了虚名，他不过口头上占了她一个便宜。归根究柢，他还是没得到她。既然他没有得到她，或许他有一天还会回到她这里来，带了较优的议和条件。

张爱玲的文体素称雅洁，但分析她的语言，却是多元的调和。前引一段之中，像“势成骑虎”、“前功尽弃”、“万劫不复”等都是文言的成语；“回不得家乡，见不得爷娘”近乎俚曲俗谣；“蓦地里悟到”，“枉担了虚名 ”，像来自旧小说，至少巴金的小说里绝少出现；其他部分则大半是新文学的用语，“他还是没得到她”之类的句子当然是五四以后的产品。最末一句却是颇为显眼的西化句，结尾的“带了较优的议和条件”简直是英文的介系词 片语，或是分词片语——译成英文，不是with better terms of peace，便是bringing better terms of peace。这个修饰性的结尾接得很自然，正是“善性西化”的好例。下面再引钱钟书４０年代的作品《谈教训》：

上帝要惩罚人类，有时来一个荒年，有时来一次瘟疫或战争，有时产生一个道德家，抱着高尚到一般人所不及的理想，更有跟他的理想成正 比例的骄傲和力量。

这显然是“善性西化”’的典型句法，一位作家没有读通西文，或是中文力有不逮，绝对写不出这么一气贯串、曲折而不芜杂的长句。这一句也许单独看来好处不很显眼，但是和后面一句相比，就见出好在哪里了：

当上帝要惩罚人类的时候，他有时会给予我们一个荒年，有时会给予我们一次瘟疫或一场战争，有时甚至于还会创造出一个具有着高尚到一 般人所不及的理想的道德家——这道德家同时还具有着和这个理想成正比例的骄傲与力量。

后面这一句是我依“恶性西化”的公式从前一句演变来的。两句一比，前一句的简洁似乎成了格言了。

我想，未来白话文的发展，一方面是少数人的“善性西化”愈演愈精进，一方面却是多数人的“恶性西化”愈演愈堕落，势不可遏。颇有不少人认为，语言是活的，大势所趋，可以积非成是，习惯成自然，一士谔谔，怎么抵得过万口嗫嗫，不如算了吧。一个人抱持这种观念，自然比较省力。但是我并不甘心。一个民族的语言自然要变，但是不可以变得太快，太多，太不自然，尤其不可以变得失尽了原有的特性与美质。我们的教育界、文化界和各种传播的机构，必须及时警惕，须为良谋。否则有一天“恶性西化”的狂潮真的吞没了白话文，则不但好作品再无知音，连整个民族的文化生命都面临威胁了。

