词汇大师(Wordmaster)--'Junk English'

AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on WORDMASTER -- we talk about "Junk English."

RS: That's the title of a new book. Author Ken¹ Smith spent six months immersing himself in the language of popular culture. He found a lot of it junk, in other words, worthless. "Junk English," he writes, "is the linguistic² equivalent of junk food -- ingest it long enough and your brain goes soft."

AA: Ken Smith says he wrote the book out of anger at what he calls the "debasement" of English by corporations, public relations consultants³, politicians and everyday people.

TAPE: CUT ONE -- SMITH/SKIRBLE/ARDITTI

SMITH: "I would talk to friends and they would mention the same things, that they were in a meeting or they heard someone use 'efficacious' instead of 'effective' or 'incentavize' instead of 'encourage' and it would drive them crazy, too."

RS: "So are you talking about sloppy⁴ grammar, sloppy, thinking, sloppy pronunciation, sloppy usage?"

SMITH: "It's a little bit of all of them. Some of it's sloppy, obviously, saying 'true facts' instead of just 'facts,' some of it's pretentious⁵ -- saying 'documentation' instead of 'paperwork,' or 'specificities' instead of 'specifics' -- and some of it's deliberate, frankly⁶. A sentence like 'This is a car for those who value quality.' That means nothing."

AA: "As opposed to a car for those who don't."

SMITH: "Yeah, right. I mean, a lot of language being used by politicians, the advertising⁷ industry, is language designed to sound as if it means something but it really doesn't mean anything."

AA: "Hasn't this always been the case?"

SMITH: "It has, but I think recently it's gotten a lot worse. Certainly the reach of the media that we have today is broader than it ever has been before, and that tends to spread it faster. It sort of increases the viral quality of this bad grammar and bad English. Every executive is a 'visionary' now, every product is 'revolutionary' or 'innovative⁸.' Words like 'shocking' and 'unique' get thrown around all the time, and so the power of those words has been lost."

AA: In his research, Ken Smith came to an unsettling conclusion.

TAPE: CUT THREE -- SMITH/SKIRBLE

SMITH: "Part of the difficulty in paying attention to this stuff as I did is that you realize you're not supposed to pay attention to this stuff. You're just supposed to sit back and be impressed by them and not really think too much about what is being said."

RS: "What about you, Ken Smith, did you find some of these words creeping into your vocabulary after six months?"

SMITH: "Oh, god yes! I always say that I'm an expert in junk English because I do it myself. In fact, in the introduction to the book I use the phrase 'broad overview⁹' which is a redundancy, and I didn't realize that. I went back and read the book and there it was, sort of leaping out at me. I mean, junk English habits are very difficult to break."

RS: And hard to escape. For instance, a lot of companies use what Ken Smith calls "casual, intimate language" to make business relationships seem something more.

TAPE: CUT FOUR -- ARDITTI/SMITH/SKIRBLE

SMITH: "It is trying to present this veneer¹⁰ of family. In fact, there's a section of the book called 'palsy-walsy pitches' ... "

RS: "Palsy-walsy pitches?"

SMITH: " ... which is a sales pitch put in a lexical mantle¹¹ of friendship, it's like, you know, 'from our family to yours.' It's that kind of talk that's coming out of corporations and advertisers nowadays."

AA: "And you encourage people to send you examples of junk English, is that right, to your Web site?"

SMITH: "Oh yes, junkenglish.com."

AA: "What's been the biggest complaint just since your book's come out, that people have been sending in to you?"

SMITH: "Well, a lot of it is just these abomination words like 'concretize' and 'accidenting,' those are two that came into the Web site just the other day. People really pick up on these sort of fake words that people coin."

RS: "So what you're saying is, once we being to recognize that we're speaking or writing in junk English, we can avoid doing that."

SMITH: "Yeah and again I think the book also helps you to laugh at it, and I think once you're able to laugh at junk English, it loses a lot of its power, it's not impressive anymore. You hear it, it's like a bell going off, like, 'oh yeah, he just said "incentavize," oh that's baaad,' whereas before you might not have recognized it."

RS: "I guess my last question is, any advice for students learning English as a foreign language and learning to write?"

SMITH: "Well, read good books and read good newspapers. The best way to learn how to write is to read good writing. Read the New York Times, read Harper's Magazine, read the New Yorker. I mean, these people know the language very well. They make mistakes too, but you can't go wrong by starting out at the top, it's the best way to learn a language.

AA: Ken Smith, author of "Junk English." Now, if we can help you improve your English, write to us!

RS: Send us your questions. Our e-mail address is [email protected]. With Avi Arditti, I'm Rosanne Skirble.

MUSIC: "Turnstyled, Junkpiled"/Townes Van Zandt

1 ken   

n.视野，知识领域

参考例句：

• Such things are beyond my ken.我可不懂这些事。
• Abstract words are beyond the ken of children.抽象的言辞超出小孩所理解的范围.

2 linguistic   

adj.语言的，语言学的

参考例句：

• She is pursuing her linguistic researches.她在从事语言学的研究。
• The ability to write is a supreme test of linguistic competence.写作能力是对语言能力的最高形式的测试。

3 consultants   

顾问( consultant的名词复数 )； 高级顾问医生，会诊医生

参考例句：

• a firm of management consultants 管理咨询公司
• There're many consultants in hospital. 医院里有很多会诊医生。

4 sloppy   

adj.邋遢的，不整洁的

参考例句：

• If you do such sloppy work again,I promise I'll fail you.要是下次作业你再马马虎虎，我话说在头里，可要给你打不及格了。
• Mother constantly picked at him for being sloppy.母亲不断地批评他懒散。

5 pretentious   

adj.自命不凡的，自负的，炫耀的

参考例句：

• He is a talented but pretentious writer.他是一个有才华但自命不凡的作家。
• Speaking well of yourself would only make you appear conceited and pretentious.自夸只会使你显得自负和虚伪。

6 frankly   

adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说

参考例句：

• To speak frankly, I don't like the idea at all.老实说，我一点也不赞成这个主意。
• Frankly speaking, I'm not opposed to reform.坦率地说，我不反对改革。

7 advertising   

n.广告业；广告活动 a.广告的；广告业务的

参考例句：

• Can you give me any advice on getting into advertising? 你能指点我如何涉足广告业吗?
• The advertising campaign is aimed primarily at young people. 这个广告宣传运动主要是针对年轻人的。

8 innovative   

adj.革新的，新颖的，富有革新精神的

参考例句：

• Discover an innovative way of marketing.发现一个创新的营销方式。
• He was one of the most creative and innovative engineers of his generation.他是他那代人当中最富创造性与革新精神的工程师之一。

9 overview   

n.概观，概述

参考例句：

• The opening chapter gives a brief historical overview of transport.第一章是运输史的简要回顾。
• The seminar aims to provide an overview on new media publishing.研讨会旨在综览新兴的媒体出版。

10 veneer   

n.(墙上的)饰面，虚饰

参考例句：

• For the first time her veneer of politeness began to crack.她温文尔雅的外表第一次露出破绽。
• The panel had a veneer of gold and ivory.这木板上面镶饰了一层金和象牙。

11 mantle   

n.斗篷，覆罩之物，罩子；v.罩住，覆盖，脸红

参考例句：

• The earth had donned her mantle of brightest green.大地披上了苍翠欲滴的绿色斗篷。
• The mountain was covered with a mantle of snow.山上覆盖着一层雪。