Play With Words

苏格兰作家 James Kelman 在最近的爱丁堡图书节上说：

…if the Nobel Prize came from Scotland they would give it to a writer of fucking detective fiction or … about some upper middle class young magician or some fucking crap.

他没有指名道姓，但是苏格兰现在最出名的作家是写Rebus和其它侦探悬疑系列小说的 Ian Rankin 和Harry Potter系列的作者 JK Rowling。你可以自己去对上号。

James Kelman 属于苏格兰的“文学小说作者”(literature writer)，是苏格兰唯一获得过图书奖 Booker Prize的作者。这些针对“类型小说作者”(genre writer)的攻击，自然引发了一番争论。

其实他在图书节上还对苏格兰文学现状说了不少有争议的，苏格兰报纸 The Herald上这篇文章有比较详细的记录：‘Chilled-out’ Kelman raises the temperature

The Sunday Herald 还组织了一场辩论：ARGUMENT OF THE WEEK: Is pulp fiction taking over Scotland’s bookshelves?

《卫报》上Alan Bissett的综合评论：Why Kelman’s rage at the genrefication of Scottish literature concerns us all

BBC Radio 4 的数字与统计节目 More or Less 的主持人 Tim Harford 在上周节目结束前，引用了一首诗，据称是中国国家统计局举办的 Statistical Feelings 诗歌比赛中的一首诗，翻译成了英文：

Life

Some mock me for doing statistics
Some loath me and statistics
Some don’t understand what statistics are
Why is it that statistics put a calm smile on my face?
Because of statistics
I can solve the deepest mysteries
Because of statistics
I only be lonely again, playing the data
Because of statistics
I can rearrange the stars in sky above
Because of statistics
My life is different
More meanful
I love my life
My statistics

不知道这首诗的原文在哪里呢？

手机网络 Orange 的电影院广告最后打出的字幕总是：

Don’t let a mobile phone ruin your movie. Please switch it off.

在星期六的《卫报》上，Simon Hoggart 引用了一条读者发给他的一句话，是这位读者在西班牙的一家教堂外看到的，翻译为英语就是：

Please turn off your mobile. God will not call you on it.

爱丁堡市中心王子大街(Princes Street)上的 Sainsbury 超市安装了自助结帐付款机，于是顾客们在结帐时，可以选择排以下的两条队：自助收银台 (Self-scanning tills) 或者是人工收银员 (Manned tills)。

我喜欢 Manned tills 这个表述，有点军事味道 (Quick! Man that machine gun!) 。但是，如果收银员是女的，是不是该说 Womaned tills？

Germaine Greer 在今天的《卫报》上的纪念文章：

His sudden death is a strange kind of victory. He had managed to prevent his ageing and even his growing up. There was no beard upon his chin; his voice was a childish treble. Instead of entering middle age and letting himself be chained to earth, he has floated away like a wisp, annihilated on the brink of a 50-date concert tour that I for one was dreading.

Germaine Greer: ‘Like Orpheus, Michael Jackson was destroyed by his fans’

这是在上周末《卫报》上的Simon Hoggart 形容工党议员如何无法下手把自己的领导人赶下台时，用了两个比喻：套惯了马轭的马不知道怎么独立行走；放出来的骗子不知道如何面对自由的生活，要再次作案为的是能重回监狱。

They have spent so many years bending to have the yoke slipped over their shoulders they don’t know to react to  the chance of independence, like ex-cons who can’t cope with freedom and offend again in order to be sent back to jail.

他还用 apparatchiks (来自俄语的“干部”一词)来形容工党议员，因为是用了把首相布朗比作斯大林的玩笑。

The Guardian: The yoke’s on Gordon’s apparatchiks

保守党影子内阁成员 William Hague 是有名的言辞犀利的政客，这个星期他在下议院辩论厅嘲笑布朗内阁改组之后的有着超长头衔的 Peter Mandelson：

And Lord Mandelson, denied the opportunity of becoming Foreign Secrectary, by the sad combination of a Prime Minister too weak to remove his Foreign Secrectary, being equally matched by Foregin Secrectary too weak to challenge the Prime Minister, has gone around instead collecting titles and even whole government department under his name. Now adding that the Right Honourable the Baron Mandelson of Foy in the County of Herefordshire and Hartpool in the County of Durham, First Secrectary of State, and Lord President of Privy Council, and Secrectary of State for Business, and Secrectary of State for Innovation and Skills. It would be no surprise to wake up in the morning and find him become an Archbishop.

这段话听录自BBC Radio 4 的 Week in Westminster 节目，不过如果一定要找文字记录的话，可以到议会网站找议会出版物 Hansard。

《卫报》的Simon Hoggart今天在他的文章中议论新工党(New Labour)喜爱的拗口难懂的句子结构和用词，其中提到了前工党内阁大臣 James Purnell 的辞职信：

I always thought that New Labour regarded the English language as an enemy – or at least an impertinent incovenience, to be bullied into submission. Hence all those terrible terms from management-speak, such as “stakeholder”, “pathway project” and “the patient journey”, sometimes leading to weird, unexpected images. For example, no minister could ever say “we are trying to find ways of improving children’s diets” when she could – and did – say “we are rolling out fresh fruit in primary schools.”

Worst of all, they don’t listen to themselves. Take James Purnell’s resignation letter: “I am therefore calling on you to stand aside to give our party a fighting chance of winning. As such, I am resigning from the government.”

“As such”? What on earth does that mean? Why not “for that reason”? Or “since that is how I feel”? Or just “so”? As I say, they never seem to pay any heed to what they are saying, still less writing.

上次谈了以下 possible 和 probable 之间的细微差别，结果在上周的《卫报》上看到 Timothy Garton Ash 的文章，标题是：

We need a European foreign policy. Improbable? Yes. Impossible? No.

运用的是 improbable 和 impossible 之间的细微差别。

今天《卫报》上 Simon Hoggart 形容英国下议院议员开支管理处(fee office)为“伦敦东区的二手车推销员”。在议员津贴丑闻中，许多议员的形形色色的报销要求都被批准了，让人怀疑这个管理处是怎么工作的。

The fees office, which approved so many of these bizarre claims, seems to have been run on the lines of an East End used car dealership. “If you got cash, I can knock the VAT off, mate … Now this is a lovely motor. Don’t worry about the blood on the back seat, we can clean that up for you.”

Simon Hoggart: Expenses continue to haunt MPs.