梁实秋读书札记感谢梁先生介绍的《亲切的风格》

说出了不知道该如何准确表达的、我想要靠近的写作方式。

一拿到书就被这样的开篇吸引，所以把关于它的部分手打下来，以飨同好。

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一百五十多年前英国批评家哈兹利（Hazlitt）写过一篇文章《论亲切的风格》（on familiar style），开宗明义的说：

以亲切的风格写作，不是容易事。许多人误以为亲切的风格即是通俗的风格，写文章而不矫揉造作即是随随便便的信笔所之。相反的，我所谓的亲切的风格，最需要准确性，也可以说最需要纯洁的表现。不但要排斥一切无意义的铺张，而且也要夷除一切庸俗的术语，松懈的，无关的，信笔拈来的辞句。芟除一切庸俗的术语，松懈的、无关的、信笔拈来的词句。不是首先想到一个字便写下来，而是要选用大家常用的最好的一个字；不是任意地把字组合起来，而是要使用语文中之真正的惯用的语法。要写出纯粹亲切的或真正英文的风格，便要像是普通谈话一般，对于选字要有彻底把握，谈吐之间要自然、有力，而且明白清楚，一切卖弄学问的以及炫耀口才的噱头都要抛弃。……任何人都可以用戏剧的腔调念出一段剧词，或是踩上高跷来发表他的思想；但是用简单而适当的语文来说话写作便比较困难了。做出一种华而不实的风格，使用双倍大的字来表现你所想表现的东西，这是容易事；选用一个最为恰当的字，便不那么容易。十个八个字，同样的常用，同样的清楚，几乎有同样的意义，要在其中选择一个便不简单，其间差异微乎其微，但是却具有绝对的影响。……

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只有以上这些了。

但是在网络上又搜索到了全部原文和不知名作者的译文，相比之下，如果梁大师能在本书里给出全篇翻译就好了。

On Familiar style

论平易的文体

It is not easy to write familiar style. Many people mistake a familiar for a vulgar style and suppose that to write without affectation is to write at random. On the contrary there is nothing that requires more precision and if I may so say purity of expression than the style I am speaking of. It utterly rejects not only all unmeaning pomp but all low cant phrases and loose unconnected slipshod allusions. It is not to take the first word that offers but the best word in common use; it is not to throw words together in any combinations we please but to follow and avail ourselves of the true idiom of the language. To write a genuine familiar or truly English style is to write as any one would speak in common conversation who had a thorough command and choice of words or who could discourse with ease force and perspicuity setting aside all pedantic and oratorical flourishes. Or to give another illustration to write naturally is the same thing in regard to common conversation as to read naturally is in regard to common speech. It does not follow that it is an easy thing to give the true accent and inflection to the words you utter because you do not attempt to rise above the level of ordinary life and colloquial speaking.

平易的文体并非轻易得来。不少人误认为文字俚俗便是文风平易，信笔写去即为不加雕饰。其实恰恰相反。我说的这种文体比任何文字都更加需要精确，或者说，需要语言纯净。它不但要摒除一切华而不实之词，也要摒除一切陈言套语以及那些若即若离、不相连属、胡拼乱凑的比喻。飘然自来的浮词切不可使用，而要在通行词语中选优拔萃；也不可随心所欲将各种词语任意搭配，必须在习惯用语中确有所本方可加以发挥。所谓写出一手纯正、平易的英语文体，意思是说：要像一个完全精通词章之道的人在日常谈话中那样，说话行云流水，娓娓动人，明晰畅达，却无掉书袋、炫口才之嫌。换句话说，朴素的作文与日常谈话的关系，正和朴素的朗读与日常口语的关系相同。这并非说，只要不去超越日常口头表达规范，你便可轻而易举地出口字正腔圆，发音抑扬适度。

You do not assume indeed the solemnity of the pulpit or the tone of stage-declamation; neither are you at liberty to gabble on at a venture without emphasis or discretion or to resort to vulgar dialect or clownish pronunciation. You must steer a middle course. You are tied down to a given and appropriate articulation which is determined by the habitual associations between sense and sound and which you can only hit by entering into the author’s meaning as you must find the proper words and style to express yourself by fixing your thoughts on the subject you have to write about. Any one may mouth out a passage with a theatrical cadence or get upon stilts to tell his thoughts; but to write or speak with propriety and simplicity is a more difficult task.

