The story was one of the saddest I have read in ages. The World Bank’s chief economist ordered his staff to write more clearly, shut them up whenever they banged on interminably in presentations, and insisted all reports were short and lucid. Instead of being lauded for his bravery Paul Romer was punished like a heretic, and his management duties were taken from him. His story reads like a corporate take on the martyrdom of Joan of Arc.
這是我許久以來讀過的最悲傷的故事了。世界銀行(World Bank)首席經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)家保羅?羅默(Paul Romer)命令手下以后寫報(bào)告要更加清楚明了，作報(bào)告時(shí)一旦開始啰嗦就立刻讓他們閉嘴，還堅(jiān)持所有報(bào)告都必須簡(jiǎn)明易懂。但羅默先生非但沒有因?yàn)樽约旱挠赂亿A得稱贊，反而像異端分子一樣受到了懲罰：被剝奪了管理職責(zé)。他的故事聽起來簡(jiǎn)直就像公司版的“圣女貞德(Joan of Arc)的殉難”。
There is only one quarrel I have with Mr Romer. Among his edicts was to impose a quota on the word “and”, ruling that an official report should contain no more than 2.6 per cent of them. It is a bit odd to persecute the common conjunction, which has the advantages of being useful, clear and short, when there are all those words out there — leverage, deliver, journey, dialogue, platform, learnings or robust and a thousand others — that are none of these things.
我只在一個(gè)問題上不滿羅默先生。他的那些命令中，有一條是對(duì)“and”這個(gè)單詞的使用實(shí)行配額限制：官方報(bào)告里，“and”出現(xiàn)的次數(shù)不得超過總字?jǐn)?shù)的2.6%。如此壓迫一個(gè)常用連詞，委實(shí)有些奇怪�！癮nd”可是兼有“有用”、“明確”、“簡(jiǎn)短”這幾項(xiàng)優(yōu)勢(shì)，況且還有無數(shù)個(gè)單詞——leverage、deliver、journey、dialogue、platform、learnings、robust，等等等等——與這幾項(xiàng)優(yōu)勢(shì)毫不沾邊。
Yet when the Stanford Literary Lab published a paper in 2015 analysing World Bank reports, “and” came in for a hiding. The authors noted its use had almost doubled in the previous 70 years and mockingly quoted passages in which ugly, unrelated nouns were slung together with chains of conjunctions.
不過，斯坦福大學(xué)文學(xué)研究室(Stanford Literary Lab)在2015年發(fā)表的一篇論文對(duì)世界銀行的報(bào)告進(jìn)行了分析，發(fā)現(xiàn)“and”的確沒起到好作用。作者們注意到，過去70年，“and”的使用幾乎翻了一番。他們還嘲弄般地引用了一些段落，里面大量別扭、無關(guān)的名詞用一串串的連詞綁到了一起。
But is this little word really to blame? Over the past week I have immersed myself in assortedtexts, starting with the work of Martin Wolf, who writes at least as clearly as any economist Ihave come across. Sure enough, in his last column my computer counted an admirablymodest 2.5 per cent of ands. Next I studied a column by Janan Ganesh, a man whose proseis widely admired. He did even better, with only 2 per cent.
但真的是這個(gè)小小的單詞的責(zé)任嗎？過去一周，我埋頭研究了形形色色的文本。首先從馬丁?沃爾夫(MartinWolf)的文章下手——其行文清楚程度不亞于我讀過的任何一位經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)家。果然，據(jù)我的電腦統(tǒng)計(jì)，他的最新一篇專欄里，“and”的使用頻率僅為2.5%，令人佩服。下一個(gè)，我研究了散文廣受推崇的嘉南?加內(nèi)什(JananGanesh)的一篇專欄。他的成績(jī)比沃爾夫還要好，使用頻率僅為2%。
After that, I widened my net and downloaded King Lear in its entirety, to find the Bard used amere 19 ands per 1,000. When you consider most of these are stage directions — “Enter Kentand Gloucester” — the true score is lower still.
之后，我擴(kuò)大了研究范圍，下載了《李爾王》(King Lear)全集，結(jié)果發(fā)現(xiàn)莎士比亞每1000個(gè)單詞里只用了19個(gè)“and”�？紤]到其中大部分都是舞臺(tái)指示，例如“肯特和葛羅斯特上(Enter Kent and Gloucester)”，實(shí)際使用次數(shù)要更少。
I was about to conclude that Mr Romer was on to something, but then turned to my ownwriting and found that in last week’s column I used a shaming 30 ands per 1,000 words. MrRomer would have despaired.
我正準(zhǔn)備得出羅默有一定道理的結(jié)論，但又?jǐn)?shù)了數(shù)我自己的文章，發(fā)現(xiàn)我在上周的專欄里丟人地用了3%的“and”。羅默先生看了會(huì)感到絕望的。
