學英語會有一個定勢，那就是背很偏很難的單詞。但是了解那些“高級”單詞固然必要，可任何一門語言中應用最廣泛的還是那些簡單的基礎詞彙。我們自己看中文的時候會很痛恨拐彎抹角不說人話的作者，英文也一樣。老外自己不喜歡看故作艱深的東西，所以我們在寫作的時候就放心大膽地使用簡單詞彙吧，隻要意思表達清楚、有條理、語法通暢就是好文章。

　　What is good writing?

　　什麼樣的文章是好文章？

　　It depends on what country you’re from. We all know what’s considered “good writing” in our own country. We grow up immersedin the cadencesand sentence structure of the language we were born into, so we think, “That’s probably what every country considers good writing; they just use different words.” If only! I once asked a student from Cairo, “What kind of language is Arabic?” She said, “It’s all adjectives.”

　　這取決於你來自何處。我們都知道在自己的國家好文章是什麼樣的。我們從小到大，已經熟知我們母語的抑揚頓挫和句子結構，於是我們認為，其他國家所謂的好文章也應該是這樣，隻不過用的語言不同。要是這樣就好了！我有次問一個來自開羅的學生：“阿拉伯語是什麼樣的語言？”她回答說：“都是形容詞。”

　　Well, of course it’s not all adjectives, but I knew what she meant: it’s decorative, it’s ornate, it’s intentionally pleasing. But all those adjectives and all that decoration would be the ruin of any journalisttrying to write good English. No proverbs, please.

　　當然，不可能都是形容詞，我知道她的意思：阿拉伯語是一種注重雕飾和閱讀快感的語言。但是太多形容詞和太多雕飾都不利於英文的新聞寫作。千萬別使用那麼多諺語。

　　Spanish also comes with a heavy load of beautiful baggagethat will smotherany journalist writing in English.

　　西班牙語也一樣，有太多不利於英文寫作的修飾語。

　　English is not as musical as Spanish, or Italian, or French, or as ornamentalas Arabic, or as vibrantas some of your native languages. But I’m hopelessly in love with English because it’s plain and it’s strong. It has a huge vocabulary of words that have precise shades of meaning; there’s no subject, however technical or complex, that can’t be made clear to any reader in good English—if it’s used right. Unfortunately, there are many ways of using it wrong. Those are the damaging habits I want to warn you about today.

　　英語不像西班牙語、意大利語或者法語那樣富有音律美，也不像阿拉伯語那樣華麗，可能也不像你們的母語那樣生動鮮活，但我就是無可救藥地熱愛英語，因為它平實有力，擁有海量意義鮮明的詞彙。描述一樣事物，不管多高科技多複雜，在標準英語中讀者都看懂——如果描述準確。不幸的是很多人都不能正確使用英語。以下就是我希望大家避免的一些錯誤習慣。

　　First, a little history. The English language is derived from two main sources. One is Latin, the other is Anglo-Saxon. The words derived from Latin are the enemy—they will strangleand suffocate everything you write. The Anglo-Saxon words will set you free.

　　首先，了解英語的曆史。英語來源於拉丁語和安格魯-撒克遜語。來自拉丁語的單詞是我們的宿敵——它們會使你的寫作佶屈聱牙。安格魯-撒克遜語才能解開你的束縛。

　　How do those Latin words do their strangling and suffocating? In general they are long, pompousnouns that end in -ion—like implementation and maximization and communication (five syllableslong!)—or that end in -ent—like development and fulfillment. Those nouns express a vague concept or an abstract idea, not a specific action that we can picture. Here’s a typical sentence: “Priorto the implementation of the financial enhancement.” That means “Before we fixed our money problems.”