高级英语（张汉熙版）第二册学习笔记（原文及全文翻译）——3 - Pub Talk and the King‘s English（酒肆闲聊与标准英语）

沈运恒

2023-12-01

Unit 3 - Pub Talk and the King's English

Pub Talk and the King's English

Conversation is the most sociable of all human activities. And it is an activity only of humans. However intricate the ways in which animals communicate with each other, they do not indulge in anything that deserves the name of conversation.

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.

Perhaps it is because of my up-bringing 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 rocks, or that their love affairs have been 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.

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.

"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.'

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.

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."

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.

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 England after the Norman conquest.

The Saxon peasants who tilled the land and reared the animals could not afford the meat, which went to Norman tables. The peasants were allowed to eat the rabbits that scampered over their fields and, since that meat was cheap, the Norman lords of course turned up their noses at it. So rabbit is still rabbit on our tables, and not changed into some rendering of lapin.

As we listen today to the arguments about bilingual education, we ought to think ourselves back into the shoes of the Saxon peasant. The new ruling class had built a cultural barrier against him by building their French against his own language. There must have been a great deal of cultural humiliation felt by the English when they revolted under Saxon leaders like Hereward the wake. "The King's English"-if the term had existed then-had become French. And here in America now, 900 years later, we are still the heirs to it.

So the next morning, the conversation over, one looked it up. The phrase came into use some time in the 16th century. "Queen's English" is found in Nash's "Strange Newes of the Intercepting Certaine Letters" in 1593, and in 1602, Dekker wrote of someone, "thou clipst the Kinge's English." Is the phrase in Shakespeare? That would be the confirmation that it was in general use. He uses it once, when Mistress Quickly in "The Merry Wives of Windsor" says of her master coming home in a rage, "here will be an old abusing of God's patience and the King's English," and it rings true.

One could have expected that it would be about then that the phrase would be coined. After five centuries of growth, of tussling with the French of the Normans and the Angevins and the Plantagenets and at last absorbing it, the conquered in the end conquering the conqueror. English had come royally into its own.

There was a King's (or Queen's) English to be proud of. The Elizabethans blew on it as on a dandelion clock, and its seeds multiplied, and floated to the ends of the earth. "The King's English" was no longer a form of what would now be regarded as racial discrimination.

Yet there had been something in the remark of the Australian. The phrase has always been used a little pejoratively and even facetiously by the lower classes. One feels that even Mistress Quickly-a servant-is saying that Dr. Caius-her master-will lose his control and speak with the vigor of ordinary folk. If the King's English is "English as it should be spoken," the claim is often mocked by the underlings, when they say with a jeer "English as it should be spoke." The rebellion against a cultural dominance is still there.

There is always a great danger, as Carlyle put it, that "words will harden into things for us." Words are not themselves a reality, but only representations of it, and the King's English, like the Anglo-French of the Normans, is a class representation of reality. Perhaps it is worth trying to speak it, but it should not be laid down as an edict, and made immune to change from below.

I have an unending love affair with dictionaries-Auden once said that all a writer needs is a pen, plenty of paper and "the best dictionaries he can afford"-but I agree with the person who said that dictionaries are instruments of common sense. The King's English is a model-a rich and instructive one-but it ought not to be an ultimatum.

So we may return to my beginning. Even with the most educated and the most literate, the King's English slips and slides in conversation. There is no worse conversationalist than the one who punctuates his words as he speaks as if he were writing, or even who tries to use words as if he were composing a piece of prose for print. When E. M. Forster writes of "the sinister corridor of our age," we sit up at the vividness of the phrase, the force and even terror in the image. But if E. M. Forster sat in our living room and said, "We are all following each other down the sinister corridor of our age," we would be justified in asking him to leave.

Great authors are constantly being asked by foolish people to talk as they write. Other people may celebrate the lofty conversations in which the great minds are supposed to have indulged in the great salons of 18th century Paris, but one suspects that the great minds were gossiping and judging the quality of the food and the wine. Henault, then the great president of the First Chamber of the Paris Parlement, complained bitterly of the terrible sauces at the salons of Mme.

Deffand, and went on to observe that the only difference between her cook and the supreme chef, Brinvilliers, lay in their intentions.

The one place not to have dictionaries is in a sitting room or at a dining table. Look the thing up the next morning, but not in the middle of the conversation.

Otherwise one will bind the conversation, one will not let it flow freely here and there. There would have been no conversation the other evening if we had been able to settle at once the meaning of "the King's English." We would never have gone to Australia, or leaped back in time to the Norman Conquest.

And there would have been nothing to think about the next morning. Perhaps above all, one would not have been engaged by interest in the musketeer who raised the subject, wondering more about her. The bother about teaching chimpanzees how to talk is that they will probably try to talk sense and so ruin all conversation.

