On Writing Well 10.31

Vocabulary

1.By using a more pompous phrase in his professional role he not only sounds more important; he blunts the painful edge of truch.

pompous:该词可用以形容人或文章语言。形容人时意为“自负的”，如“a pompous official”（自命不凡的官员）；形容言语文体时则表示“夸张的”，如“pompous language”（浮夸的语言）。此处意为夸张、浮夸的词组。

2.Clutter is the ponderous euphemism that turns a slum into a depressed socioeconomic area, garbage collectors into waste-disposal personnel and the town dump into the volume reduction unit.

ponderous:笨重的,可记作ponder(思索、仔细考虑、沉思)+ous

euphemism:委婉说法

slum:贫民窟，"Slumdog Millionaire" 电影《贫民窟的百万富翁》

socioeconomic:社会经济的，socio(社会的)-economic(经济学的，经济的)

3.Orwell's warning that clutter is not just a nuisance but a deadly tool has come true in the recent decades of American military adventurism.

nuisance:麻烦的事情；令人讨厌的东西；妨害 probe nuisance :讨厌的人或事

Orwell's warning指that后面的clutter is not just a nuisance but a deadly tool，然后这个警告has come true in the recent decades of American military adventurism.

4.Style is tied to the psyche, and writing has deep psychological roots.

psyche:灵魂，精神，心灵。recesses of the psyche:心灵深处

这句话大意：写作风格与心灵息息相关，写作自内心深处长出。

Excerpt

Be grateful for everything you can throw away.Reexamine each sentence you put on paper. Is every word doing new work? Can any thought be expressed with more economy? Is anything pompous or pretentious or faddish? Are you hanging on to something useless just because you think it's beautiful?

The point is that you have to strip your writing down before you can build it back up.You must know what the essential tools are and what job they were designed to do.

There is no style store; style is organic to the person doing the writing, as much a part of him as his hair, or, if he is bald, his lack of it. Trying to add style is like adding a toupee.

Readers want the person who is talking to them to sound genuine. Therefore a fundamental rule is: be yourself.

They must relax, and they must have confidence.

今天摘抄的好像有点多：）

这两章写得是如何删繁就简以及个人风格是怎么回事。

句子中的clutter太多，会误导读者，像昨天读的那样，让读者一遍遍重复阅读，因此需要一遍遍更改。并不是说不用修饰语，归根结底，用词需要的是准确。很多所谓的高级词，当不知道这个单词的准确意思时，最好还是不要乱用，否则句子会变得很奇怪。想起来《圣经》，词语简短，然而有力量（可能还和受众有关系）——白居易作诗要让妇孺听懂才停下修改，也是出于简洁的想法吧。这就引出一个问题，当句子尽量简洁的时候，如何形成自己的风格。须知，堆砌的词藻并非一个人的文风，充其量是这个人词汇量丰富的表现。真正的style是发自内心的，能让人感受到真诚的。写作是一个作者把自己内心想法转码在文字上的过程，而阅读则是读者进行解码。在这一过程中，产生误读在所难免，可真正的写作是对自我的表达，而非媚俗。事实上，当能够很好地表达自己的时候，会有真正的读者到来。因此写作者需要放松且自信地进行创作。然而这两点都很难做到，更不用说很好地表达自己的想法了。写作因而使人痛苦，这是每个写作者都会有的经历。想起来以前读的其他讲写作的书，也是这么说的。倘若不是非写不可，就不要写了吧。然而确是非写不可呀：）