１９７９年７月

<论中文的常态与变态> 余光中

辑自《明报月刊》（1987年10月号）
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自五四新文化运动以来，七十年间，中文的变化极大。一方面，优秀的作家与学者笔下的白话文愈写愈成熟，无论表情达意或是分析事理，都能运用自如。另一方面，道地的中文，包括文言文与民间文学的白话文，和我们的关系日渐生疏，而英文的影响，无论来自直接的学习或是间接的潜移默化，则日渐显著，因此一般人笔下的白话文，西化的病态日渐严重。一般人从大众传媒学到的，不仅是流行的观念，还有那些观念赖以包装的种种说法；有时，那些说法连高明之士也抗拒不了。今日的中文虽因地区不同而互见差异，但共同的趋势都是繁琐与生硬，例如中文本来是说「因此」，现在不少人却爱说「基于这个原因」；本来是说「问题很多」，现在不少人却爱说「有很多问题存在」。对于这种化简为繁、以拙代巧的趋势，有心人如果不及时提出警告，我们的中文势必越变越差，而道地中文原有的那种美德，那种简洁而又灵活的语文生态，也必将面目全非。
中文也有生态吗？当然有。措词简洁、句式灵活、声调铿锵，这些都是中文生命的常态。能顺着这样的生态，就能长保中文的健康。要是处处违拗这样的生态，久而久之，中文就会污染而淤塞，危机日渐迫近。
目前中文的一大危机，是西化。我自己出身外文系，三十多岁时有志于中文创新的试验，自问并非语文的保守派。大凡有志于中文创作的人，都不会认为善用四字成语就是创作的能事。反之，写文章而处处仰赖成语，等于只会用古人的脑来想，只会用古人的嘴来说，绝非豪杰之士。但是，再反过来说，写文章而不会使用成语，问题就更大了。写一篇完全不带成语的文章，不见得不可能，但是很不容易；这样的文章要写得好，就更难能可贵。目前的情形是，许多人写中文，已经不会用成语，至少会用的成语有限，显得捉襟见肘。一般香港学生目前只会说「总的来说」，却似乎忘了「总而言之」。同样地，大概也不会说「一言难尽」，只会说「不是一句话就能够说得清楚的」。
成语历千百年而犹存，成为文化的一部分。例如「千锤百炼」，字义对称，平仄协调，如果一定要说成「千炼百锤」，当然也可以，不过听来不顺，不像「千锤百炼」那样含有美学。同样，「朝秦暮楚」、「齐大非偶」、「乐不思蜀」等语之中，都含有中国的历史。成语的衰退正显示文言的淡忘，文化意识的萎缩。
英文没有学好，中文却学坏了，或者可说，带坏了。中文西化，不一定就是毛病。缓慢而适度的西化甚至是难以避免的趋势，高妙的西化更可以截长补短。但是太快太强的西化，破坏了中文的自然生态，就成了恶性西化。这种危机，有心人都应该及时警觉而且努力****。在欧洲的语文里面，文法比较单纯的英文恐怕是最近于中文的了。尽管如此，英文与中文仍有许多基本的差异，无法十分融洽。这一点，凡有中英文互译经验的人，想必都能同意。其实，研究翻译就等于研究比较语言学。以下拟就中英文之间的差异，略略分析中文西化之病。
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比起中文来，英文不但富于抽象名词，也喜欢用抽象名词。英文可以说「他的收入的减少改变了他的生活方式」，中文这么说，就太西化了。英文用抽象名词「减少」做主词，十分自然。中文的说法是以具体名词，尤其是人，做主词：「他因为收入减少而改变生活方式」，或者「他收入减少，乃改变生活方式」。
中文常用一件事情 (一个短句) 做主词，英文则常用一个名词 (或名词词组)。「横贯公路再度坍方，是今日的头条新闻」，是中文的说法。「横贯公路的再度坍方， 是今日的头条新闻」，就是英文语法的流露了。同理，「选购书籍，只好委托你了」是中文语法。「书籍的选购，只好委托你了」却是略带西化。「推行国语，要靠大家努力」是自然的说法。「推行的国语，要靠大家的努力」却嫌冗赘。这种情形也可见于受词。例如「他们杯葛这种风俗的继续」，便是一句可怕的话。无论如何，「杯葛继续」总嫌生硬。如果改成「他们反对保存这种风俗」，就自然多了。
英文好用抽象名词，其结果是软化了动词，也可以说是架空了动词。科学、社会科学与公文的用语，大举侵入了日常生活，逼得许多明确而有力动词渐渐变质，成为面无表情的词组。下面是几个常见的例子：
apply pressure: press
give authorization: permit
send a communication: write
take appropriate action: act
