语言与文风2013theatlantic.com
克拉伦斯·托马斯为何在意见书中使用简单词语
Why Clarence Thomas Uses Simple Words in His Opinions
导读
这篇围绕美国最高法院大法官克拉伦斯·托马斯在判决意见中偏爱简单词语展开，讨论“看似简单”的写作其实需要高超技巧，也涉及法律与技术写作中简洁和严谨的张力。对写作者来说，它提醒我们：清晰不是把内容变浅，而是降低读者的理解成本，同时要警惕简单词语在专业语境中的歧义。
可以直接用的写作要点
- 01
把“让读者不费力地抓住意思”当作清晰的标准：能用平实词句说清，就不堆砌抽象名词和长句。
- 02
简洁不等于省略推理；需要说服读者时，仍要按“前提—权威—结论”把关键步骤交代清楚。
- 03
在专业写作中，日常词可能有精确含义，使用简单词时要补足语境，避免“first sale”式的歧义。
- 04
可以对照平实版本与法律行话版本，学习如何在不改变法律效果的前提下把条款写短、写明白。
HN 评论精选
清晰简单是高超且隐蔽的写作能力，能显著降低读者理解成本，法律和技术写作尤其需要。
我认识的一些最好的作家，风格都出奇地清晰简单。读写得差的东西（比如这条评论），你得费劲从字词里提取意思。好作家之所以有效，是因为他们尽量把这种负担降到最低——读简单清楚的东西更省脑力，内容也更平易近人、更有吸引力，而且这大多发生在潜意识层面。我最喜欢的例子是 Stallman：不管我同不同意他的某篇文章，它们总是极其易读，论证完全没有被遮掩，容易跟上。当然，这不是成为伟大作家的唯一方式，甚至可能不是成为最伟大作家的方式，但它非常有效，而且相当微妙；微妙到很多人没意识到这需要多少特殊技巧、实际有多好。这种技能对法律这类本质上复杂、又容易吸引习惯于复杂的人的事情尤其重要；对技术话题也至少同样有用。
tikhonj查看英文原文
Some of the best writers I know are ones whose style is deceptively clear and simple. When reading something poorly written, like this comment, you have to spend some some effort extracting the meaning from the words. These good writers are effective because they manage to minimize this--reading something simple and clear takes less mental effort and makes the content more approachable and appealing, largely subconsciously. My favorite example of a writer like this is Stallman. Whether I agree with or disagree with any of his particular essays, they are always immensely readable. His arguments are completely unobfuscated and easy to follow. His work is worth reading if just to see how complicated legal and technical ideas and arguments can be beautifully decomposed. Now, this is certainly not the only way to be a great writer. Perhaps it is not even a way to be the greatest of writers. But it is very effective and, importantly, relatively subtle. It is so subtle, in fact, that I think many people do not recognize how much especial skill it takes and good it actually is. This sort of skill is particularly important for something like the law which is inherently complex and tends to attract people very comfortable with such complexity. Exposing it simply is crucial. More relevantly for HN, this sort of skill is at least as useful for technical topics. It's certainly something everybody here should think about when writing.
