这次的日语作文题目很大：新加坡（シンガポール）。可以随便写你喜欢写的东西，比如说你在新加坡生活得怎么样，新加坡的食物，新加坡的天气，新加坡的景点，新加坡的交通，新加坡的物价，新加坡的动物，新加坡的小强，新加坡的猪头，新加坡的老猫……

对这种大题目我总是束手无策。上次作文《我》（わたし）我就写得很辛苦。像我这样立体的疯富的有内寒的鸡立鹤群的老猫，怎么能在400字内写完整呢？最后我被逼急了，只能把题目偷换成《我是老师》，基本上就是一篇充满怨念的血泪控诉。老师给的评语只有三个词（好吧，四个词）：いい作文ですね（不错的作文呢）。可是！下面正文里头用红笔又圈又画，满篇血红血红的，让我怀疑“いい”是不是她给的最低评语……

那这一次我该写什么呢？400字，只能写一到两个方面……啊，那个，新加坡旅游局网站日文版？又或者，日文维基里的新加坡条目？よし！我知道怎么做了！

I had never imagined myself as a fan of a politician until I watched Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. Here is his another powerful speech delivered on July 17th, 2008:

Source: wecansolveit.org
(If you can’t view the video in RSS reader, please come to the actual post.)

Click here for transcript. Note that this transcript is incomplete, so it’s better to watch the video and listen.

丫糟蹋了《红日》，俺灰常生气，可素捏，生了一半的气就被雷死了……路过滴小盆友们点开始之前千万三思，勿谓言之不预也=_=”"

介就素伟大滴21世纪不动产晨操——

如果你的RSS reader不能显示视频，请点开原文。

by George Orwell, 1946

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(The [pale blue words in squared brackets] are footnotes given by Orwell. Click here for a fully annotated version done by Xah Lee.)

—————

Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English language is in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do anything about it. Our civilization is decadent and our language — so the argument runs — must inevitably share in the general collapse. It follows that any struggle against the abuse of language is a sentimental archaism, like preferring candles to electric light or hansom cabs to aeroplanes. Underneath this lies the half-conscious belief that language is a natural growth and not an instrument which we shape for our own purposes.

Now, it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes: it is not due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual writer. But an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. The point is that the process is reversible. Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional writers. I will come back to this presently, and I hope that by that time the meaning of what I have said here will have become clearer. Meanwhile, here are five specimens of the English language as it is now habitually written.

These five passages have not been picked out because they are especially bad — I could have quoted far worse if I had chosen — but because they illustrate various of the mental vices from which we now suffer. They are a little below the average, but are fairly representative examples. I number them so that i can refer back to them when necessary:

1. I am not, indeed, sure whether it is not true to say that the Milton who once seemed not unlike a seventeenth-century Shelley had not become, out of an experience ever more bitter in each year, more alien [sic] to the founder of that Jesuit sect which nothing could induce him to tolerate.

Professor Harold Laski (Essay in Freedom of Expression)

2. Above all, we cannot play ducks and drakes with a native battery of idioms which prescribes egregious collocations of vocables as the Basic put up with for tolerate, or put at a loss for bewilder.

Professor Lancelot Hogben (Interglossa)

3. On the one side we have the free personality: by definition it is not neurotic, for it has neither conflict nor dream. Its desires, such as they are, are transparent, for they are just what institutional approval keeps in the forefront of consciousness; another institutional pattern would alter their number and intensity; there is little in them that is natural, irreducible, or culturally dangerous. But on the other side, the social bond itself is nothing but the mutual reflection of these self-secure integrities. Recall the definition of love. Is not this the very picture of a small academic? Where is there a place in this hall of mirrors for either personality or fraternity?

Essay on psychology in Politics (New York)

4. All the “best people” from the gentlemen’s clubs, and all the frantic fascist captains, united in common hatred of Socialism and bestial horror at the rising tide of the mass revolutionary movement, have turned to acts of provocation, to foul incendiarism, to medieval legends of poisoned wells, to legalize their own destruction of proletarian organizations, and rouse the agitated petty-bourgeoise to chauvinistic fervor on behalf of the fight against the revolutionary way out of the crisis.