在前例之中，简洁的单音节动词都变成了含有抽象名词的片词，表面上看来，显得比较堂皇而高级。例如 press 变成了 apply pressure，动作便一分为二，一半驯化为静止的抽象名词 pressure，一半淡化为广泛而笼统的动词 apply。巴仁 (Jacques Barzun)与屈林 (Lionel Trilling) 等学者把这类广泛的动词叫做「弱动词」(weak verb)。他们说：「科学报告不免单调而冷淡，影响之余，现代的文体喜欢把思路分解成一串静止的概念，用介词和通常是被动语气的弱动词连接起来。」
巴仁所谓的弱动词，相当于英国小说家奥韦尔所谓的「文字的义肢」(verbal false limb) 。当代的中文也已呈现这种病态，喜欢把简单明了的动词分解成「万能动
词+抽象名词」的片词。目前最流行的万能动词，是「作出」和「进行」，恶势力之大，几乎要吃掉一半的正规动词。请看下面的例子：
(一) 本校的校友对社会作出了重大的贡献。
(二) 昨晚的听众对访问教授作出了十分热烈的反应。
(三) 我们对国际贸易的问题已经进行了详细的研究。
(四) 心理学家在老鼠的身上进行试验。
不管是直接或间接的影响，这样的语法都是日渐西化的现象，因为中文原有的动词都分解成上述的繁琐词组了。前面的四句话本来可以分别说成
(一) 本校的校友对社会贡献很大。
(二) 昨晚的听众对访问教授反应十分热烈。
(三) 我们对国际贸易的问题已经详加研究。
(四) 心理学家用老鼠来做试验。(或：心理学家用老鼠试验。)
巴仁等学者感概现代英文喜欢化简为繁、化动为静、化具体为抽象、化直接为迂回，到了「名词成灾」(noun-plague) 的地步。学问分工日细，各种学科的行话术语，尤其是科学与社会科学的「夹杠」，经过本行使用，外行借用，加上「新闻体」(journalese) 的传播，一方面固然使现代英文显得多彩多姿，另一方面却也造成混乱，使日常用语斑驳不堪。英国诗人格雷夫斯 (Robert Graves, 1895-1986) 在短诗(耕田) (Tilth) 里批评这现象说：
Gone are the sad monosyllabic days
When "agricultural labour" still was tilth；
And "00% approbation", praise;
And "pornographic modernism", filth-
And still I stand by tilth and filth and praise.
「名词成灾」的流行病里，灾情最严重的该是所谓「科学至上」(scientism)。在现代的工业社会里，科学早成显贵，科技更是骄子，所以知识分子的口头与笔下，有意无意，总爱用一些「学术化」的抽象名词，好显得客观而精确。有人称之为「伪术语」(pseudo-jargon)。例如：明明是 first step，却要说成 initial phase：明明是letter，却要说成 communication，都属此类。
中文也是如此。本来可以说「名气」，却凭空造出一个「知名度」来，不说「很有名」，却要迂回作态，貌若高雅，说成「具有很高的知名度」，真是酸腐可笑。另一个伪术语是「可读性」，同样活跃于书评和出版广告。明明可以说「这本传记很动人」，「这本传记引人入胜」，或者干脆说「这本传记很好看」，却要说成「这本传记的可读性颇高」。我不明白这字眼怎么来的，因为这观念在英文里也只用形容词 readable而不用抽象名词 readability。英文会说：The biography is highly readable，却不说The biography has high readability。此风在台湾日渐嚣张。在电视上，记者早已在说「昨晚的演奏颇具可听性」。在书评里，也已见过这样的句子：「传统写实作品只要写得好，岂不比一篇急躁的实验小说更具可看性？」
我实在不懂那位书评家为什么不能说「岂不比一篇……更耐看 (更动人)？」。同理，「更具前瞻性」难道真比「更有远见」要高雅吗？长此以往，岂不要出现「他讲的这件趣事可笑性很高」一类的怪句？此外，「某某主义」之类抽象名词也使用过度，英美有心人士都主张少用为妙。中国大陆文章很爱说「富于爱国主义的精神」，其实颇有语病。爱国只是单纯的情感，何必学术化为主义？如果爱国也成主义，我们不是也可以说「亲日主义」、「仇美主义」、「怀乡主义」？其次，主义也就是一种精神，不必重复，所以只要说「富于爱国精神」就够了。