当然，你无须像在教堂里讲道或在舞台上朗诵那样拿腔作势；然而，你也不可不分轻重，不讲分寸，信口哇啦哇啦，再不然就乞灵于粗俗方言和油腔滑调。中间之道才是应当采取的办法。某种疾徐适度的发音制约着你，而这种发音方法又受制于某种约定俗成的以音表意的关系，要想找到它只有去体察作者的本意——这就正如你要想找到恰当的字眼和风格来表达自己的意思，必须凝神细思自己要写的内容一样。用演戏似的调子朗诵一段文章，或者用夸张的方式把自己的思想表达一番，这样的事人人会做；但是，要想做文、说话恰到好处，朴实无华，可就比较难了。

Thus it is easy to affect a pompous style to use a word twice as big as the thing you want to express; it is not so easy to pitch upon the very word that exactly fits it. Out of eight or ten words equally common equally intelligible with nearly equal pretensions it is a matter of some nicety and discrimination to pick out the very one the preferableness of which is scarcely perceptible but decisive. The reason why I object to Dr.Johnson’s style is that there is no discrimination no selection no variety in it. He uses none but ‘tall opaque words’ taken from the ‘first row of the rubric’—words with the greatest number of syllables or Latin phrases with merely English terminations. If a fine style depended on this sort of arbitrary pretension it would be fair to judge of an author’s elegance by the measurement of his words and the substitution of foreign circumlocutions (with no precise associations) for the mother-tongue. How simple is it to be dignified without ease to be pompous without meaning! Surely it is but a mechanical rule for avoiding what is low to be always pedantic and affected. It is clear you cannot use a vulgar English word if you never use a common English word at all. A fine tact is shown in adhering to those which are perfectly common and yet never falling into any expressions which are debased by disgusting circumstances or which owe their signification and point to technical or professional allusions.

华丽的文章好做，只要在叙事状物之际采用夸大一倍的字眼就行，然而，要想找出确切的字眼，与那一事物铢两悉称，纤毫不差，可就不那么容易了。从十个八个同样通俗易懂，也几乎同样可供采用的字眼当中，选出某一个字眼，这个字眼的优长之处极难分辨但又至关紧要，这是要有明察秋毫的眼力的。我之所以不赞成约翰逊博士的文体，原因就在于那种文体缺乏明辨，缺乏汰选，缺乏变化。他使用的全是从“朱红字体训告”中挑出来的那些“高大、晦涩的字眼”——这些音缀很长，或者是加上英语词尾的拉丁词。要是这样随心所欲地矫饰就能形成优美的文体，那么只要对某位作家使用的单词长度加以计算，或者只看他如何把本国语言换成累赘的外来语词（不管和内容关系如何），便可判定文风的典雅了。这么说来，为高雅而舍平易，因典丽而失本意，岂不是太容易了吗？要想避免文风卑下，只要机械似地在文章中一味卖弄学问，装腔作势也就是了。你在文章中连一个普通的字眼也不用，自然不会犯用词粗俗之病。

A truly natural or familiar style can never be quaint or vulgar for this reason that it is of universal force and applicability and that quaintness and vulgarity arise out of the immediate connection of certain words with coarse and disagreeable or with confined ideas. The last from what we understand by cant or slang phrases. To give an example of what is not very cleat in the general statement. I should say that the phrase To cut with a knife or To cut a piece of wood is perfectly free from vulgarity because it is perfectly common; but to cut an acquaintance is not quite unexceptionable because it is not perfectly common or intelligible and has hardly yet escaped out of the limits of slang phraseology. I should hardly therefore use the word in this sense without putting it in italics as a license of expression to be received cum grano salis. All provincial or bye-phrase come under the same mark of reprobation---all such as the writer transfers to the page from his fireside or a particular coterie or that he invents for his own sole use and convenience.