(from The Washington Post, May 6, 1979)

参考译文——酒肆闲聊与标准英语

酒肆闲聊与标准英语

人类的一切活动中，只有闲谈最宜于增进友谊，而且是人类特有的一种活动。动物之间的信息交流，不论其方式何等复杂，也是称不上交谈的。

闲谈的引人人胜之处就在于它没有一个事先定好的话题。它时而迂回流淌，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。要是有人觉得"有些话要说"，那定会大煞风景，使闲聊无趣。闲聊不是为了进行争论。闲聊中常常会有争论，不过其目的并不是为了说服对方。闲聊之中是不存在什么输赢胜负的。事实上，真正善于闲聊的人往往是随时准备让步的。也许他们偶然间会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，插话的机会随之而失，他们也就听之任之。

或许是由于我从小混迹于英国小酒馆的缘故吧，我觉得酒馆里的闲聊别有韵味。酒馆里的朋友对别人的生活毫无了解，他们只是临时凑到一起来的，彼此并无深交。他们之中也许有人面临婚因破裂，或恋爱失败，或碰到别的什么不顺心的事儿，但别人根本不管这些。他们就像大仲马笔下的三个火枪手一样，虽然日夕相处，却从不过问彼此的私事，也不去揣摸别人内心的秘密。

有一天晚上的情形正是这样。人们正漫无边际地东扯西拉，从最普通的凡人俗事谈到有关木星的科学趣闻。谈了半天也没有一个中心话题，事实上也不需要有一个中心话题。可突然间大伙儿的话题都集中到了一处，中心话题奇迹般地出现了。我记不起她那句话是在什么情况下说出来的，她显然不是预先想好把那句话带到酒馆里来说的，那也不是什么非说不可的要紧话，我只知道她那句话是随着大伙儿的话题十分自然地脱口而出的。

"几天前，我听到一个人说'标准英语'这个词语是带贬义的批评用语，指的是人们应该尽量避免使用的英语。"

此语一出，谈话立即热烈起来。有人赞成，也有人怒斥，还有人则不以为然。最后，当然少不了要像处理所有这种场合下的意见分歧一样，由大家说定次日一早去查证一下。于是，问题便解决了。不过，酒馆闲聊并不需要解决什么问题，大伙儿仍旧可以糊里糊涂地继续闲扯下去。

告诉她"标准英语"应作那种解释的原来是个澳大利亚人。得悉此情，有些人便说起刻薄话来了，说什么囚犯的子孙这样说倒也不足为怪。这样，在五分钟内，大家便像到澳大利亚游览了一趟。在那样的社会里，"标准英语"自然是不受欢迎的。每当上流社会想给"规范英语"制订一些条条框框时，总会遭到下层人民的抵制。

看看撒克逊农民与征服他们的诺曼底统治者之间的语言隔阂吧。于是话题又从19世纪的澳大利亚囚犯转到12世纪的英国农民。谁对谁错，并没有关系。闲聊依旧热火朝天。

有人举出了一个人所共知，但仍值得提出来发人深思的例子。我们谈到饭桌上的肉食时用法语词，而谈到提供这些肉食的牲畜时则用盎格鲁一撒克逊词。猪圈里的活猪叫pig，饭桌上吃的猪肉便成了pork(来自法语pore)；地里放牧着的牛叫cattle，席上吃的牛肉则叫beef(来自法语boeuf)；Chicken用作肉食时变成poultry(来自法语poulet)；calf加工成肉则变成veal(来自法语vcau)。即便我们的菜单没有为了装洋耍派头而写成法语，我们所用的英语仍然是诺曼底式的英语。这一切向我们昭示了诺曼底人征服之后英国文化上所存在的深刻的阶级裂痕。

撒克逊农民种地养畜，自己出产的肉自己却吃不起，全都送上了诺曼底人的餐桌。农民们只能吃到在地里乱窜的兔子。兔子肉因为便宜，诺曼底贵族自然不屑去吃它。因此，活兔子和吃的兔子肉共用rabbit这个词表示，而没有换成由法语lapin转化而来的某个词。

当我们今天听着有关双语教育问题的争论时，我们应该设身处地替当时的撒克逊农民想一想，新的统治阶级把法语用来对抗撒克逊农民自己的语言，从而在农民周围筑起一道文化障碍。当英国人在像觉醒者赫里沃德这样的撒克逊领袖领导下起来造反时，他们一定深深地感受到了文化上的屈辱。"标准英语"--如果那时候有这个名词的话-已经变成法语。而九百年后我们在美国这儿仍然继承了这种影响。

