In a Manner of Speaking 不妨这么讲 One of the most startling surprises for many Americans when they first arrive in Britain is the discovery that their mother tongue, which has been serving them faithfully all these years, is suddenly not up to dealing with the intricacies of the English language as practiced in the British Isles. 对于第一次到英国的许多美国人而言，最让他们惊讶的事情之一就是多年来他们运用自如的母语在应对大不列颠岛屿上使用的纷繁复杂的英语时，突然显得力不从心。 It is an unsettling experience to arrive in the UK and find oneself uttering vocal noises - speech is probably too strong a word for it - that are received nearly everywhere as at best quaint and imprecise, at worst as misleading and noisy. Even the most innocuous encounters suddenly become charged with the possibility of confusion. 到了英国之后，你会发现自己所发出的有声噪音（或许用言语这一词过重了些）在任何地方，往好处讲被看作是优雅而又精确的，往坏处讲成了喧闹的骗人的鬼话。即使最平淡无奇的遭遇也会顿时使人迷惑不解。 I recall once, when I was still new to the country, arriving at a country pub at lunchtime and asking what sandwiches they had, We have roast beef, said the man behind the bar, bending over to consult a small glass case full of sandwiches, and we have ham and cheese. 当我初到这个国家时，记得有一次，午饭时间我到了一家乡村酒吧，我问他一边弯着，吧台后的人一边回答。”我们这儿有烧牛肉，“们有什么样的三明治 腰去看一个盛满各式各样三明治的玻璃盒子，“还有火腿和奶酪。” I11 have ham and cheese, I decided. “我就要火腿和奶酪”我说。 The man looked at me as if I had misunderstood him. We have roast beef and we have ham and cheese, he repeated, but more slowly. 那个人看着我，好像是我误解了他的意思：“我们有烧牛肉、火腿和奶酪”他用更慢的速度重复了一遍。 Yes, I agreed. I was with him this far. “是的”。我回答，他的话我都能理解。 So which will it be? “那么你要点什么？” Ham and cheese, I replied with a small sense of foreboding. “我就要火腿和奶酪。”我预感到我们之间有些误解。 He looked at me as if wondering if I was a wise guy. You want one of each? 他盯着我，好像在思量我是不是在故意找麻烦，“你一样要一个？” No, just the one. “不，只要一个。” His face, I noticed, was growing slightly red around the edges. Yes, but which one? “好的，但是哪一个呢？”我发现他的脸颊有些泛红。 someone of steadiness uneasy the with replied I said, just I one The forced unexpectedly to stand his ground. “我说的那个。”我很不自在地回答。 Eventually, he brought me a plate with two sandwiches, one ham and one cheese. Only later did I discover that it was unknown, at least in those days, to combine ham and cheese in a single English sandwich. (Too tasty, probably.) 最后，他给我端上了一盘午餐，包括两个三明治，一只火腿和一片奶酪，直到后来我才发现在那个时候，他们不知道把火腿和奶酪放在一个简单的英式三明治里（或许尝起来味道会很好）。 It was Oscar Wilde who said, The English have really everything in common with the Americans, except, of course, language, and he couldnt have been more right. And the fault, if I may say so, is entirely theirs. 奥斯卡王尔德说过：“除了语言，英国人实际上与美国人没有什么不同。”他的话太对了。在我看来，错误完全在于他们。 The British, you see, have always taken a quiet - sometimes practically unwitting - pleasure in perplexng foreigners, as anyone who has ever tried to follow a cricket match will know. Its why they take such delight in nonsense verse and off-the-wall humor, why they have a constitutional form of government but no written constitution, why they celebrate the Queen s birthday in June when she was actually born in April and why, above all, they created a language as ineffably illogical and idiosyncratic as English - a tongue in which, need I remind you, ough can be pronounced in any of and though, trough, through, thought, bough, in (as ways dozen a half hiccough). God-be-with-you somehow has mutated into good-bye, and colonel is pronounced, without the faintest hint of self-consciousness or embarrasSent, as if it had an in it. 你知道，英国人总是在迷惑外国人的过程中暗自取乐有时是无意的，就像一个人试图要听懂板球比赛的讲解一样。这就是为什么人们从荒诞的诗文和疯癫的幽默中找乐，为什么他们有立宪制政府却没有成文的宪法。为什 月庆祝女王生日，而实际上她是在四月出生。总之，这就是为什么他们在六 么他们创造了英语这样一种毫无逻辑的怪癖的语言的原因。我要提醒你的是，在这种语言中，ough可以有下列六种发音（如在bough，thought，through，trough，though，and hiccough）。God-be-with-you发成了good-bye，colonel这个词会被自然而然添入了“r”的发音。 Now you might think that as native speakers of the same language we would have a certain advantage in interpreting English, but no. As soon as the British realized, to their presumed horror, that they had spawned a nation across the sea where the inhabitants could also speak English, they immediately began doing all they could to distance themselves linguistically from their colonial offspring. They started pronouncing lieutenant as lefftenant, tomato as omahto, and waistcoat as wesskit, among much else. (Most Britons think they have been talking like that forever, but in fact many, perhaps most, of the distinguishing characteristics of British English date only from the late 1700s and early 1800s. If you were to resurrect, say, King George III, he would almost certainly sound more American than British.) 现在你可能会认为作为讲同一种语言的人在解释英式英语方面我们会有优势，那你就错了。当英国人惊恐地发现他们在大洋彼岸开辟的土地上，当地人也说英语，他们便立即尽可能从语言上远离他们殖民地的后代，他们开始将“lieutenant”发成“lefftenant”，“tomato”发成“tomahto”，“waistcoat”发成“weskit”，等等。（大多数英国人认为他们一直都是那样说话的，但实际上许多甚至大多数英式英语中的显著特征只是出现在18世纪晚期到19世纪早期。假使你