然而，真正的文字圆熟却表现在一方面坚持使用那些人人通用的字眼，而又回避那些在某些可厌的环境中用滥了的字眼，以及那些仅仅对于某种技术或某种行业才有意义的词语。真正平易自然的文体不可给人以怪僻或粗俗之感，因为这种文体要通行四方，说服公众，而冷僻粗俗之词却容易使人联想到某些粗野、不快或狭隘的概念。这里指的是所谓“切口”或“俚语”。笼统议论，难以说明，且举一例：像To cut with a knife （用刀子来切）To cut a piece of wood（切开一块木头）这样的短语，完全不会给人以粗俗之感，因为它们是到处通用的；然而，To cut an acquaintance（切断和熟人的来往）这个说法，就不能说是无懈可击了，因为它并非处处通行，人人明了，它还没有走出俚语的范围。因此，我将这个单词用于此种意义时，不得不写成斜体字样，以表明这是一种破格用法，在采用时要cum grano salis（加以斟酌）。一切土语冷词也应在摒弃之列——因为作者把此类字眼写在纸上，是为了谈论他自己家里或某个“小圈子”的私事，再不然就是他为了某种个人方便自己生造的。

背景与赏析·作者简介

威廉·赫兹里特（William Hazlitt，1778—1830），英国19世纪著名散文家、文学评论家，出生于牧师家庭，在爱尔兰和美国度过童年时代，曾就读于哈克尼神学院；去过巴黎学习绘画，早期以作画为主，当过记者，以后转向文学和戏剧评论；1805年后，潜心研究过哲学，结识著名诗人柯勒律治和华兹华斯，与兰姆的友谊则持续终生。他同情法国大革命，积极主张民主共和；崇尚个人主义，反对权威和习俗，以观点鲜明、思想激进和喜好论争而闻名于文坛。他著述范围较广，包括文学、历史、哲学和政论等，主要成就在于文艺批评和小品随笔。他从少年到青年时期，广泛阅读过各种书籍，“渊深如海”，才气横溢。他以文笔犀利、风趣，语言准确流畅，文章既充满生活气息，又富于哲理，多机智的警句和通俗的类比，爱广征博引，寓精炼于浩瀚之中。

他一生勤奋，著作甚多，公认的最好作品是《时代精神》（The Spirit of the Age）。其作品有：《莎士比亚戏剧人物论》（Characters of Shakespeare’s Plays），《英国舞台一瞥》（A View of the English Stage），《论英国诗人讲演集》（Lectures on the English Poets），《席间文谈》（Table Talk），《素描和随笔》（Sketches and Essays），《直言者》（The Plain Speaker）；还有《拿破仑传》（Life of Napoleon），《论人的行为准则》（Principles of Human Action），《政论文集》（Political Essays），《英国主要画廊概貌》（Sketches of the Principal Picture Galleries in England）和《游览法意札记》（Notes of a Journey through France and Italy）等。《詹姆斯·罗斯科特谈话录》（Conversations James Northcote）是他最后一部作品，记载了他与这位画家的友谊，其中充满了关于艺术和人生的睿智评论。他的一些文章给人们极其深刻的印象，如《论青春不朽之感》（On the Feeling of Immortality in Youth），《我与诗人们的初交》（My First Acquaintance with Poets）和《论学者的无知》（On the Ignorance of the Learned）等，由于这些文章，人们也将永久怀念他。

他的全集于1902—1906年出版，共13卷，达6000页之多。一位评论家说，“他的勤奋是惊人的……也许没有任何一位写得这么多的英国作家能像他这样写下去这么多上乘的作品。”

赫兹里特一生坦率直言，无所畏惧。1830年，他在孤独中死去，只活了52岁。他临终前兰姆在他的身旁，这给了他安慰，他最后对兰姆说：“好，我度过了美好的一生。”