这几天在看William Zinsser的这本书On Writing Well. 总的说来，它算得上是一本工具书吧，因为整本书的目的是要我们意识到写作语言累赘重复的危机，以及提供能让文字简洁而有力的写作方法。
这是本工具书，但又不本工具书。怎么说呢？整本书没有像一般工具书那样的dos and don'ts。 相反的，Mr. Zinsser用生动的文笔，幽默的语言，和像朋友间轻松交谈的方式把要点铺陈出来。
这几年--自从儿子出生后--我养成了一个坏习惯。喜欢买书，却很少真正去读。图书馆借来的倒还看得快些。记得有个可以设时间自动关闭的烤箱广告说:"Set it, and forget it!" 我是，Buy it, and forget it!
这本书我买了已有一段时间，前几天终于被发掘出来。看了前面几页，我就被Mr. Zinsser的文字给吸引住了。今天看到第三章Clutter（冗乱) 里的一些话，实在让我忍俊不禁，现在摘录下来和你们分享：
"Clutter is the laborious phrase that has pushed out the short word that means the same thing."
"It's the language of the flight attendant demonstrating the oxygen mask that will drop down if the plane should run out of air. 'In the unlikely possibility that the aircraft should experience such an eventuality, ' she begins--a phrase so oxygen-depriving (哈哈哈) in itself that we are prepared for any disaster.
Clutter is the ponderous euphemism that turns a slum into a depressed sociaeconomic area, garbage collectors into waste-disposal personnel and the town dump into the volume reduction unit. I think of Bill Mauldin's cartoon of two hoboes riding a freight car. One of them says, 'I started as a simple bum, but now I'm hard-core umemployed(哈哈哈）."
Mr. Zinsser目前在纽约新学校（The New School, New York）和哥伦比亚研究院新闻系（the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism）任教。
很值得看的一本书，向你推荐。
2010年10月28日星期四
On Writing Well -- by William Zinsser
2010年10月13日星期三
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