英語說不好，會被老外看不起嗎？

Since Jonathan Swift’s 1712 Proposal for Correcting, Improving and Ascertaining the English Tongue, two centuries of self-appointed correctors and improvers of English usage - such as Robert Lowth, HW Fowler, George Orwell, Kingsley Amis, Simon Heffer, Lynne Truss, and Neville Gwynne - have decried the decadent state of our language and instructed people on how to use it better. But what have they accomplished?

自從1712年Jonathan Swift的“糾正，改進和確定英語口語”提議以來，那些自封的英語用法矯正者們和改進者們，像是Robert Lowth, HW Fowler, George Orwell, Kingsley Amis, Simon Heffer, Lynne Truss, 和Neville Gwynne，兩個世紀以來，他們抨擊我們語言裏的頹廢表達，並指導人們怎樣更好地使用語言。但是他們都做成了一些什麼？

They have helped enforce agreement that there should be a standard version of the language. They have not, however, managed to set the exact details of that standard. They have not even agreed whether long words or short ones are better. And the stream of the language has flowed on despite the damning practices prescribed by grammar doctors in the 1700s and 1800s that often look old-fashioned or bizarre now : no one writes snatcht, checkt, or snapt : no one uses colons as I am doing in this sentence.

他們幫助我們強化了在“語言應該有一個標準的版本”上的認同。然而，他們沒有寫下更多關於這個標準的額外細節。他們甚至沒有在長單詞更好還是短單詞更好這個問題上給出答案。而且語言的溪流在流動的時候已經忽視了那些語言學者在十七世紀和十八世紀裏規定的要求，現在這些要求經常看起來過時或者怪異：沒有人會寫snatcht, checkt，或者snapt這樣的單詞：沒有人會像我這句話裏這樣使用冒號。

The language cannot be fixed in place, and its constant evolution does not always follow the tastes of its self-appointed guardians. Some of their proposed improvements have had inglorious careers: a rule - don’t split infinitives, don’t end sentences with prepositions, don’t start sentences with conjunctions - is decided in defiance of established usage. It is promulgated in books, taught in schools, and often used as an indicator of a writer’s level of education, yet it continues to be broken - productively by some (including many of the best writers), sloppily by others, guiltily by many.

語言是不能固定不變的，而且語言內容上的演變也不總是符合那些自稱捍衛者的口味。一些他們的改進提案有不光彩的學術目的：一個規則（比如不要分離出不定式，不要用介詞結束句子，不要用連詞作爲句子開頭）是明確無視現已成立的用法。它被髮布在書上，用在學校教學上，而且常用作一個文章作者受教育水平的參考標準，但是這些規則不斷被打破——一些人運用得如魚得水（包括很多頂級的作家），一些人很粗心地用錯，很多人用的時候心有不安。

One important effect the English-improvers have had, however, is on how people feel and talk about English usage. They have taught generations of English speakers that ‘bad English’ is a failure of intellectual and moral fibre. Consider the adjectives they have used to condemn choices of words they disagreed with.

然而，英語推進者們做出的一個重要影響是，人們對英語用法的感受和討論。他們教導代代英語言者，“糟糕的英文”就是智力和道德品質的失敗。想了很多形容詞來對他們選出的一些不認同的單詞加以譴責。

Jonathan Swift, in 1712, talked of “Corruptions,” “Licentiousness,” and “barren” usages; Robert Lowth, in 1799, applied terms such as “perverted” and “barbarous”; Richard Grant White, in 1872, used phrases such as “utterly abominable”, “foolish and intolerable”, and said they showed “utter want of education and a low grade of intelligence” (and these against words such as donate, jeopardise, and preventative). HW Fowler in 1908 spoke of “barbaric” usages, and the “special ugliness” that comes from a word with a “mongrel origin”, and counselled readers that “The effect of using quotation marks with slang is merely to convert a mental into a moral weakness.” George Orwell in 1946 inveighed against “slovenliness” and “sheer incompetence.”

1712年，Jonathan Swift談論了“Corruptions," “Licentiousness,” 和“barren” 的用法；1799年，Robert Lowth提出了一些像是 “perverted” 和 “barbarous”的措辭；1872年，Richard Grant White使用“utterly abominable”, “foolish and intolerable”這樣的短語，並稱這些詞展現出了“教育和低智力級別的無條件需求”（而且它們違背了像是donate, jeopardise, 和preventative這些詞）。HW Fowler在1908年談及“barbaric”的用法，這“特殊的醜陋之物”來自於一個“雜種起源”的單詞，並且勸告讀者們“給俚語使用引號的作用僅僅只是把精神軟弱轉變成道德軟弱。”George Orwell在1946年猛烈抨擊“slovenliness” 和“sheer incompetence.”

To be fair, these angry grammarians did not invent discrimination based on speech. Anywhere there are different varieties of a language associated with different regions and different social sets, the way you.talk will show what group you belong to, and people will decide on that basis how to treat you. What these umpires of the English language have enabled and abetted is scorn based purely on details of the language itself rather than on extrinsic social differences.

公平地說，這些憤怒的文法學者沒有用演說來創造語言歧視。根據不同的區域和不同的社會集合，語言無處不在地被分爲不同種類，你說話的方式會表現出你所屬的團體，然後人們會基於此來決定怎麼對待你。這些英語的裁判員授予權利並煽動的是，藐視能僅僅根據語言細節本身而非外部的社會差異就產生。

It’s not so surprising that people over the centuries have wanted to tidy it all up. But attempts at improvement have not been unequivocally successful, to say the least, and the tone in which they have been presented has done further injury. It’s bad enough that we have to worry about being clear and consistent; thanks to the weaponisation of English grammar and vocabulary, we also have to worry about being seen as degenerate barbarian imbeciles.

幾個世紀以來人們產生整理語言的想法並不意外。但是在改善的嘗試上沒有明確地成功，至少可以說，他們提出了的那些說辭造成了長遠的傷害。這真的糟透了，我們不得不擔心變得清楚而單一；感謝英文文法和詞彙的武器，我們也不得不擔心要被看作墮落的野蠻低能人。

所以，想說好英語，英語君推薦優質口語課給你：

零基礎直達流利口語初級

流利口語零基礎直達中級

流利生活口語中級

流利口語步入職場 

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