语言与文风2009chronicle.com编辑精选
愚蠢语法建议的 50 年
50 Years of Stupid Grammar Advice
导读
这篇文章批评了出版五十年的经典写作手册《The Elements of Style》（Strunk & White）：它的许多语法规定经不起推敲，还可能误导写作者。对写作者来说，值得读它来反思“简洁、短句、主动语态”这类规则该如何用；规则是工具，不能当成铁律。
可以直接用的写作要点
- 01
把“简洁、直接、短句、主动语态”当作可选的工具，不要机械套用；否则文字会变得单调、僵硬、不自然。
- 02
被动语态和长句本身不是错误，滥用才是问题；判断标准是句子是否自然、达意，不要一刀切。
- 03
提写作建议要具体可操作，笼统地说“这个词别用”只会让读者困惑。
- 04
读经典写作手册时，可以学它的风格启发，但不要把它当成语法权威。
- 05
想真正掌握语法，可以借一门屈折语（如拉丁语）反观英语的分析性规则，这比背几条处方规则更有用。
HN 评论精选
规则要用得灵活；把简洁、短句、主动语态教条化，反而会写出僵硬不自然的文字。
作者一直批评 S&W，这让我想起《宋飞正传》里那个钻牛角尖的角色。对我来说，S&W 有些地方确实有用，但多年前照着它的规定写，也让我觉得像被束身衣捆住。简单、直接、简短、清晰是好的，但“简单、短、主动”若不加分辨，就会变成简陋、单调、僵硬不自然。糟糕的作者会无视好规则，同样糟糕的作者会一维、机械或故作姿态地套用规则；好作者两者都不做。被动语态滥用会导致文体浮夸，但一刀切地禁用被动语态，又会让风格断断续续、不自然；武断地只用短词短句也一样。不加思考地照搬 S&W 就会掉进这个陷阱。我认为掌握英语语法最好的办法，是先掌握一门高度屈折的语言（如拉丁语），再反过来理解英语的分析性规则；这样对语法细节的把握，会远超背几条 S&W 式规定。
grellas查看英文原文
The author's obsession with panning S&W reminds me of crazy Joe Davolla in an old Seinfeld episode ("Jerry, I've got a hair on my lip and you put it there" or something to that effect). For me, S&W was helpful in some ways but also led me to feel that I was in a straight-jacket as I tried years ago to follow its prescriptions. It is good to be simple, direct, brief, and clear. But simple, short, and active can become simplistic, monotonic, and rigidly unnatural. A bad writer may ignore good-writing rules, but an equally bad one will apply them one-dimensionally in arty or mechanical fashion. A good writer will do neither. Thus, while ill use of passive voice can lead to stylistic pomposity, a categorical exclusion of passive voice can lead to a staccato and unnatural style. The same can be said of any arbitrary attempt to use exclusively short words or sentences. Attempting to follow S&W without thought can lead a writer into this trap. In my view, the best was to master English grammar is to master a highly stylized (inflected) language such as Latin and to work backward from that to the "analytic" rules that govern English. Anyone who does this will have a much greater grasp of technical points of grammar than one gets through memorizing a few prescriptive rules such as those found in S&W. Once the deeper technical points are well-understood, one can "let them go" in developing a natural writing style that nonetheless reflects a high degree of excellence for having the technical mastery underlie it. This is akin to learning to do algorithms after having mastered deep principles of mathematics. With the deeper technical understanding, your work will be far more robust than otherwise. All this is another way of saying that, to achieve excellence in grammar as in anything else, there is no substitute for plain hard work and perseverance. If S&W has one primary fault, it lies in stating or implying (incorrectly) that mastery of a few rules can provide a good shortcut to this goal.
模糊、缺乏解释的写作规则只会让读者困惑，具体可操作的建议才有效。
S&W 里有些建议真让我困惑，比如讲 prestigious 一词时说：“仅仅因为它在词典里，不代表你就该用它。”好吧，什么？词典里词多了去了。这条建议是说这个词被用得太滥？如果是，也说得不清楚。
RevRal查看英文原文
Some advice in S&W really confused me; like, on the word prestigious: "just because it's in the dictionary doesn't mean you should use it." Oh, okay. What? There are a lot of words in the dictionary. Is the advice that the word is used too much? If so, not very clear.
即使不完全认同其语法观点，S&W 仍值得当作风格学习的读物。
我还是建议读一读它。它也许算不上语法权威，但它能教你很多关于（意外地）风格的东西。
bdr查看英文原文
I recommend reading it anyway. It may not be the authority on grammar, but it can teach you a lot about (surprise!) style.
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