昨晚，本人貼了一段給阿里同學的簡短留言。除了為大家增添點樂趣，亦想測試一哈各位朋友的語言能力。結局果然非常有意思。不僅阿里沒有讀懂。根據跟貼對話，很多本人一向敬重、聰明絕頂、在自己本行優秀的朋友也大都沒有看懂。具體細節在下面展開。

關於英語，前段時間，大家發表了大量的宏論。大體都非常有道理。但是，或許是因為我們中華文化有急功近利的悠久傳統，容易視天下萬物甚至眾生為達成目的的工具，語言也被悍然認為只是一件簡單的工具，幾乎被極端化到與鳥鳴獸語就功能性來說基本無區別。

除了中華急功近利思維帶來的極端工具論，我們大部分同學又因唯物主義的薰陶，無敬畏心，凡事第一反應是不服。無論什麼話題基本都是不在話下。猶如先帝所云的老子天下第一。因此又有懂了基本語法、稍有詞彙量之後，便認為對語言的學習就達到了盡頭。

個別同學如隨便、阿里更是見到英文，不分青紅皂白，劈頭蓋臉就是小學生程度的語法、拼寫、和簡短的三板斧。如同剛第一天學藝的木匠，新奇地舉着榔頭，見什麼都是釘子，砸進木頭便和師傅一樣了。除了小木匠情結，或許因出身大都是理不理、文不文的工科，且大都是中國扼殺思維、創造力、一切以標準答案為準的基礎訓練，見到什麼都像題海訓練的作業，腦子裡只有對和錯兩極。對語言也不例外。

語言固然是人類溝通的工具。但即使在功能性上，也絕非鳥鳴獸語可以相提並論的。即使撇開藝術一面，語言的功能也絕不是單純的表達。在思維、尤其是抽象思維，語言不僅僅是思維的載體 ，語言會影響人的思維，制約或催生概念的形成和思維的完善。

撇開以上所有一切，就其表達，語言、尤其是英語，也有龐大複雜的容量，足以表述人類各種微妙的感情色彩。在精熟的駕馭下，可以豐富得令人眼花繚亂，以適應不同的場合、不同的對象，絲毫不爽地表達出言者的語氣。

可惜，我們不少同學對此鮮有足夠的認知。在閱讀上對語言微妙細節的感受粗糙遲鈍，滿足於對、錯兩極的粗淺、極端，除了三板斧，還是三板斧。在表達上，則完全失去婉轉、微妙、精準的能力，觀點的表達形同大字報或呼口號，枯燥乏人，令人生厭。

不久前在阿里的詢問下，本人曾直言阿里對文字的感受能力大約是能讀懂五、六成，大抵是文字中大白話的部分，對付日常起居或科技的大碗茶語言或許戳戳有餘，一旦遭遇含量豐富、多色彩層次的文字，則與老粗無異，比睜眼瞎好不到哪裡去。阿里或許因此不悅。但本人絕非出於攻擊的惡語相向。實在是出自肺腑的諍言也。

回到昨晚留言的理解。不少同學都將留言看作了橄欖枝，卻沒有看出其中春秋筆法的苦心。為便於大家理解，本人特意將留言的本文和應被輕易解讀出的隱含意思（或曰大白話）一併貼在下面。供大家比較。朋友中如有好事者，歡迎出示給各自英語為母語的同事朋友，以資佐證。

一．本人昨晚留言的transcript：

Hey Alex. How are you? Judging from your ID, I guess that’s the first name you go by. So if I may. (I’m) Glad that we bumped into each other at this forum. Again.

I noticed that you like to shake up people a little bit. Maybe to people (whom) you don’t feel are exactly like you. To make yourself a little bigger, I guess? Where I am from, we don’t do that. But that’s OK with me. One piece of friendly advice though. Just don’t make too many assumptions about people. You may not know them as well as you feel you do. I used to do that too, by the way. Not as much as you do now. Then I learned my lesson. Assumptions didn’t always serve me well. Being cocksure about things we don’t really know actually makes us dumb, not smart.

I think you are a nice person otherwise. You may even be fun to hang out with in real life, if you keep an open mind about things. So I guess we will get along just fine at this forum.

Good night. See you tomorrow if you stop by and I happen to be there.

二．解讀：

You like to annoy people in order to appear macho. It doesn’t make you any more macho. In fact, it shows that you are insecure.

You are presumptuous and biased. Contrary to what you intend to accomplish, i.e., making yourself appear superior to your opponent, you look stupid. (Very subtly　impplied) Your assumed superiority is groundless and your arrogance is ridiculous.

However, you may still be a worthy opponent if you become a little open-minded.