写电子邮件时尽量避免使用的五大字体

 Picking the right font for your email,presentation,or friendly notice stuck on the office wall can be head-aching。

　　在发电子邮件，做演讲，甚至在写个贴在办公室墙上的友情小提醒时，都需要选择一种字体。如何选择恰当的字体成了让人头疼的事情。

　　Fonts come in all shapes and sizes and colours. But that doesn't mean you're allowed to go mad and use just ANY font though: these ones are banned。

　　字体形状千差万别，大小不一，颜色各异。但这不意味着你可以随心所欲，选择使用任何字体：以下几种字体就不建议使用。

　　Step 1: Arial

　　Arial's been around so long, now, that it's comforting and familiar in the same way that makes middle-aged¹ men trade in their wives for a younger, sexier model. Arial is therefore the pixel equivalent of a frumpy, disappointing housewife

　　Arial已经陪伴我们太久了。如今，在使用这个字体时，人们常会顺理成章地联想到这个场景：一名中年男子抛弃了他的妻子，换了位更年轻，更性感的模特作伴。因此，Arial作为一种字体，与衣着邋遢的、心灰意冷的弃妇有异曲同工之妙。

　　Step 2: Times New Roman

　　Times New Roman is rarely appropriate in a futuristic web2.0-enabled society. It's clumsy, and has weird² ugly sharp twisty bits coming off each of the letters. Pick something properly classy like Verdana or Calibri, and let Times die。

　　在web2.0风靡的时代，Times New Roman这种字体已经不大适合用了。这种字体显得有些粗陋，每个字母都有很锐利的扭曲，显得怪怪的，很难看。选用一些漂亮的字体吧，比如Verdana or Calibri，让Times回家吃饭吧！

　　Step 3: Papyrus³

　　Papyrus makes everything you type look like it was written in Ancient Greece!, albeit⁴ by a ROBOT FROM THE FUTURE。

　　每个你用Payrus键入的字看起来都像古希腊语-尽管像是由一个“未来机器人”写下来的。

　　If you're using it, why not go whole hog⁵ and flip⁶ the colour to green and write “Save the trees! Please don't print this e-mail unless you really need to.。.” in your email signature like any of your emails are worth printing off。

　　如果你在使用这个字体，那一不做二不休，干脆字体颜色选成绿色，然后在你的e-mail下方签名中写“Save the trees! Please don't print this e-mail unless you really need to.。.”(爱护树木，人人有责！除非确实需要，否则请勿打印此邮件。)，这样一来，好像你的每封邮件都具有打印价值了一样。

　　Step 4: Comic Sans

　　The granddaddy of all unusable fonts. Initially⁷ intended to be a quick comic book substitute, Comic Sans quickly found itself overused to the point of eye-bleeding saturation⁸, and is now rarely seen outside the realm of ignorant office notes。

　　在不能使用的字体中，这是爷字辈的人物。最初，人们设计Comic Sans字体，是为了让其快速在连环画册中抢占一席之地，成为其专用字体。但很快，人们便发觉，这个字体被随处滥用，已经引起人的视觉疲劳了。如今，除了在办公室里，人们还用它写写没人关注的通知外，在其他领域，这种字体已经销声匿迹了。

　　Step 5: Curlz

　　“Look at me!”， this font says. “Look at how what I write perfectly⁹ embodies¹⁰ the sort of person I am! I'm a bit crazy, and a bit different. I stand out!”

　　“看看我吧！”这个字体挺张扬：“从我身上就完全能看得出，我是一个怎样的人！我有些轻狂，有些与众不同。我必将脱颖而出！”

　　It doesn't matter that you can't actually read what they're writing, because the sort of person that chooses a nonsense font like this invariably hasn't got anything important to say anyway。

　　读不太懂他们写的是什么也无妨，因为能选择这种荒唐字体的人，一般来说，也没什么重要的事情要讲。

　　TRUE STORY: the email invite to last year's VideoJug Christmas Party was written entirely¹¹ in red and green ‘Curlz' and the entire office was sick blood。

　　真实故事：去年，VideoJug圣诞聚会的邀请函就选用的Curlz字体，字体颜色全部选择的是红色和绿色。这让整个办公室的人都大倒胃口。

　　In short: be careful about which fonts you use, because the wrong one makes you look like a proper wally。

　　一言以蔽之：选择字体时一定要细心。因为一旦选错了字体，你便会看起来像个大笨蛋。

1 middle-aged   

adj.中年的

参考例句：

• I noticed two middle-aged passengers.我注意到两个中年乘客。
• The new skin balm was welcome by middle-aged women.这种新护肤香膏受到了中年妇女的欢迎。

2 weird   

adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的

参考例句：

• From his weird behaviour,he seems a bit of an oddity.从他不寻常的行为看来，他好像有点怪。
• His weird clothes really gas me.他的怪衣裳简直笑死人。

3 papyrus   

n.古以纸草制成之纸

参考例句：

• The Egyptians wrote on papyrus.埃及人书写用薄草纸。
• Since papyrus dries up and crumble,very few documents of ancient Egypt have survived.因草片会干裂成粉末所以古埃及的文件很少保存下来。

4 albeit   

conj.即使；纵使；虽然

参考例句：

• Albeit fictional,she seemed to have resolved the problem.虽然是虚构的，但是在她看来好象是解决了问题。
• Albeit he has failed twice,he is not discouraged.虽然失败了两次，但他并没有气馁。

5 hog   

n.猪；馋嘴贪吃的人；vt.把…占为己有，独占

参考例句：

• He is greedy like a hog.他像猪一样贪婪。
• Drivers who hog the road leave no room for other cars.那些占着路面的驾驶员一点余地都不留给其他车辆。

6 flip   

vt.快速翻动；轻抛；轻拍；n.轻抛；adj.轻浮的

参考例句：

• I had a quick flip through the book and it looked very interesting.我很快翻阅了一下那本书，看来似乎很有趣。
• Let's flip a coin to see who pays the bill.咱们来抛硬币决定谁付钱。

7 initially   

adv.最初，开始

参考例句：

• The ban was initially opposed by the US.这一禁令首先遭到美国的反对。
• Feathers initially developed from insect scales.羽毛最初由昆虫的翅瓣演化而来。

8 saturation   

n.饱和(状态)；浸透

参考例句：

• The company's sales are now close to saturation in many western countries.这家公司的产品销售量在许多西方国家已接近饱和。
• Road traffic has reached saturation point.公路交通已达到饱和点。

9 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。

10 embodies   

v.表现( embody的第三人称单数 )；象征；包括；包含

参考例句：

• The new treaty embodies the aspirations of most nonaligned countries. 新条约体现了大多数不结盟国家的愿望。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• This document embodies the concern of the government for the deformity. 这个文件体现了政府对残疾人的关怀。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

11 entirely   

ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The fire was entirely caused by their neglect of duty. 那场火灾完全是由于他们失职而引起的。
• His life was entirely given up to the educational work. 他的一生统统献给了教育工作。