Communist pamphlet

5. If a new spirit is to be infused into this old country, there is one thorny and contentious reform which must be tackled, and that is the humanization and galvanization of the B.B.C. Timidity here will bespeak canker and atrophy of the soul. The heart of Britain may be sound and of strong beat, for instance, but the British lion’s roar at present is like that of Bottom in Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream — as gentle as any sucking dove. A virile new Britain cannot continue indefinitely to be traduced in the eyes or rather ears, of the world by the effete languors of Langham Place, brazenly masquerading as “standard English.” When the Voice of Britain is heard at nine o’clock, better far and infinitely less ludicrous to hear aitches honestly dropped than the present priggish, inflated, inhibited, school-ma’amish arch braying of blameless bashful mewing maidens!

Letter in Tribune

Each of these passages has faults of its own, but, quite apart from avoidable ugliness, two qualities are common to all of them. The first is staleness of imagery; the other is lack of precision. The writer either has a meaning and cannot express it, or he inadvertently says something else, or he is almost indifferent as to whether his words mean anything or not. This mixture of vagueness and sheer incompetence is the most marked characteristic of modern English prose, and especially of any kind of political writing. As soon as certain topics are raised, the concrete melts into the abstract and no one seems able to think of turns of speech that are not hackneyed: prose consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning, and more and more of phrases tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated henhouse. I list below, with notes and examples, various of the tricks by means of which the work of prose construction is habitually dodged:

Dying metaphors. A newly invented metaphor assists thought by evoking a visual image, while on the other hand a metaphor which is technically “dead” (e.g. iron resolution) has in effect reverted to being an ordinary word and can generally be used without loss of vividness. But in between these two classes there is a huge dump of worn-out metaphors which have lost all evocative power and are merely used because they save people the trouble of inventing phrases for themselves. Examples are: Ring the changes on, take up the cudgel for, toe the line, ride roughshod over, stand shoulder to shoulder with, play into the hands of, no axe to grind, grist to the mill, fishing in troubled waters, on the order of the day, Achilles’ heel, swan song, hotbed. Many of these are used without knowledge of their meaning (what is a “rift,” for instance?), and incompatible metaphors are frequently mixed, a sure sign that the writer is not interested in what he is saying. Some metaphors now current have been twisted out of their original meaning withouth those who use them even being aware of the fact. For example, toe the line is sometimes written as tow the line. Another example is the hammer and the anvil, now always used with the implication that the anvil gets the worst of it. In real life it is always the anvil that breaks the hammer, never the other way about: a writer who stopped to think what he was saying would avoid perverting the original phrase.

Operators or verbal false limbs. These save the trouble of picking out appropriate verbs and nouns, and at the same time pad each sentence with extra syllables which give it an appearance of symmetry. Characteristic phrases are render inoperative, militate against, make contact with, be subjected to, give rise to, give grounds for, have the effect of, play a leading part (role) in, make itself felt, take effect, exhibit a tendency to, serve the purpose of, etc., etc. The keynote is the elimination of simple verbs. Instead of being a single word, such as break, stop, spoil, mend, kill, a verb becomes a phrase, made up of a noun or adjective tacked on to some general-purpose verb such as prove, serve, form, play, render. In addition, the passive voice is wherever possible used in preference to the active, and noun constructions are used instead of gerunds (by examination of instead of by examining). The range of verbs is further cut down by means of the -ize and de- formations, and the banal statements are given an appearance of profundity by means of the not un- formation. Simple conjunctions and prepositions are replaced by such phrases as with respect to, having regard to, the fact that, by dint of, in view of, in the interests of, on the hypothesis that; and the ends of sentences are saved by anticlimax by such resounding commonplaces as greatly to be desired, cannot be left out of account, a development to be expected in the near future, deserving of serious consideration, brought to a satisfactory conclusion, and so on and so forth.