名词而分单数与复数，是欧语文的惯例。英文文法的复数变化，比起其它欧洲语文来，单纯得多。请看「玫瑰都很娇小」这句话在英文、法文、德文、西班牙文、意大利文里的各种说法：
The roses are small.
Les roses sont petites.
Die Rosen sind klein.
Las rosas son chiquitas.
Le rose sono piccole.
每句话都是四个字，次序完全一样，都是冠词、名词、动词、形容词。英文句里，只有动词跟着名词变化，其它二字则不分单、复数。德文句里，只有形容词不变。法文、西班牙文、意大利文的三句里，因为做主词的名词是复数，其它的字全跟着变化。
幸而中文的名词没有复数的变化，也不区分性别，否则将不胜其繁琐。旧小说的对话里确有「爷们」、「娘们」、「ㄚ头们」等复数词，但是在叙述的部分，仍用「诸姐妹」、「众ㄚ鬟」。中文要表多数的时候，也会说「民众」、「徒众」、「观众」、
「听众」，所以「众」也有点「们」的作用。但是「众」也好，「们」也好，在中文里并非处处需要复数语尾。往往，我们说「文武百官」，不说「官们」，也不说「文官们」、「武官们」。同理「全国的同胞」、「全校的师生」、「所有的顾客」、「一切乘客」当然是复数，不必再画蛇添足，加以标明。不少国人惑于西化的意识，常爱这么添足，于是「人们」取代原有的「人人」、「大家」、「大众」、「众人」、「世人」。「人们」实在是丑陃的西化词，林语堂绝不使用，希望大家也不要使用。电视上也有人说「民众们」、「听众们」、「球员们」，实在累赘。尤其「众、们」并用，已经不通。
中文词不分数量，有时也会陷入困境。例如「一位观众」显然不通，但是「观众之一」却嫌累赘，也欠自然。「一位观者」毕竟不像「一位读者」那么现成，所以，「一位观众来信说……」之类的句子，也只好由它去了。
可是「……之一」的泛滥，却不容忽视。「……之一」虽然是单数，但是背景的意识却是多数。和其它欧洲语文一样，英文也爱说 one of my favorite actresses, oneof those who believe……, one of the most active promoters。中文原无「……之一」的句法，现在我们说「观众之一」实在是不得已。至于这样的句子：
刘伶是竹林七贤之一。
作为竹林七贤之一的刘伶……
目前已经非常流行。前一句虽然西化，但不算冗赘。后一句却恶性西化的畸婴，不但「作为」二字纯然多余，「之一的」也文白来杂，读来破碎，把主词「刘伶」压在底下，更是扭捏作态。其实，后一句的意思跟前一句完全一样，却把英文的语法 as one of the Seven Worthies of Bamboo Grove, Liu Ling……生吞活剥地搬到中文里来。
所以，与其说「作为竹林七贤之一的刘伶以嗜酒闻名」，何不平平实实地说「刘伶是竹林七贤之一，以嗜酒闻名」？其实前一句也尽有办法不说「之一」。中文本来可以说「刘伶乃竹林七贤之同侪」；「刘伶列于竹林七贤」；「刘伶跻身竹林七贤」；「刘伶是竹林七贤的同人」。
「竹林七贤之一」也好，「文房四宝之一」也好，情况都不严重，因为七和四范围明确，同时逻辑上也不能径说「刘伶是竹林七贤」，「砚乃文房四宝」。目前的不良趋势，是下列这样的句子：
红楼梦是中国文学的名著之一。
李广乃汉朝名将之一。
两句之中。「之一」都是蛇足。世间万事万物都有其同俦同类，每次提到其一，都要照顾到其它，也未免太周到了。中国文学名著当然不止一部，汉朝名将当然也不会只有一人，不加上这死心眼的「之一」，绝对没有人会误会你孤陋寡闻，或者挂一漏万。一旦养成了这种恶习，只怕笔下的句子都要写成「小张是我的好朋友之一」，「我不过是您的平庸的学生之一」，「他的嗜好之一是收集茶壸」了。
「之一」之病到了香港，更变本加厉，成为「其中之一」。在香港的报刊上，早已流行「我是听王家的兄弟其中之一说的」或者「戴维连一直以来都是我最喜欢的导演其中之一」这类怪句。英文复数观念为害中文之深，由此可见。
这就说到「最……之一」的语法来了。英文最喜欢说「他是当代最伟大的思想家之一」，好像真是精确极了，其实未必。「最伟大的」是抬到至高，「之一」却稍加低抑，结果只是抬高，并未真正抬到至高。你并不知道「最伟大的思想家」究竟是几位，四位吗，还是七位，所以弹性颇大。兜了一个大圈子回来，并无多大不同。所以，只要说「他是一个大名人」或「他是赫赫有名的人物」就够了，不必迂而回之，说什么「他是最有名气的人物之一」吧。

