George Orwell, "Politics and English Language," 1946

...
Orthodoxy, of whatever color, seems to demand a lifeless, imitative style. The political dialects to be found in pamphlets, leading articles, manifestos, White Papers and the speeches of under-secretaries do, of course, vary from party to party, but they are all alike in that one almost finds in them a fresh, vivid, home-made turn of speech. When one watches 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 towards 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.

...

冠冕堂皇的空洞文体往往和闪烁其词的骗术相辅相成。这在英文里是这样，在中文里也是一定的。幸运的是，不登大雅之堂的“恶搞”如果运用得当，正好可以致冠冕堂皇的骗术于死地。鲁迅、王小波等文体家便是擅长“恶搞”的好手。他们帮助并启发读者去识别空洞的语言，并告诉我们：如果说空洞的语言还有什么用处的话，那就是欺骗。只有像他们这样正直而敏锐地去使用汉语，才能够发掘并整理出一整套“现代汉语骗术大全”来。

© by Dun Wang (王敦). All rights reserved. 著作权拥有者：Dun Wang (王敦)。

advice on style: William Strunk Jr., (2)/ 再谈文体

Here is another advice of William Strunk Jr., from that “little book,” The Elements of Style, which I regard as the informal “constitution of letters.”

Prefer the specific to the general, the definite to the vague, the concrete to the abstract.

If those who have studied the art of writing are in accord on any one point, it is on this: the surest way to arouse and hold the attention of the reader is by being specific, definite, and concrete.

Two examples:

In proportion as men delight in battles, bullfights, and combats of gladiators, will they punish by hanging, burning, and the rack. (Herbert Spencer, Philosophy of Style)

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 favor to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all. (Ecclesiastes, King James Version)

文体家 William Strunk Jr. 的又一条忠告：要鲜明、具体，不要含混、空洞。英文语体的发展没有经历废除“古文”这一幕。好的英文可以取得中国古文佳作同样的效果：千锤百炼，雄浑有力。

© by Dun Wang (王敦). All rights reserved. 著作权拥有者：Dun Wang (王敦)。

William Strunk Jr., E. B. White, and Chuang-tzu

William Strunk Jr. 和 E. B. White 是两位文体专家，提倡简洁干净的文风。他们认为，成功的写作过程是从错综复杂的想绪里抽出最有效的语句呈现给读者。好语言的标准是应该使读者念起来不觉得有累赘和障碍。

下面是从他们合著的小书《风格的要素》 (The Elements of Style, 3rd Edition) 里挑出的两段话：

Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. (William Strunk Jr.)

If one is to write, one must believe—in the truth and worth of the scrawl, in the ability of the reader to receive and decode the message. No one can write decently who is distrustful of the reader’s intelligence, or whose attitude is patronizing. (E. B. White)

第一段是说要力求没有废话。就象一台机器不应该有多余的零件一样，每个多余的字都是对读者阅读的干扰。我再添一句：就好象好的音乐里不应该有多余的音符。第二段是说要把读者放在第一位。读者才是真正的裁判。任何的华而不实、故弄玄虚，都是皇帝的新衣，不会被读者买帐。（我也插一句：反常的情况也有，比如读者预先被“忽悠”了。）

两位的忠告让我联想到了《庄子》里的解牛高手庖丁。解牛和提炼准确的语句一样，都是剖析和剔除的工作。解牛要找准骨节和关键。同样，写作也是化繁为简，不是化简为繁，更不是无中生有。写作不精心，就有可能把“血肉相连”的思路弄成“血肉模糊”的文字，最终吃苦的是无辜的读者。

在庄子的这则寓言里，庖丁已经十九年没有换过一把刀，技艺早就出神入化了。但是每次干活时，他还是认真对待。每次完成了活计以后，那份痛快的感觉也不会改变。这里是一小段原文：

每至於族，吾見其難為 。怵然為戒，視為止，行為遲，動刀甚微。謋然已解，如土委地。提刀而立，為之而四顧，為之躊躇滿志。善刀而藏之。(莊子 養生主 C.3)

Burton Watson 是翻译中国古代典籍的大师级“庖丁”。且看他的翻译：

“However, whenever I come to a complicated place, I size up the difficulties, tell myself to watch out, and be careful, keep my eyes on what I’m doing, work very slowly, and move the knife with the greatest subtlety, until—flop! the whole thing comes apart like a clod of earth crumbling to the ground. I stand there holding the knife and look all around me, completely satisfied and reluctant to move on, and then I wipe off the knife and put it away.”

翻译如同写作。这段翻译，准确、简洁、生动，将原文里的关键和脉络一一化解，达到了 William Strunk Jr. 和 E. B. White 的要求。

© by Dun Wang (王敦). All rights reserved. 著作权拥有者：Dun Wang (王敦)。