【原】划掉这个啰嗦的形容词和娘炮的修饰

《中式英语之鉴》中提到:

Professor Cheng Zhenqiu suggests that the Chinese language tolerates more adjectives and adverbs than the English. Refering to a goverment report thick with relentlessly repeated modifiers, he warns that "if all (of them) are translated literally into English, the effect would be deadening. Too much emphasis means very little emphasis."

今天和你分享有关「形容词」和「修饰词」的赏析, 选自On Writing Well.

“I hope that you will come to share the delight and awe I feel when reading and contemplating these sentences.”

ADJECTIVES

Most adjectives are also unnecessary. Like adverbs, they are sprinkled into sentences by writers who don’t stop to think that the concept is already in the noun. This kind of prose is littered with precipitous cliffs and lacy spiderwebs, or with adjectives denoting the color of an object whose color is well known: yellow daffodils and brownish dirt. If you want to make a value judgment about daffodils, choose an adjective like “garish.” If you’re in a part of the country where the dirt is red, feel free to mention the red dirt.

这让我想起了 “男和尚，女尼姑”

Those adjectives would do a job that the noun alone wouldn’t be doing. Most writers sow adjectives almost unconsciously into the soil of their prose to make it more lush and pretty, and the sentences become longer and longer as they fill up with stately elms and frisky kittens and hard-bitten detectives and sleepy lagoons. This is adjective-by-habit—a habit you should get rid of. Not every oak has to be gnarled. The adjective that exists solely as decoration is a self-indulgence for the writer and a burden for the reader. Again, the rule is simple: make your adjectives do work that needs to be done. “He looked at the gray sky and the black clouds and decided to sail back to the harbor.” The darkness of the sky and the clouds is the reason for the decision. If it’s important to tell the reader that a house was drab or a girl was beautiful, by all means use “drab” and “beautiful.” They will have their proper power because you have learned to use adjectives sparsely.

贴切生动的描述来自于动词的力量和准确的名词, 而不是堆砌词藻的形容词. 当把一堆形容词放在一起的时候，反倒没了画面感 — 如同人身上的饰品一样:

The shaggy, wild, dark-grey wolf loped through the foggy, chilly, dark, damp, overgrown forest.

There’s too much to take in —it’s a sensory overload. 有种背单词后遗症的感觉。

The dark-grey wolf loped through the damp forest.

删掉几个形容词，读起来更痛快: 一副简单的画面. 所谓“意境”，是在字里行间之中品出来的，而不是作者告诉你“前方高能，你的心情该随着我的形容词来跌宕起伏啦！” 形容词的败笔之处是 “说了太多” 而失去了 “画面感”

“那妹子长的特漂亮，非常漂亮! 颜值简直逆天” 到底是有多漂亮？你能感觉到到“漂亮”吗？

“回眸一笑百魅生，六宫粉黛无颜色” “螓首蛾眉，巧笑倩兮” 这样的文字你读起来, 那“美呆了”了画面就浮现在脑海了.

C. S. Lewis ,写纳尼亚传奇那位, 写过这样一段话, 你感受一下

It's no use telling us that something was 'mysterious' or 'loathsome' or 'awe-inspiring' or 'voluptuous.' By direct description, by metaphor and simile, by secretly evoking powerful associations, by offering the right stimuli to our nerves (in the right degree and the right order), and by the very beat and vowel-melody and length and brevity of your sentences, you must bring it about that we, we readers, not you, exclaim, 'how mysterious!' or 'loathsome' or whatever it is. Let me taste for myself, and you'll have no need to tell me how I should react.

LITTLE QUALIFIERS

Prune out the small words that qualify how you feel and how you think and what you saw:“a bit,” “a little,” “sort of,” “kind of,” “rather,”“quite,”“very,”“too,”“pretty much,” “in a sense” and dozens more.

They dilute your style and your persuasiveness. Don’t say you were a bit confused and sort of tired and a little depressed and somewhat annoyed. Be confused. Be tired. Be depressed. Be annoyed. Don’t hedge your prose with little timidities. Good writing is lean and confident.

The Elements of Style 这样说:

“Rather, very, little, pretty - these are the leeches that infest the pond of prose, sucking the blood of words. The constant use of the adjective little (except to indicate size) is particularly debilitating; we should all try to do a little better, we should all be very watchful of this rule, for it is a rather important one and we are pretty sure to violate it now and then.

Don’t say you weren’t too happy because the hotel was pretty expensive. Say you weren’t happy because the hotel was expensive. Don’t tell us you were quite fortunate. How fortunate is that? Don’t describe an event as rather spectacular or very awesome. Words like “spectacular” and “awesome” don’t submit to measurement. “Very” is a useful word to achieve emphasis, but far more often it’s clutter. There’s no need to call someone very methodical. Either he is methodical or he isn’t.

The large point is one of authority. Every little qualifier whittles away some fraction of the reader’s trust. Readers want a writer who believes in himself and in what he is saying. Don’t diminish that belief. Don’t be kind of bold. Be bold.

It’s a rather awesome prose, isn't it? If you kind of like it, please actively share it around. Thank you pretty much:)

@英语学习笔记