Pretentious diction. Words like phenomenon, element, individual (as noun), objective, categorical, effective, virtual, basic, primary, promote, constitute, exhibit, exploit, utilize, eliminate, liquidate, are used to dress up a simple statement and give an air of scientific impartiality to biased judgements. Adjectives like epoch-making, epic, historic, unforgettable, triumphant, age-old, inevitable, inexorable, veritable, are used to dignify the sordid process of international politics, while writing that aims at glorifying war usually takes on an archaic color, its characteristic words being: realm, throne, chariot, mailed fist, trident, sword, shield, buckler, banner, jackboot, clarion. Foreign words and expressions such as cul de sac, ancien regime, deus ex machina, mutatis mutandis, status quo, gleichschaltung, weltanschauung, are used to give an air of culture and elegance. Except for the useful abbreviations i.e., e.g., and etc., there is no real need for any of the hundreds of foreign phrases now current in the English language. Bad writers, and especially scientific, political, and sociological writers, are nearly always haunted by the notion that Latin or Greek words are grander than Saxon ones, and unnecessary words like expedite, ameliorate, predict, extraneous, deracinated, clandestine, subaqueous, and hundreds of others constantly gain ground from their Anglo-Saxon numbers._{[An interesting illustration of this is the way in which English flower names were in use till very recently are being ousted by Greek ones, Snapdragon becoming antirrhinum, forget-me-not becoming myosotis, etc. It is hard to see any practical reason for this change of fashion: it is probably due to an instinctive turning away from the more homely word and a vague feeling that the Greek word is scientific.]} The jargon peculiar to Marxist writing (hyena, hangman, cannibal, petty bourgeois, these gentry, lackey, flunkey, mad dog, White Guard, etc.) consists largely of words translated from Russian, German, or French; but the normal way of coining a new word is to use Latin or Greek root with the appropriate affix and, where necessary, the size formation. It is often easier to make up words of this kind (deregionalize, impermissible, extramarital, non-fragmentary and so forth) than to think up the English words that will cover one’s meaning. The result, in general, is an increase in slovenliness and vagueness.

Meaningless words. In certain kinds of writing, particularly in art criticism and literary criticism, it is normal to come across long passages which are almost completely lacking in meaning._{[Example: Comfort's catholicity of perception and image, strangely Whitmanesque in range, almost the exact opposite in aesthetic compulsion, continues to evoke that trembling atmospheric accumulative hinting at a cruel, an inexorably serene timelessness . . .Wrey Gardiner scores by aiming at simple bull's-eyes with precision. Only they are not so simple, and through this contented sadness runs more than the surface bittersweet of resignation." (Poetry Quarterly)]} Words like romantic, plastic, values, human, dead, sentimental, natural, vitality, as used in art criticism, are strictly meaningless, in the sense that they not only do not point to any discoverable object, but are hardly ever expected to do so by the reader. When one critic writes, “The outstanding feature of Mr. X’s work is its living quality,” while another writes, “The immediately striking thing about Mr. X’s work is its peculiar deadness,” the reader accepts this as a simple difference opinion. If words like black and white were involved, instead of the jargon words dead and living, he would see at once that language was being used in an improper way. Many political words are similarly abused. The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies “something not desirable.” The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another. In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using that word if it were tied down to any one meaning. Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different. Statements like Marshal Pétain was a true patriot, The Soviet press is the freest in the world, The Catholic Church is opposed to persecution, are almost always made with intent to deceive. Other words used in variable meanings, in most cases more or less dishonestly, are: class, totalitarian, science, progressive, reactionary, bourgeois, equality.

Now that I have made this catalogue of swindles and perversions, let me give another example of the kind of writing that they lead to. This time it must of its nature be an imaginary one. I am going to translate a passage of good English into modern English of the worst sort. Here is a well-known verse from Ecclesiastes:

I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

Here it is in modern English:

Objective considerations of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account.

