语言与文风2022paulgraham.com编辑精选
像说话一样写作（2015）
Write Like You Talk (2015)
导读
Paul Graham 这篇短文主张「像说话一样写作」：别用华丽词藻和复杂句式，因为读者会觉得你在装，作者自己也容易误以为说了很多。评论区几条高赞反对意见值得一读——它们指出口语和书面语各有优势，复杂句和精确词汇在表达微妙含义时不可替代，「删掉多余的词」是对的，但别把它当成万能公式。
可以直接用的写作要点
- 01
先按说话的语气写初稿，再回头删掉多余的词，让句子读起来像自然讲话。
- 02
警惕「华丽词汇让你自以为说了更多」的陷阱：每个复杂词都要能确凿地增加信息量，否则换成大白话。
- 03
口语化不是唯一标准：当内容本身复杂、需要精确和层次时，用密集准确的表达反而更有效。
- 04
判断用词好坏的标准是它是否服务于表达，而不是它听起来「高级」还是「朴素」——两边都可能只是偏见。
HN 评论精选
复杂句和精确词汇能更高效地表达细微含义，不能一概否定。
我不同意。写作和阅读时，复杂句其实更容易解析，也更容易表达一个连贯而复杂的想法，而不是写成一句漫无方向的话。「高级词」的意义就在于用一个词精确传达某个细微差别，而不是用一个大而无当的泛词——这正是同义词词典存在的理由。用得对的话，你确实「说了比看起来更多」。至于他举的「mercurial Spaniard」那句，「mercurial」用得很到位，那 Paul 又怎么解释？
texaslonghorn5查看英文原文
> But perhaps worst of all, the complex sentences and fancy words give you, the writer, the false impression that you're saying more than you actually are. Disagree. When you're writing / reading, it's much easier to parse complex sentences. It's also much easier to express a cohesive, complex thought this way compared to a meandering, directionless sentence. And the whole point of "fancy words" are to succinctly convey some nuance rather than using a generic word which is much broader. Check out the often reposted article about Webster's 1913 dictionary. Also this is exactly the purpose of the thesaurus. So yes, if done right, you ARE "saying more than you actually are." > The last straw for me was a sentence I read a couple days ago: >> The mercurial Spaniard himself declared: "After Altamira, all is decadence." "mercurial" does the trick in the quoted example, does Paul have a patch?
口语和书面语各有长处，简化只是其中一种策略，不是普遍规则。
我喜欢 Graham 的很多文章，但这一点我根本不同意。口语是信息传递的「即时编译版」：随口而出、意识流、靠削掉大量细微差别来把事办成。书面语则更微妙、更经考量、更经过编辑——他自己也说写完要改，只是他改的方向是「更像说话」。这样做是在为简单而牺牲复杂度，也许适合他的目标，但不是通用药方。我不否认从简单入手、再逐层加例外和细节是好的教学法（整个教育系统都建立在「先对孩子说善意的谎言」上）。我反对的是把它当成默认规则：世界本身是复杂的，我们靠一层层抽象来处理复杂性，该用哪一层抽象要看场合和读者。
spacedcowboy查看英文原文
I like a lot of what Graham writes, but I fundamentally disagree with him on this one. Spoken language is the JIT compiler of information transferral. It’s spur-of-the-moment; it’s stream-of-consciousness; it gets the job done by stripping away a lot of nuance and complexity. Written language is more subtle, more considered, more edited - he states himself that he writes then edits - in his case to make it more “spoken”. By doing this he is removing complexity in the interests of simplicity, and this may well fit with his goal for this work. It is not a general panacea. I don’t disagree that sometimes it is more useful to have a simple introduction, leading to a more complex and better understanding of a subject before layering on the exceptions and subtleties - there is certainly a place for simplified knowledge transfer, our entire system of education is based on this “lies to children” approach. What I do disagree with is that it’s a useful go-to rule. The world is inherently complex, and we deal with complexity by introducing layers of abstraction (more of the “lies to children” approach, but this time to ourselves). Not everyone needs to understand the quantum mechanical physics of a positive charge in order to understand that balloons will stick to your hair if rubbed against certain materials, but if you’re trying to explain that, then you read the room and go with the layer of abstraction needed. Sometimes that abstraction is very thin, and the language used will reflect that; at other times, “it just does” is the way to go… party handbooks printed on balloon packets are different to undergraduate textbooks. So written language, with all its capability for complexity, context, subtlety and nuance should be employed when that capability has a useful effect. That means understanding one’s audience and tailoring to suit, not just a blindly-applied rule to “write as you speak”.
「删掉多余的词」是对的，但由此推广成否定一切复杂用词就过头了。
和 Paul Graham 的很多文章一样：这里有一个很好、很重要的观点（删掉不必要的词！），但他用力过猛，滑向了刻薄的过度概括。真相更微妙：说话和写作显然都是传达信息的重要途径，但它们是不同的，而且这种不同恰恰是美妙的——各有强弱。好文章是紧实的，读起来噼啪作响。只要一个词服务于这个目标，就该用它；如果像 Graham 这样的人要把它斥为「花哨」，那暴露的其实是评论者自己，而不是文章。
bcantrill查看英文原文
As with so many things Paul Graham: there is a good, important idea here (omit needless words!) but he overshoots the mark, descending into venomous overgeneralizations. The truth is more nuanced: speaking and writing are both important vectors for communication (obviously?), but they are different (delightfully so!) -- with different strengths and weaknesses. Great writing is tight: it crackles. If a word serves that end, it should be used -- knowing that if someone like Graham wants to decry the word choice as "fancy", it reveals more about the critic than the writing.
口语化有其风险：流畅的叙述可能掩盖论证的漏洞。
这是一个说服力不足的稻草人论证。烂文章就是烂文章。你同样可以举出烂口才的例子，然后说人们说话应该像写作。事实是说话和写作不同，而且各自内部还有不同的目标和风格。PG 那种平实、口语化的辩证风格早年很吸引我，也确实有效，但我不会说它是写作的终极方案。保持口语化的一个问题在于：论证的实质可能被流畅好听的叙述掩盖，听起来顺，却未必站得住。密集、精确的风格也许更难读、也不那么讨巧，但对确立一个新想法的价值往往更有效。
dasil003查看英文原文
This is an unconvincing straw man argument. Bad writing is just... bad writing. You can just as easily point to bad speaking and say people should talk more like they write. The fact is, speaking and writing are different, and even within them there are different goals and styles. While PG's plain-spoken dialectical style attracted me early, and has been effective, I wouldn't call it the end-all-be-all approach to writing. One problem with keeping things conversational is that the substance of the argument can be obscured by flowing narrative that sounds good but doesn't necessarily add up. A dense, precise style might be harder to read—and less politically expedient—but ultimately more effective in establishing the merits of a novel idea.
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