Book: Wise Investing Made Simple

Chapter 1: The Names Are Never the Same.
- Top list of funds are different each time. Does outstanding performance persists?

Chapter 2: How Markets Set Prices.
- Bookies or brokers make betting a negative sum game.

[Efficient market]
= A market in which trading systems fail to produce excess returns
- Everything currently knowable is already incorporated into prices
= A market in which it is difficult to persistently exploit mispricings
- Point spread = unbiased predictor

* risk adjusted expected return
# Betting against an efficient market is a loser's game

Chapter 3: The Twenty-Dollar Bill
- Efficient markets hypothesis (EMH)
- It is not impossible to uncover mispricings, but cost of efforts are likely to exceed the benefits
- Successful trading strategies self-destruct because they are self-limiting

- Dr. Mark Rubinstein

Chapter 4: Persistence of Performance: Athletes versus Investment Managers
- compete against "collective wisdom of the market"

Chapter 5: The Demon of Chance
- by skill or by luck? Coin-tossing gurus.

Chapter 6: When Even the Best Aren't Likely to Win the Game
- Active investing is loser's game. The odds of success are so low that it is imprudent to try.
- Active investing is exciting. Investing, however, was never meant to be exciting. It is meant to be about providing you the greatest odds of achieving your financial goals with the least amount of risk.
- Daniel Kahneman.

Chapter 7: Outfoxing the Box
- Charles Ellis

Chapter 8: Between a Rock and a Hard Place
- the tragedy of Sisyphus - condemned to a life of repeating an action that is doomed to fail.
- It's more prudent to not play than to play.

Chapter 9: Great Companies Do not Make High-Return Investments
- Loren Fox
- Risk and expected return should be positively related.
- Value stocks are stocks of risky companies, hence it provide large and persistent premium over growth stocks to compensate the risk.
- High price reflects low perceived risk, and thus low future returns should be expected.

Chapter 10: Stocks for the Long Run
- Stocks are risky no matter the length of investment horizon.

1. There is nothing new in investing, only the investment history you don't know.
2. Never treat the highly unlikely as impossible.

* In 1900 the Egyptian stock market was one of the largest in the world. Now it's no where.
{It was public knowledge that when lumped together, the Cairo and Alexandria Bourses rated among the world's top five Stock Exchanges. Egypt's economy was at an all-time high and the number of companies traded in the Cairo Bourse alone had reached 228 with a combined capital of 91 million pounds.

But like the swing of a pendulum, the high state of euphoria disappeared overnight. Prudence having given way to high-risk speculation, what had started out with a real estate boom in Egypt, ended in what became known in the annals of speculative history as the Crash of 1907 Some historians concede that the money panic of 1907 started in Alexandria, Egypt, with the failure in July of a large bank - Cassa di Sconto. Japan was hit next, then Germany, then Chile. By October, the fallout reached Europe and the United States. In Egypt, the overextended banks folded up one after the other. }

* The Nikkei index hit 40,000 in 1989 and now it's below 10,000.
{Fueled by low-interest mortgages, real estate prices in Japan had risen so high that by the end of the 1980s just the land under the Imperial Palace in Tokyo was nominally worth more than all the real estate in California. Then, in late 1989, the bubble burst and real estate prices plummeted, leaving Japan's financial institutions saddled with toxic mortgages and facing bankruptcy.}

Read more.

Chapter 11: Buy What You Know
- Familiarity breeds investment by creating an illusion of safety. People over confidently confuse familiarity with knowledge.

Chapter 12: Why Did I Buy That Stock?
- Capturing incremental insight is difficult, if not impossible, to achieve in this highly competitive market.

Chapter 13: Too Good to be True
- Mistake of confusing information with knowledge that you could use to generate above market returns. Trends tell little about future profits. Demand may rise but market can be over-supplied.

Chapter 14: Too Many Eggs in One Basket
- Portfolio risk can be substantially reduced by building a globally diversified portfolio.

Chapter 15: Confusing Before-the-Fact Strategy and After-the-Fact Outcome
- [Fooled by Randomness]

Chapter 16: An Investor's Worst Enemy
[Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes]

Chapter 17: A Higher Intelligence
- Managing money in an efficient market without investing passively is investment malfeasance - Not knowing that such a market is efficient is investment misfeasance

Chapter 18: Even With a Clear Crystal Ball

Chapter 19: Be Careful What You Ask For

Chapter 20: Ship of Fools
- Most market forecasts are based on economic forecasts and economists' forecasting skill is about as good as guessing
- Investors should treat economic and market forecasts by so-called "experts" (gurus) as investment graffiti
- the only value they have is as perhaps entertainment.

Chapter 21: What if Everyone Indexed?
- All hope springs eternal, it's unlikely that everyone will abandon active strategies because there will always be someone winning.

Chapter 22: Mad Money
- "You make more money selling the advice than following it."

Chapter 23: The Big Rocks
- Putting big rock into jar, about time management. "Investing is about achieving your financial goals with the least amount of risk."

Chapter 24: Don't Sweat the Small Stuff
- The greater tragedy in life is to miss out more important things in life.

Chapter 25: The Big Rocks Portfolio
Chapter 26: A Tale of Two Strategies
Chapter 27: How to Identify an Advisor You Can Trust