This is a parody, but not a very gross one. Exhibit (3) above, for instance, contains several patches of the same kind of English. It will be seen that I have not made a full translation. The beginning and ending of the sentence follow the original meaning fairly closely, but in the middle the concrete illustrations — race, battle, bread — dissolve into the vague phrases “success or failure in competitive activities.” This had to be so, because no modern writer of the kind I am discussing — no one capable of using phrases like “objective considerations of contemporary phenomena” — would ever tabulate his thoughts in that precise and detailed way. The whole tendency of modern prose is away from concreteness. Now analyze these two sentences a little more closely. The first contains forty-nine words but only sixty syllables, and all its words are those of everyday life. The second contains thirty-eight words of ninety syllables: eighteen of those words are from Latin roots, and one from Greek. The first sentence contains six vivid images, and only one phrase (”time and chance”) that could be called vague. The second contains not a single fresh, arresting phrase, and in spite of its ninety syllables it gives only a shortened version of the meaning contained in the first. Yet without a doubt it is the second kind of sentence that is gaining ground in modern English. I do not want to exaggerate. This kind of writing is not yet universal, and outcrops of simplicity will occur here and there in the worst-written page. Still, if you or I were told to write a few lines on the uncertainty of human fortunes, we should probably come much nearer to my imaginary sentence than to the one from Ecclesiastes.

As I have tried to show, modern writing at its worst does not consist in picking out words for the sake of their meaning and inventing images in order to make the meaning clearer. It consists in gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else, and making the results presentable by sheer humbug. The attraction of this way of writing is that it is easy. It is easier — even quicker, once you have the habit — to say In my opinion it is not an unjustifiable assumption that than to say I think. If you use ready-made phrases, you not only don’t have to hunt about for the words; you also don’t have to bother with the rhythms of your sentences since these phrases are generally so arranged as to be more or less euphonious. When you are composing in a hurry — when you are dictating to a stenographer, for instance, or making a public speech — it is natural to fall into a pretentious, Latinized style. Tags like a consideration which we should do well to bear in mind or a conclusion to which all of us would readily assent will save many a sentence from coming down with a bump. By using stale metaphors, similes, and idioms, you save much mental effort, at the cost of leaving your meaning vague, not only for your reader but for yourself. This is the significance of mixed metaphors. The sole aim of a metaphor is to call up a visual image. When these images clash — as in The Fascist octopus has sung its swan song, the jackboot is thrown into the melting pot — it can be taken as certain that the writer is not seeing a mental image of the objects he is naming; in other words he is not really thinking. Look again at the examples I gave at the beginning of this essay. Professor Laski (1) uses five negatives in fifty three words. One of these is superfluous, making nonsense of the whole passage, and in addition there is the slip — alien for akin — making further nonsense, and several avoidable pieces of clumsiness which increase the general vagueness. Professor Hogben (2) plays ducks and drakes with a battery which is able to write prescriptions, and, while disapproving of the everyday phrase put up with, is unwilling to look egregious up in the dictionary and see what it means; (3), if one takes an uncharitable attitude towards it, is simply meaningless: probably one could work out its intended meaning by reading the whole of the article in which it occurs. In (4), the writer knows more or less what he wants to say, but an accumulation of stale phrases chokes him like tea leaves blocking a sink. In (5), words and meaning have almost parted company. People who write in this manner usually have a general emotional meaning — they dislike one thing and want to express solidarity with another — but they are not interested in the detail of what they are saying. A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus:

1. What am I trying to say?

2. What words will express it?

3. What image or idiom will make it clearer?

4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?

And he will probably ask himself two more:

1. Could I put it more shortly?

2. Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?

But you are not obliged to go to all this trouble. You can shirk it by simply throwing your mind open and letting the ready-made phrases come crowding in. They will construct your sentences for you — even think your thoughts for you, to a certain extent — and at need they will perform the important service of partially concealing your meaning even from yourself. It is at this point that the special connection between politics and the debasement of language becomes clear.

