从今起，开始这个英语批判系列。对英语的批判，是我近十年来产生的想法，不是书斋里研究的结果，而是在使用这个语言过程中发现的问题。这里需要说明，我不是英语专业出身，也从不从事专业英语研究工作。当然，我的工作是用英文。我不过是个使用者而已。 对英语的批判，不是随便什么人都能做的。 你得对英语有足够深入的了解和认识，对英语文化有足够多的感性认识，同时，你要有足够多的中文根基。 中国书面语有数千年的历史，中文的文章，在两千年前的左传，论语，已经达到很到很成熟的地步。到了西汉的司马迁时代，史记未代表的文学水准，恐怕在当时的世界上也是顶尖的了。反观英文，16世界之前，也就是莎士比亚，培根等为代表的人物所生活的时代之前，英文是下里巴人的语言，书面语没有什么严肃的作品，那是，书面语以法语和拉丁语为主，是为宫廷语言。简言之，英语书面语，只有400多年的历史。 英语没有成熟的文章章法，这点，无论从实际上看，还是历史上的著名人物，都证实这点。为了说明问题，下面转录一篇重要英语教材中的一篇文章，来解剖“麻雀”。 “In man's early days, competition with other creatures must have been critical. But this phase of our development is now finished. Indeed, we lack practice and experience nowadays in dealing with primitive conditions. I am sure that, with- out modern weapons, I would make a very poor show of disputing the ownership of a cave with a bear, and in this I do not think that I stand alone. The last creature to compete with man was the mosquito. But even the mosquito has been subdued by attention to drainage and by chemical sprays. Competition between ourselves, person against person, community against community, still persists, however; and it is as fierce as it ever was. But the competition of man against man is not the simple process envisioned in biology. It is not a simple competition for a fixed amount of food determined by the physical environment, because the environment that determines our evo- lution is no longer essentially physical. Our environment is chiefly conditioned by the things we believe. Morocco and California are bits of the Earth in very similar latitudes, both on the west coasts of continents with similar climates, and probably with rather similar natural resources. Yet their present development is wholly different, not so much because of different people even, but because of the different thoughts that exist in the minds of their inhabitants. This is the point I wish to emphasize. The most important factor in our environment is the state of our own minds. It is well known that where the white man has invaded a primitive culture the most destructive effects have come not from physical weapons but from ideas. Ideas are dangerous. The Holy office knew this full well when it caused heretics to be burned in days gone by. Indeed, the concept of free speech only exists in our modem society because when you are inside a community you are condi- tioned by the conventions of the community to such a degree that it is very difficult to conceive of anything really destructive. It is only someone looking on from outside that can inject the dangerous thoughts. I do not doubt that it would be possible to inject ideas into the modern world that would utterly destroy us. I would like to give you an example, but fortunately I cannot do so. Perhaps it will suffice to mention the nuclear bomb. Imagine the effect on a reasonably ad- vanced technological society, one that still does not possess the bomb, of making it aware of the possibility, of supplying sufficient details to enable the thing to be constructed. Twenty or thirty pages of information handed to any of the major world powers around the year 1925 would have been sufficient to change the course of world history. It is a strange thought, but I believe a correct one, that twenty or thirty pages of ideas and information would be capable of turning the present-day world upside down, or even destroying it. I have often tried to con- ceive of what those pages might contain, but of course I cannot do so because I am a prisoner of the present-day world, just as all of you are. We cannot think outside the particular patterns that our brains are conditioned to, or, to be more accurate, we can think only a very little way outside, and then only if we are very original.” 注意，这是从一本重要的英文教材中选出来示众的，这不可能是一个学生的习作，而是他们“成熟”作者的作品。有足够英语阅读能力的读者，请读一下该文，想想： 1。这篇文章讲的是什么？有没有中心？ 2。文章有没有逻辑？是一篇逻辑清晰，观点明确，结构明晰的文章，还是开无轨电车，东拉西扯，胡说八道？ 3。文章有没有真正值得一读的意思？ 请有独立脑袋的人，好好一读。可以告诉你们，我的回答都是否定的，或者负面的； 这是一篇既没有条理，有没有观点的，简直就是一篇垃圾！作者只有中国初中生的程度！但是，如果能找到这个作者，你一定吃惊，该人可能是个“成熟”的作者，记者，或者学者什么的。你不必吃惊，垃圾文章不看就是，英文本没有作文章法，他们鼓励海阔天空，无法无天，胡说八道，天马行空！ 不要以为这样的文章，在英文教材中是个别的；我的家人在看该教材，我发现这样的垃圾文章占相当大的比例。绝不是偶然现象，而是普遍的问题：英文根本没有作文章法这么回事！ 我从小到大，从没有这么骂过文章作者，因为我很少读垃圾文章；但是，现在，在读英文中，常常看到这样的垃圾，充斥垃圾，怎么解释？ 我幸运自己接受中华文化的熏陶，让我不至于“天马行空，无法无天”。希望大家明白的是，英文热有其必然，是人家科技文化的强势造成，决不是该语言本身有什么优势。哪天非洲卢旺达发达了，成了世界强国，他们的土著语言，就是世界亿万人学习的“高等语言”！ 中国人，别发英语狂了！