词汇大师(Wordmaster)--War in American English

Broadcast on "Coast to Coast": April 17, 2003

HOST: Each Thursday our Wordmasters talk about American English. Filling in for Avi Arditti and Rosanne Skirble this week is VOA's Adam Phillips. He looks at some of the marks that wars have left on the language we use in the United States. Adam spoke¹ with Geoffrey Nunberg, a linguist² at Stanford University in California who focuses on how Americans talk.

NUNBERG: "War has always had a special kind of language, particularly in the West, since the middle of the 19th century. It's a mix of bureaucratic³ and technical jargon⁴ and euphemism⁵. If you just look at the words that begin with B, World War Two gave the American language items like 'beachhead,' 'blitz,' 'blockbuster,' 'battle wagon⁶' for a battleship, 'bloodbath' for a scene of carnage, 'bogie' for an enemy airplane. Go to F and you get 'foxhole⁷' and 'firepower,' 'flak,' which denoted originally anti-aircraft fire but now is used for criticism of any kind, as in 'she caught a lot of flak for that remark she made.'

"Since Vietnam, there have been fewer and fewer permanent contributions to the language coming from warfare⁸, maybe because the wars have been short. And similarly words from earlier wars are often forgotten. My students at Stanford, none of them remember the origin of 'hearts and minds.' That came in in the 1960s during the Vietnam War when Americans were talking about the necessity of 'winning the hearts and minds' of the Vietnamese people, and rapidly became an ironic⁹ phrase -- to the point where in 1974 an anti-Vietnam War documentary called "Hearts and Minds" won the Academy Award, the Oscar."

PHILLIPS: "I'd be interested to know about how public relations, as it sort of exists in American culture now, has affected¹⁰ the evolution of language connected with this current Gulf¹¹ War."

NUNBERG: "Public relations in one form or another has been a part of war language since the middle of the 19th century, when the modern war correspondent and the military press office first appeared. It assumed its present importance really around the time of the First World War, when the word 'propaganda,' which had been around a long time and particularly as a name for the Catholic Church, their efforts to propagate their views, became associated with political language. And 'propaganda' really entered the general American vocabulary around that time.

"The Second World War saw the introduction of a new phrase, 'psychological warfare,' which was sort of like propaganda but directed more specifically at military aims. So this has been going around for a long time and there are similar phrases now. The insistence¹² on the part of the administration that the Iraq war be called a 'liberation' instead of an 'invasion' is one example. Not that it is or isn't a liberation, but that the word 'invasion' -- which was perfectly¹³ reasonable as a way of describing the American invasion of Normandy in 1944 -- is now regarded as insufficiently¹⁴ explanatory of American aims."

PHILLIPS: "Any phrases that you think will catch on and stay with us for awhile, or is it just too early to tell?"

NUNBERG: "I think it's too early to tell. I think it's unlikely that this war will leave much of a mark on the language, just because other conflicts of this sort -- the first Gulf War, the Somalia intervention¹⁵ and so forth¹⁶ in recent years -- haven't been around long enough or affected the lives, the everyday lives of enough Americans to really leave a mark on their language in the way the Second World War did -- when millions of Americans were in uniform, everybody had a son or a brother or a cousin overseas and the daily lives of Americans were affected in every regard by the war."

AP: I've been talking to Geoffrey Nunberg, a Stanford University linguist and a frequent commentator¹⁷ on National Public Radio. Professor Nunberg is also the author of a book called "The Way We Talk Now." This is Adam Phillips.

1 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

2 linguist   

n.语言学家；精通数种外国语言者

参考例句：

• I used to be a linguist till I become a writer.过去我是个语言学家，后来成了作家。
• Professor Cui has a high reputation as a linguist.崔教授作为语言学家名声很高。

3 bureaucratic   

adj.官僚的，繁文缛节的

参考例句：

• The sweat of labour washed away his bureaucratic airs.劳动的汗水冲掉了他身上的官气。
• In this company you have to go through complex bureaucratic procedures just to get a new pencil.在这个公司里即使是领一支新铅笔，也必须通过繁琐的手续。

4 jargon   

n.术语，行话

参考例句：

• They will not hear critics with their horrible jargon.他们不愿意听到评论家们那些可怕的行话。
• It is important not to be overawed by the mathematical jargon.要紧的是不要被数学的术语所吓倒.

5 euphemism   

n.婉言，委婉的说法

参考例句：

• Language reflects culture and euphemism is a mirror of culture.语言反映文化,而婉语则是各种文化的一面镜子。
• Euphemism is a very common and complicated linguistic phenomenon.委婉语是一种十分常见而又非常复杂的语言现象。

6 wagon   

n.四轮马车，手推车，面包车；无盖运货列车

参考例句：

• We have to fork the hay into the wagon.我们得把干草用叉子挑进马车里去。
• The muddy road bemired the wagon.马车陷入了泥泞的道路。

7 foxhole   

n.（军）散兵坑

参考例句：

• On an impulse he kicked some sand into Ridge's foxhole.一时性起，他就提起脚来将一些沙子踢进里奇的坑里。
• The sentry guard dived into his foxhole and closely observed the stranger towards him.哨兵跳入了散兵坑，密切注视着陌生人向他走来。

8 warfare   

n.战争(状态)；斗争；冲突

参考例句：

• He addressed the audience on the subject of atomic warfare.他向听众演讲有关原子战争的问题。
• Their struggle consists mainly in peasant guerrilla warfare.他们的斗争主要是农民游击战。

9 ironic   

adj.讽刺的，有讽刺意味的，出乎意料的

参考例句：

• That is a summary and ironic end.那是一个具有概括性和讽刺意味的结局。
• People used to call me Mr Popularity at high school,but they were being ironic.人们中学时常把我称作“万人迷先生”，但他们是在挖苦我。

10 affected   

adj.不自然的，假装的

参考例句：

• She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
• His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。

11 gulf   

n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂

参考例句：

• The gulf between the two leaders cannot be bridged.两位领导人之间的鸿沟难以跨越。
• There is a gulf between the two cities.这两座城市间有个海湾。

12 insistence   

n.坚持；强调；坚决主张

参考例句：

• They were united in their insistence that she should go to college.他们一致坚持她应上大学。
• His insistence upon strict obedience is correct.他坚持绝对服从是对的。

13 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。

14 insufficiently   

adv.不够地，不能胜任地

参考例句：

• Your insurance card is insufficiently stamped. 你的保险卡片未贴足印花。 来自辞典例句
• Many of Britain's people are poorly dressed, badly housed, insufficiently nourished. 许多英国人衣着寒伧，居住简陋，营养不良。 来自互联网

15 intervention   

n.介入，干涉，干预

参考例句：

• The government's intervention in this dispute will not help.政府对这场争论的干预不会起作用。
• Many people felt he would be hostile to the idea of foreign intervention.许多人觉得他会反对外来干预。

16 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

17 commentator   

n.注释者，解说者；实况广播评论员

参考例句：

• He is a good commentator because he can get across the game.他能简单地解说这场比赛，是个好的解说者。
• The commentator made a big mistake during the live broadcast.在直播节目中评论员犯了个大错误。