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《纽约时报》50个最具挑战性的词
New York Times 50 Most Challenging Words
导读
一篇整理《纽约时报》读者眼中“50 个最有挑战性的英文词”的旧帖，评论区围绕哪些词算难、哪些词不该入选、释义是否到位展开讨论。对写作者的价值在于：它实际上在讨论“什么样的生僻词值得用、怎么用才不显得做作”，以及释义和语境的重要性。
可以直接用的写作要点
- 01
挑生僻词要挑那些因古老或高度专业而冷僻的词，而不是别人生造、从未真正进入口语的词。
- 02
生僻词的力量来自它从非常规角度接近读者，为表达增加变化和趣味——前提是不显得矫饰卖弄。
- 03
解释一个词时不能只给抽象定义，要交代它指向的具体事件或语境，否则读者懂了词也不懂你在说什么。
- 04
一份“难词表”若混进 austerity、ubiquitous 这类常用词，说明选词标准本身就该先讲清楚。
HN 评论精选
值得用的是因古老或专业而冷僻的词，它们让表达不俗气又不做作。
大约一个月前 HN 上有个“稀奇有趣的英文词”帖子，pg 评论说得很精辟：最好的生僻词是那些因为古老或高度专业而冷僻的词，而不是谁生造出来、从未真正成为口语一部分的词。这份表上的词，受过教育的人多半认识不少，但我喜欢它，因为它列的基本都是英语里的老牌存货，能让说话者的词汇显得高于平庸，又不至于矫饰或刻意猎奇。类似的词还有很多：gossamer、latitudinarian、exegete、perforce、resplendent 等等。这类词的关键和力量在于：多数人日常不用它们，它们常带古典渊源，用在现代表达里恰好因为角度不寻常而增添变化和趣味。具体某个词可以商榷，但总的看这类词表有帮助、读着也有趣。
grellas查看英文原文
About a month ago, there was a post on HN of "unusual and amusing English words" (http://users.tinyonline.co.uk/gswithenbank/unuwords.htm), which drew the astute comment from pg that the "best sort of obscure words are ones that are obscure because they're old or highly specialized, not because someone made them up and they never really became part of the spoken language" (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1355056). Though educated people will tend to know a good number of the words on the list posted here, I like this list because it generally sets forth old English standbys that tend to mark the vocabulary of the speaker as being above the average or the mundane while not being pretentious or artificially fanciful. There are many similar words: gossamer, latitudinarian, exegete, perforce, resplendent, and on and on. The key to such words, and to their strength, lies in the fact that they are not used day-by-day by most people, that they often have classical hooks, and that their use in modern forms of expression adds variety and interest precisely because they come at the reader from an unusual angle (basically, pg's point as made above). One can differ about this or that word, of course, but the broader point is that lists of this type are helpful and fun to review.
释义必须给出所指和语境，否则只是循环定义，读者学不到东西。
我不是母语者，但觉得有些释义可疑。internecine 有很强的“内部自相残杀”含义，例句体现了这一点，定义里却没有。Kristallnacht 的释义如果读者不知道它指什么就没用；而如果知道指什么，多半也就认识这个词了——不如直接给维基链接或写成“大屠杀的前奏”。同样，摩尼教那条也该给个链接，说明其神学是“一个强大但非全能的光明力量对抗一个同样强大的黑暗力量”。到这儿我就没再逐条核对了；母语者想必能把这表改得更好。
JoachimSchipper查看英文原文
I am not a native speaker, but I thought some definitions were questionable. - internecine has a strong connotation of "amongst themselves", which is borne out by the example but not in the definition; - the definition of Kristallnacht is useless if you don't know what it's referring to, and you will likely know the term if you do know what it is referring to. A link to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristallnacht or "the prelude to the holocaust" would be better; - similarly, I think http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manichaeism#Theology (which highlights the split in a powerful-but-not-omnipotent good force and an also powerful evil force) should be linked. I stopped trying to verify things at this point; no doubt a native speaker can improve on this list.
生造词不能算“难词”，判断标准应是它是否真的进入了语言。
把自家某位专栏作者生造的词收进第 6 位，有失这份榜单其余部分的体面。它连 Google 的“define”都进不去；搜它出来的结果全是在说 Maureen Dowd“发明”了它，所以实在谈不上已经流行。从使用语境看，它大概也不该难倒多少读者——他们熟悉 schadenfreude，自然能领会那个玩笑。
jackfoxy查看英文原文
Including a neologism coined by one of their columnists as #6 is beneath the dignity of the rest of the list. It hasn't made it to Google "define". The top hits when Googleing it all refer to Maureen Dowd "inventing" it, so you can't really say it has caught on. I imagine from the context it was used it should not have really stumped that many readers, who would have been familiar with "schadenfreude", and so have gotten the joke.
“难词”的门槛要定清楚，否则常用词混进来会让整份榜单失去可信度。
挺有趣的词表，但有几个显得格格不入：austerity、hubris、overhaul、ubiquitous、hegemony，这些看起来都相当常见。不过表里也有一大堆我不认识的词，等有空我很想细细研究。
tmountain查看英文原文
Fun list of words, but a few seem out of place. Namely: austerity, hubris, overhaul, ubiquitous, and hegemony, all of which seem fairly common. That being said, there are tons of words on this list that I'm unfamiliar with, and I look forward to digging into it more when I have time.
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