法律写作需要展示推理链，简洁与详尽存在张力；清晰不等于简短，长句也可以写得斩钉截铁。
我不确定托马斯的意见是我会拿来当清晰思考和清晰写作典范的那种，尽管他确实有简洁风格。法律写作的一件事是你必须“展示你的工作”——通过公认权威把读者从公认前提引导到结论。这必然有点啰嗦，彻底这样做与简洁有点紧张。我个人认为 Scalia 的意见很棒，尽管他习惯写很长的倒装句；我不确定它们对普通人最易读，但极其清晰。读 Scalia 意见时“含糊带过”从不会浮现（除了谈毒品或同性恋时）。Richard Posner 和 Alex Kozinski 也以写作闻名。
rayiner查看英文原文
I'm not sure Thomas's opinions are the ones I'd hold up as paragons of clear thought and clear writing, though he certainly does have a succinct style. One of the things about legal writing is that you have to "show your work"--guide the reader from accepted premise to conclusion via accepted authority. This is necessarily a somewhat verbose process, and doing this thoroughly is somewhat in tension with doing it succinctly. I personally think Scalia's opinions are amazing, notwithstanding his habit of writing very long inverted sentences. I'm not sure if they're the most approachable for lay people, but they are incisively clear. "Hand-wavey" is not a term that ever comes to mind reading Scalia's opinions (except when talking about drugs or gays). Richard Posner (7th Circuit) and Alex Kozinzki (9th Circuit) are also known for their writing. I like this one from Kozinksi: http://notabug.com/kozinski/kremen_v_netsol
简单词不等于清晰，专业语境中日常词有精确含义并可能产生歧义；有时古语反而能减少语义漂移。
然而，只用简单词也可能（甚至无意中）造成晦涩和混乱。我们正等待最高法院一项可能对首次销售原则产生重大影响的裁决，它取决于“made lawfully under this title”的两种看似合理的解释。“First sale”本身由两个简单易懂的词组成，但可能指作品创作过程中发生的任何一次销售；词本身没有表明它指书卖给出版商、出版商卖给商店、商店卖给人还是人卖给另一个人。“Assault”是日常用语中的常用词，但在法律里含义非常具体，甚至不需要身体接触。即使有人成功写出对普通人完全讲得通的法条，其表面含义未来也可能改变或丢失。像“sine qua non”这样的短语相当难懂，你可能需要查；但因为它来自死语言，含义随时间变形的可能性也许更小。
antiterra查看英文原文
Yet, it's possible to obfuscate and confuse with only simple words, even unintentionally. We're waiting on a Supreme Court ruling that could have significant impact on first-sale that hinges on two plausible interpretations of the phrase "made lawfully under this title."[1] "First sale" itself is made up of two simple understandable words, but could mean be any one of the sales that occur in the creation of a work. The words themselves contain nothing that indicate whether it refers to the first sale of a book to a publisher, a publisher to a store, a store to a person or a person to another person. "Assault" is a common word in every day usage, but in law it means something very specific, it doesn't even require physical contact. Even if someone succeeds in writing a law that makes perfect sense to laypeople, it's possible that the apparent meaning will change or be lost in the future. For an example of this, wade just ankle-deep into discussions of the meaning of the Second Amendment of the US Constitution. Phrases like "sine qua non"[2] are pretty inaccessible, in that you might need to look them up. However, being from a dead language, they may be less likely to morph in meaning over time. [1] http://www.volokh.com/2012/05/08/some-baffling-copyright-law/ [2] Found in a Supreme Court opinion on copyright - Feist Pubs., Inc. v. Rural Tel. Svc. Co., Inc. - 499 U.S. 340 (1991) http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/499/340/case.html
平实英语法律写作可以达到同样的法律效果且更易读，简洁并不必然损害质量。
法律界有一股使用平实英语的潮流，尽管有些人认为这样做会降低法律写作质量。我最近注意到 Google 的服务条款就是用平实英语法律写作写成的。比较一个常被称为可分割性条款的合同条款（来自 Google 的服务条款）：“如果发现某一条款不可执行，这不会影响其他条款。”与传统的法律行话：“如果本协议任何条款或其他规定被任何法律规则或公共政策判定为无效、违法或无法执行，本协议所有其他条件和规定仍应完全有效，只要本协议所设想交易的经济或法律实质不以对任何一方产生重大不利影响的方式受到影响。”两者效果完全相同。
jstalin查看英文原文
There is a movement in the legal community toward using plain English. Though, some think that doing so somehow reduces the quality of the legal writing. I was recently struck by how Google's terms of service are written in plain English legal writing: https://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/terms/ Compare a contract term like this, often referred to as a severability clause (from Google's ToS): "If it turns out that a particular term is not enforceable, this will not affect any other terms." With this, in traditional legalese: "If any term or other provision of this Agreement is determined to be invalid, illegal or incapable of being enforced by any rule or law, or public policy, all other conditions and provisions of this Agreement shall nevertheless remain in full force and effect so long as the economic or legal substance of the transactions contemplated hereby is not affected in any manner materially adverse to any party." Both have the exact same effect.
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