Pub Talk and the King’s English(酒吧闲谈与标准英语)中英对照.doc

Pub Talk and the King’s English(酒吧闲谈与标准英语) Henry Fairlie (亨利·费尔利)1. Conversation is the most sociable of all human activities. And it is an activity only of humans. However intricate the way in which animals communicate with each other, they do not indulge in anything that deserves the name of conversation. 人类的一切活动中，闲谈是最具交际性的，也是人类特有的而动物之间的信息交流，无论其方式何等复杂，也是称不上交际的2. The charm of conversation is that it does not really start from anywhere, and no one has any idea where it will go as it meanders or leaps and sparkles or just glows. The enemy of good conversation is the person who has “something to say.” Conversation is not for making a point. Argument may often be a part of it, but the purpose of the argument is not to convince. There is no winning in conversation. In fact, the best conversationalists are those who are prepared to lose. Suddenly they see the moment for one of their best anecdotes, but in a flash the conversation has moved on and the opportunity is lost. They are ready to let it go. 闲谈的引人入胜之处就在于它没有一个事先设定好的主题。

它时而迂回前进，时而奔腾起伏，时而火花四射，时而热情洋溢，话题最终会扯到什么地方去谁也拿不准感觉“有话想说”的人是一个“完美闲谈”的最大敌人闲谈不是为了争论，尽管争论常常是闲聊的一部分，不过其目的并不是为了说服对方闲谈之中是不存在什么输赢胜负的事实上，真正的闲聊高手往往是随时准备让步的他们也许会偶然间觉得该把自己最得意的奇闻轶事选出一件插进来讲一讲，但一转眼大家已谈到别处去了，插话的机会随之丧失，它们也就听之任之了3. Perhaps it is because of my upbringing in English pubs that I think bar conversation has a charm of its own. Bar friends are not deeply involved in each other’s lives. They are companions, not intimates. The fact that their marriages may be on the rock, or that their love affairs have broken or even that they got out of bed on the wrong side is simply not a concern. They are like the musketeers of Dumas who, although they lived side by side with each other, did not delve into each other’s lives or the recesses of their thoughts and feelings. 或许是从小混迹于英国小酒吧的缘故吧，我觉得酒馆里的闲聊是别有韵味的。

酒馆里的朋友们对彼此的生活毫不了解，他们只是临时的伙伴，相互之间并无深交这些人之中，也许有人的婚姻面临破裂，有人恋爱受挫，有人碰到别的什么不顺心的事儿，但这些都无关紧要他们就像大仲马笔下的三个火枪手一样，虽然朝夕相处，却从来不过问彼此的私事，也不去打探别人内心的秘密4. It was on such an occasion the other evening, as the conversation moved desultorily here and there, from the most commonplace to thoughts of Jupiter, without any focus and with no need for one, that suddenly the alchemy of conversation took place, and all at once there was a focus. I do not remember what made one of our companions say it – she clearly had not come into the bar to say it, it was not something that was pressing on her mind – but her remark fell quite naturally into the talk. 有一天晚上的情形正是如此。

当时人们正在漫无边际地东拉西扯，从最普通的家常琐事聊得有关木星的科学趣闻完全没有一个特定的主题可突然间中心话题奇迹般地出现了，大伙的话题都集中到了一处我不记得其中一个伙伴的那句话是什么情况下说出来的 – 不过，显然她并没有特意地准备什么，那也算不上是什么非说不可的要紧话 – 那只不过是随着大伙儿的话题十分自然地脱口而出的5. “Someone told me the other day that the phrase, ‘the King’s English,’ was a term of criticism, that it means language which one should not properly use” “就在前几天，有人告诉我说‘标准英语’这个词是带贬义色彩的批评用语，指的是人们应该尽量避免使用的英语6. The glow of the conversation burst into flames. There were affirmations and protests and denials, and of course the promise, made in all such conversation, that we would look it up on the morning. That would settle it; but conversation does not need to be settled; it could still go ignorantly on. 此语一出，谈话氛围立即热烈起来。

有人表示赞成，也有人怒斥，还有人则不以为然最后，当然少不了像处理所有这种场合下的意见分歧一样，大家约好次日一早去查证一下问题就这样解决了不过，闲聊并不需要解决什么问题，大家仍旧可以糊里糊涂地继续闲扯下去7. It was an Australian who had given her such a definition of “the king’s English,” which produced some rather tart remarks about what one could expect from the descendants of convicts. We had traveled in five minutes to Australia. Of course, there would be resistance to the King’s English in such a society. There is always resistance in the lower classes to any attempt by an upper class to lay down rules for “English as it should be spoken.” 告诉她“标准英语”应做这种解释的原来是个澳大利亚人。

知道这个后，有些人便说起刻薄话来了，说什么囚犯的后代这样说倒也不足为奇就这样，不到5分钟，大家便扯到了澳大利亚在那个地方，“标准英语”自然是不受欢迎的因为下层人民总是会抵制上流社会给“规范英语”制定的条条框框8. Look at the language barrier between the Saxon churls and their Norman conquerors. The conversation had swung from Australian convicts of the 19th century to the English peasants of the 12th century. Who was right, who was wrong, did not matter. The conversation was on wings. 想想撒克逊农民与征服他们的诺曼统治者之间的语言隔阂吧于是闲聊的主题又从19世纪的澳大利亚囚犯转移到了12世纪的应该农民身上谁对谁错，并没有关系闲聊依旧热火朝天地进行着9. Someone took one of the best – known of examples, which is still always worth the reconsidering. When we talk of meat on our tables we use French words; when we speak of the animals from which the meat comes we use Anglo – Saxon words. It is a pig in its sty; it is pork (porc) on the table. They are cattle in the fields, but we sit down to beef (boeuf). Chickens become poultry (poulet), and a calf becomes veal (veau ). Even if our menus were not written in French out of snobbery, the English we used in them would still be Norman English. What all this tells us is of a deep class rift in the culture of English after the Norman Conquest. 有人举了一个众所周知但仍值得深思的例子。

在谈到饭桌上的肉食时我们用法语词，而谈到。