In our time it is broadly true that political writing is bad writing. Where it is not true, it will generally be found that the writer is some kind of rebel, expressing his private opinions and not a “party line.” Orthodoxy, of whatever color, seems to demand a lifeless, imitative style. The political dialects to be found in pamphlets, leading articles, manifestoes, White papers and the speeches of undersecretaries do, of course, vary from party to party, but they are all alike in that one almost never finds in them a fresh, vivid, homemade turn of speech. When one watches some tired hack on the platform mechanically repeating the familiar phrases — bestial atrocities, iron heel, bloodstained tyranny, free peoples of the world, stand shoulder to shoulder — one often has a curious feeling that one is not watching a live human being but some kind of dummy: a feeling which suddenly becomes stronger at moments when the light catches the speaker’s spectacles and turns them into blank discs which seem to have no eyes behind them. And this is not altogether fanciful. A speaker who uses that kind of phraseology has gone some distance toward turning himself into a machine. The appropriate noises are coming out of his larynx, but his brain is not involved as it would be if he were choosing his words for himself. If the speech he is making is one that he is accustomed to make over and over again, he may be almost unconscious of what he is saying, as one is when one utters the responses in church. And this reduced state of consciousness, if not indispensable, is at any rate favorable to political conformity.

In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism., question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements. Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them. Consider for instance some comfortable English professor defending Russian totalitarianism. He cannot say outright, “I believe in killing off your opponents when you can get good results by doing so.” Probably, therefore, he will say something like this:

“While freely conceding that the Soviet regime exhibits certain features which the humanitarian may be inclined to deplore, we must, I think, agree that a certain curtailment of the right to political opposition is an unavoidable concomitant of transitional periods, and that the rigors which the Russian people have been called upon to undergo have been amply justified in the sphere of concrete achievement.”

The inflated style itself is a kind of euphemism. A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outline and covering up all the details. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink. In our age there is no such thing as “keeping out of politics.” All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer. I should expect to find — this is a guess which I have not sufficient knowledge to verify — that the German, Russian and Italian languages have all deteriorated in the last ten or fifteen years, as a result of dictatorship.

But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. A bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation even among people who should and do know better. The debased language that I have been discussing is in some ways very convenient. Phrases like a not unjustifiable assumption, leaves much to be desired, would serve no good purpose, a consideration which we should do well to bear in mind, are a continuous temptation, a packet of aspirins always at one’s elbow. Look back through this essay, and for certain you will find that I have again and again committed the very faults I am protesting against. By this morning’s post I have received a pamphlet dealing with conditions in Germany. The author tells me that he “felt impelled” to write it. I open it at random, and here is almost the first sentence I see: “[The Allies] have an opportunity not only of achieving a radical transformation of Germany’s social and political structure in such a way as to avoid a nationalistic reaction in Germany itself, but at the same time of laying the foundations of a co-operative and unified Europe.” You see, he “feels impelled” to write — feels, presumably, that he has something new to say — and yet his words, like cavalry horses answering the bugle, group themselves automatically into the familiar dreary pattern. This invasion of one’s mind by ready-made phrases (lay the foundations, achieve a radical transformation) can only be prevented if one is constantly on guard against them, and every such phrase anaesthetizes a portion of one’s brain.

I said earlier that the decadence of our language is probably curable. Those who deny this would argue, if they produced an argument at all, that language merely reflects existing social conditions, and that we cannot influence its development by any direct tinkering with words and constructions. So far as the general tone or spirit of a language goes, this may be true, but it is not true in detail. Silly words and expressions have often disappeared, not through any evolutionary process but owing to the conscious action of a minority. Two recent examples were explore every avenue and leave no stone unturned, which were killed by the jeers of a few journalists. There is a long list of flyblown metaphors which could similarly be got rid of if enough people would interest themselves in the job; and it should also be possible to laugh the not un- formation out of existence_{[One can cure oneself of the not un- formation by memorizing this sentence: A not unblack dog was chasing a not unsmall rabbit across a not ungreen field.]}, to reduce the amount of Latin and Greek in the average sentence, to drive out foreign phrases and strayed scientific words, and, in general, to make pretentiousness unfashionable. But all these are minor points. The defense of the English language implies more than this, and perhaps it is best to start by saying what it does not imply.