那晚闲聊过后，第二天一早便有人去查阅了资料。这个名词在16世纪已有人使用过。纳什作于1593年的《截获信函奇闻》中就有过"标准英语"(Queen's English)的提法。1602年德克写到某人时有句话说："你把'标准英语'(King's English)简化了"。莎士比亚作品中是否也出现过这一提法呢？如出现过，那就证明这个词在当时即已通用。他用过一次，在《温莎的风流娘儿们》中，快嘴桂嫂在讲到她家老爷回来后将会有的盛怒情形时说，"……少不了一顿臭骂，骂得鬼哭神愁，伦敦的官话(即"标准英语")不知要给他糟蹋成个什么样子啦。"(朱生豪译)后来的事实果然被她说中了。

我们有理由认为这个词语就是那个时期产生的。经过前后五百年的发展和与诺曼底人、安茹王朝及金雀花王朝的法语的竞争，英语最终同化了法语。被征服者变成了征服者，英语取得了国语的地位。

这样便有了一种值得引以自豪的"标准英语"。伊丽莎白时代的人没费吹灰之力，使其影响日盛，遍及全球。"标准英语"再也不带有今天所谓的种族歧视的性质了。

不过，那个澳大利亚人所作的解释也有一定的道理。下层阶级在用这一名词时总带着一点轻蔑或讥讽的味道。我们会发现，就连快嘴桂嫂这样一个婢女也会说她的主子凯厄斯大夫会管不住自己的舌头，而讲起平民百姓们所讲的那种粗话。如果说标准英语就是所谓"规范英语"，这种看法常常会受到下层人民的嘲笑讥讽，他们有时故意开玩笑地把它说成是"规反英语"。下层人民对文化上的专制仍是极为反感的。

正如卡莱尔所说，始终存在着的一种危险是，"对我们来说。词语会变成具体的事物"。词语本身并不是现实，它不过是用以表达现实的一种形式而已。标准英语就像诺曼底人的盎格鲁法语一样，也是一个阶级用来表达现实的一种形式。让人们学着去讲也许不错，但既不应当把它作为法令，也不应当使它完全不接受来自下层的改变。

我一向对词典有着始终不渝的酷爱一奥登说过，一个作家的全部所需就是一支笔、够用的纸张和"他所能弄得到的最好的词典"-但我更赞同另一种说法，即把词典看成是一种常识的工具。标准英语是一种典范-一种丰富而有指导作用的典范-但并不是一种最高的典范。

由此我们可以回到我先前的话题上了。即便是那些学问再高、文学修养再好的人，他们所讲的标准英语在交谈中也常常会离谱走调。要是有谁闲聊时也像做文章一样句逗分明，或者像写一篇要发表的散文一样咬文嚼字的话，那他讲起话来就一定会极为倒人胃口。看到EM福斯特笔下写出"当今这个时代的阴森可怖的长廊"时，其用语之生动及由其所产生的生动有力、甚至可怖的形象令我们拍案叫绝。但假若福斯特坐在我们的会客室里说"我们大家正一个接一个地步入这个时代的阴森可怖的长廊"时，那我们完全有理由请他走开。

常常有一些愚人要求大文豪们谈话时也像写文章一样字字珠玑。也有些人对18世纪巴黎的文艺沙龙里那些文人雅士的高谈阔论极表称羡。可是，说不定那些文人雅士们在那里也不过是闲聊，谈论酒食的好坏哩。当时的巴黎大法院第一厅厅长亨奥尔特在德苏侯爵夫人家的沙龙里作客时就曾大叫着说"调料糟透了"，

接着还大发议论说侯爵夫人家的厨子和总厨师长布兰维利耶之间的唯一差别只不过用心不一而已。

会客室里和餐桌上是无需摆上词典的。闲聊过程中若遇上弄不明白需待查实的问题可留待第二天再说，不要话说到一半却去一边查起字典来。

否则，谈话便会受到妨碍，不能如流水般无拘无束地进行。那天晚上，如果我们当场弄清了"标准英语"的意义，也就不可能再有那一场交谈论辩，我们也就不可能一会儿跳到澳大利亚去，一会儿扯回到诺曼底征服者时代了。

而且，我们也就没有什么可以留到第二天去思考了。尤为重要的是，如果那个问题当场得到解决的话，人们就不会对于那位引出话题的"火枪手"那样发生兴趣，想多了解她的情况了。教黑猩猩说话之所以很困难，其原因就在于它们往往可能尽想着要讲出些正经八百的话来，因而使得谈话失去意趣。

摘自1979年5月6日《华盛顿邮报》

Key Words:

alchemy ['ælkimi]

n. 炼金术，魔力

commonplace ['kɔmənpleis]

adj. 平凡的，陈腐的

snobbery ['snɔbəri]

n. 势利

conqueror ['kɔŋkərə]

n. 征服者，胜利者

参考资料：

高级英语（张汉熙版）第二册学习笔记（原文及全文翻译）——3 - Pub Talk and the King‘s English（酒肆闲聊与标准英语）

Unit 3 - Pub Talk and the King's English

参考译文——酒肆闲聊与标准英语

相关阅读

相关文章

相关问答

相关文档