To begin with it has nothing to do with archaism, with the salvaging of obsolete words and turns of speech, or with the setting up of a “standard English” which must never be departed from. On the contrary, it is especially concerned with the scrapping of every word or idiom which has outworn its usefulness. It has nothing to do with correct grammar and syntax, which are of no importance so long as one makes one’s meaning clear, or with the avoidance of Americanisms, or with having what is called a “good prose style.” On the other hand, it is not concerned with fake simplicity and the attempt to make written English colloquial. Nor does it even imply in every case preferring the Saxon word to the Latin one, though it does imply using the fewest and shortest words that will cover one’s meaning. What is above all needed is to let the meaning choose the word, and not the other way around. In prose, the worst thing one can do with words is surrender to them. When you think of a concrete object, you think wordlessly, and then, if you want to describe the thing you have been visualizing you probably hunt about until you find the exact words that seem to fit it. When you think of something abstract you are more inclined to use words from the start, and unless you make a conscious effort to prevent it, the existing dialect will come rushing in and do the job for you, at the expense of blurring or even changing your meaning. Probably it is better to put off using words as long as possible and get one’s meaning as clear as one can through pictures and sensations. Afterward one can choose — not simply accept — the phrases that will best cover the meaning, and then switch round and decide what impressions one’s words are likely to make on another person. This last effort of the mind cuts out all stale or mixed images, all prefabricated phrases, needless repetitions, and humbug and vagueness generally. But one can often be in doubt about the effect of a word or a phrase, and one needs rules that one can rely on when instinct fails. I think the following rules will cover most cases:

(i) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

(ii) Never us a long word where a short one will do.

(iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

(iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active.

(v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

(vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

These rules sound elementary, and so they are, but they demand a deep change of attitude in anyone who has grown used to writing in the style now fashionable. One could keep all of them and still write bad English, but one could not write the kind of stuff that I quoted in those five specimens at the beginning of this article.

I have not here been considering the literary use of language, but merely language as an instrument for expressing and not for concealing or preventing thought. Stuart Chase and others have come near to claiming that all abstract words are meaningless, and have used this as a pretext for advocating a kind of political quietism. Since you don’t know what Fascism is, how can you struggle against Fascism? One need not swallow such absurdities as this, but one ought to recognize that the present political chaos is connected with the decay of language, and that one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end. If you simplify your English, you are freed from the worst follies of orthodoxy. You cannot speak any of the necessary dialects, and when you make a stupid remark its stupidity will be obvious, even to yourself. Political language — and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists — is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. One cannot change this all in a moment, but one can at least change one’s own habits, and from time to time one can even, if one jeers loudly enough, send some worn-out and useless phrase — some jackboot, Achilles’ heel, hotbed, melting pot, acid test, veritable inferno, or other lump of verbal refuse — into the dustbin, where it belongs.

Watch this video and you will see! I readily upgraded my blog to 2.6 when the update-is-available notification showed up.

If you can’t see the video in RSS reader, please come to the original post.

教我们文字学的老师（不点名）一再强调，简体字是宋元以来的俗字，亦即没文化的人写的错别字，所以呢要学华文就必须学繁体字，不能老是写错别字（简体字）。

我烦了，我怒了，虽然我也很喜欢繁体字，可是这么极品的论调实在让我不能不怒。

照老师的说法，金文、大篆、小篆、隶书、楷书这些全都是错别字，许慎写的是错别字，《说文解字》无一不是错别字！

在讲字体演变的时候不也说了么，字体的变化主要是朝着简化、易写的方向进行的，繁体字变简体字不也是一样吗？

老师您厉害您就每天写甲骨文吧！那是最正确最纯洁的！

因为昨天《赤壁》上半部上映，所以前天晚上就先买好了票。看完之后觉得还不错，对于下半部还是很有期待的。以下有情节泄漏，阅前三思。

拍摄手法

吴宇森声称用好莱坞史诗片手法拍摄这部电影，结果证明的确颇有好莱坞史诗片的味道。山水地貌的长镜头，战斗场面的俯瞰——无论是万舰齐发、旌旗蔽空，还是两军对战、阵型万变，都依稀有Troy和Alexander的影子。大场面与小细节的交叉渗透、群体和个体的交相辉映做得也很好。

战斗场面

很逼真，很暴力。但是稍嫌时间过长。吴导演的暴力美学处处可见。

音乐

担任配乐的是日本的岩代太郎。中规中矩的史诗片配乐，兼有游戏音乐的元素，基本上可以照搬到单机游戏。该恢宏的时候恢弘，该抒情的时候抒情，该安静的时候安静，虽然这看起来是对电影配乐的基本要求，但是做到的很少。

人物造型和形象

服装很考究，没有什么穿越的地方。

首先我很喜欢张丰毅演的曹操，颇有霸气而无奸猾，傲气冲天却又不失幽默。

梁朝伟的周瑜则似乎过于沧桑，没有传统印象中周郎的意气风发。不过还是要感谢吴宇森，没有按照演义来塑造周瑜。

金城武的诸葛亮那两撇小胡子很搞笑，还好这里的诸葛亮是个活泼的人，跟小胡子形象还是比较配的。不然的话，挂着那两撇小胡子还要严肃地舌战群儒，估计会笑场不断。

林志玲的小乔美则美矣，可惜在上半部只是个花瓶，期待下半部（据说戏份比较多）。

赵薇的孙尚香一张大脸，也没有郡主的气质，是个败笔。

中村狮童的甘兴（其实应该是甘宁，字兴霸）戏份很多，俨然周瑜手下第一大将（程普、黄盖到现在都还只是摆设），台词很少，多数时候都只有丰富的面部表情。

侯勇的鲁肃基本上就是演义里的鲁肃，其作用主要是串起孙刘两边，以及创造笑点。

张震的孙权显然没有霸主之气，不过比起尤勇的刘备还是好得多。刘备在这部戏里被严重弱化，这是我很开心的一件事。

胡军的赵云过于平面，巴森的关羽不够大气，只有臧金生的张飞比较看得过去。

关于张飞的书法

历史上的张飞据说是书画家，善画美人，工草书，但仅有零星记录，作品失传，所以无证。电影里有张飞写字的情景，当然写的是隶书。不过我认为如果不是为了创造笑点，要让张飞还原成书画家的话至少得改一改环眼虎须和“张三爷狮子吼”的形象吧。

关于长坂坡之战

很可惜这里的长坂坡之战没有青釭剑，张飞也没有一声喝退百万兵。用阳光反射退敌，似乎有点不够中国，仿佛是阿基米德退敌的翻版。曹操在这里放走关羽，难道是为后面的华容道作铺垫？这样就不用追述关羽降曹、斩颜良诛文丑、过五关斩六将的故事。到底是不是下半部再看。

关于蹴鞠

电影里出现了蹴鞠的情节。按蹴鞠起源于战国的齐国，本用于军事训练，后变成体育运动。由于刘邦的推行，西汉时已经有十分完善的规则和技术，东汉光武帝时还有一场汉倭蹴鞠赛。所以在这部电影里出现蹴鞠是很正确的。但是电影院里有观众笑起来，似乎是觉得这是把现代足球放到古代去。

赞扬一个老当益壮的老人，可以说他aged but not old，我是恰恰相反，not aged but old，为什么这么说呢，实在是我未老先衰的迹象来得太早了。

小学毕业的暑假，我到妈妈的单位去，坐在一张办公桌前练珠算。此时某领导进来，看到我，说：“呀，来了一位新同志，我怎么不知道？——你以前做哪一行的？”

初中时某日，有客人来，问我爸：“你家公子在念本科？”

1999年年底回家，到市场买菜，卖菜的大叔问我：“老兄在哪儿工作？”

2001年年底回家，我到另一个市场买菜，另一位卖菜的大叔问我：“孩子上几年级了？”

2003年中正校庆，经过学生摆的摊子时，两个中二中三模样的小女孩对我说：“Uncle，买块饼干吧！”

2003年到2007年四年大学间被错认为硕士生、博士生的事件上演多次，不赘述。

2007年甫毕业，在小区购物街买东西，一位中年男子问路，听口音是中国来的：“Uncle，请问这附近有没有补锅的？”

到了崇正小学，让学生猜我年龄，最低的数字是35岁。

两个月前，新来的同事（五六十岁的老教师）问我：“你这么年轻，应该不到四十岁吧？孩子也在这边上学吗？”

一个月前，到NIE开会，认识了两位新朋友，听我说是1982年的、去年才毕业，错愕地看着我：“啊？我以为你是那种教了很久很有经验的老师……”

这些经历告诉我们一个道理：决不能以貌取人。

权当笑话。三四十年后的人看到今天的《人民日报》，怕也是当笑话看。

世界上最民主的一票

1969年6月7日《人民日报》

彩色文献纪录片《中国共产党第九次全国代表大会胜利闭幕》，生动地体现了“九大”选举党中央委员会的极其振奋人心的情景。你看，毛主席那慈祥的笑容，毛主席神采奕奕地和林副主席一起首先投票，毛主席亲切地和代表们握手，代表们挥舞着红宝书——《毛主席语录》，流着幸福的泪花去投票……这些令人欢欣鼓舞的镜头，自始至终激荡着我们的心田。

我们兴奋地看到：党的“九大”的整个选举过程，充满着热烈的革命团结的气氛，充分地体现了我们党一贯的民主集中制和群众路线！

我们党的“九大”的选举，是世界上最民主的选举！

资产阶级也叫嚷什么“民主选举”，然而，他们的“选举”是些什么玩意呢？花钱买选票、雇打手，在电台上吹牛，在电视上互相谩骂，向群众乱开空头支票，耍尽骗人把戏，演尽肮脏的丑剧。无论是这家资本家大亨当选，还是那家财阀的走狗当选，都是换汤不换药，都是实行资产阶级专政。

现代修正主义也叫嚷什么“民主选举”，然而，他们打着“民主”的幌子，靠叛徒集团的狼狈为奸，靠特权阶层的相互勾结，靠刺刀维护统治地位。无论是老修当家，还是小修当家，只能是越选越修，实质都是“招牌换记”，照旧实行资产阶级专政。

我们的党是无产阶级政党，代表最广大劳动人民的最根本利益。我们党有伟大领袖毛主席亲自建立起来的民主集中制的光荣传统，在广泛的党内民主的基础上形成了坚强的革命的团结。毛主席历来教导我们：“不论党内党外，都要有充分的民主生活，就是说，都要认真实行民主集中制。”伟大领袖毛主席就是坚决贯彻党内民主集中制的典范！

你看，我们伟大领袖毛主席首先拿着一张选票朝票箱走来了。毛主席庄严地举起选票，端端正正地投进了票箱。接着，又用那高瞻远瞩的目光，环顾了整个会场。

毛主席手中的那张选票，是世界上最民主的一票。

那张选票上的候选人，是我们伟大领袖毛主席亲自领导，经过几次自上而下，自下而上地充分民主协商，集中群众正确意见而后商定的。毛主席的一票，代表了我国全体党员和亿万军民群众的心愿。

毛主席手中的那张选票，是团结大多数的人，包括犯过错误的人，最大限度地调动起党内一切积极因素，继续革命，在全国夺取更大的胜利的一票。

毛主席的那一票，是巩固无产阶级专政，防止资本主义复辟，建设社会主义，保证我们国家千秋万代不变色的一票。

毛主席手中的那张选票，是使帝修反妄想在中国第二代、第三代复辟资本主义的迷梦彻底破产，给帝修反当头一棒的一票。

毛主席手中的那张选票，使我们看到我国七亿人民更加紧密地团结在以毛主席为首，林副主席为副的党的九届中央委员会的周围，高举毛泽东思想的伟大红旗，奋勇向前。我们眼前钢花四溅，铁水奔流，金翻麦浪，银裹棉铃，祖国大地热气腾腾，好一派革命，生产双丰收的景象。

毛主席手中的那张选票，使我们看到马克思主义、列宁主义、毛泽东思想的伟大红旗，在五湖四海迎风飘扬，一个红彤彤的毛泽东思想的新世界即将到来！

世界的未来属于人民！