读《FT·金融时报》学英语：把话说好，没你想得那么简单

凯拉韦：为我们新办的社会企业取名和写简介让我大费周章，作为记者我想怎么写就怎么写，创业时却不得不学会妥协。

When handing out my annual guff awards last week I wrote something I'd now like to retract.I said clear language in business was perfectly possible if you tried hard enough.
前些天在颁发“年度废话奖”时我写过一些话，现在我想收回。我写了类似这样的话：在商界如果你下足功夫，就完全有可能把话讲明白。

I now find it's not as simple as that.Last autumn, I co-founded a social enterprise designed to get people like me to retrain as teachers.Teach Last, I wanted to call it, which I thought both clear and comic.No, no, no, was the response from practically everyone.Teach Last, they insisted, sounded as if the crematorium was the next stop, and so I backed down, and settled on the least worst alternative, Now Teach.
现在我发现没那么简单。去年秋天，我和别人一同创立了一家社会企业，想要将一些像我这样的人重新培训成教师。原本我想管它叫，Teach Last（终于去教书），我觉得这个名字既直白又风趣。然而，几乎所有人的反应都是，别，别，别。他们坚持认为，Teach Last，听起来好像之后就要去死一样，于是我只好作罢，最后选了一个没那么糟的名字，Now Teach（现在教书吧）。

Two words into the new project I'd learnt my first lesson.As a journalist I write whatever I like and if I upset someone, well, that's part of the job.But when you are setting something up compromise has to be part of it — and compromise hardly ever goes with sharp language.It doesn't matter if the words look pretty.If they alienate anyone, you have to fudge them.
为新事业起名给我上了第一堂课。作为一名记者我想怎么写就怎么写，如果得罪了谁，呃，那也是工作的一部分。但创业时却不得不学会妥协——而妥协和言辞犀利几乎永远不可兼得。话说得是不是漂亮并不重要。假如有人不受用，你就得换个说法。

Name chosen, the next task was to write the copy for the Now Teach website.This, I confidently told everyone, was what I was good at.Long ago I worked out a two-step process to composition: you decide what you want to say and then you say it, using mainly words of one syllable.
选好名字后，就该给Now Teach的网站写文案了。我自信地告诉每个人，这是我的强项。很久以前，我研究出一套两步创作法：想好要说什么再下笔，然后说得简单明了一些。

In this case what I wanted to say was easy: Now Teach exists to persuade people over 45 who are fed up with their swanky careers at McKinsey, for instance, to start again as teachers.But even I could see that this wouldn't do.First, you can't slag off McKinsey on a charity website.Neither can you specify age, as it is illegal.But how else to get across the idea that you are looking for people who are getting on a bit? In conversation I had been referring to them as “oldies”, but no one apart from me thought this funny.“Mature” is OK for cheddar, but not otherwise; “seasoned” is fine for wood or a lamb stew, but not for humans.“Older” is hopeless as it has come to be a euphemism for ancient — if you google it, you are led straight to articles about colostomy bags and care home closures.
既然如此我想说的很简单：Now Teach旨在说服已然厌倦了在麦肯锡(McKinsey)这种大企业从事光鲜职业的45岁以上的人改行当老师。但即便是这个理儿，话也不能这么说。首先，你没法在一个慈善网站上对麦肯锡说三道四。你也不能规定具体岁数，因为这不合法。但不这么说别人又怎么知道你要找的是上了年纪的人呢？聊天时我管他们叫“老伙计”，但除了我自己没人觉得这很风趣。“成熟”用来形容干酪还行，要说别的就免了；“老到”(seasoned)用来描述风干的木材或者加了调料的炖羊肉还可以，拿来说人就算了。更别想用“年长”了，因为这个词都变成年老的委婉说法了——如果你谷歌(google)一下，直接就能搜出关于结肠造口袋和养老院倒闭的文章。

Another possibility (suggested by a former management consultant) was “late-stage career-changers”, which has the advantage of being inoffensive, but the disadvantage of making me feel restive before I'd even read to the end of it.
另一个也许派得上用场的词（来自一位前管理咨询师的建议）是“后期转行者”，这个词好就好在不怎么伤人，但缺点是我还没读完它就不耐烦了。

With heavy heart, we settled for “experienced”, which we initially bolstered by adding “professionals”.Only then my inner Jane Austen revolted, as in her book only lawyers, doctors and clerics qualify.In the end we have gone for another dread word: “leaders”, which is not only overused but rules me out.I have never led anyone.
怀着沉重的心情，我们决定采用“有经验的”一词，起初我们还在其后加上了“专业人士们”来充实它。可就在那时我内心的简·奥斯汀(Jane Austen)抗议了，因为这么一来，在她书里就只有律师、医生和牧师才够格了。后来我们又选了另一个令人生畏的词：“领导者们”，这个词不仅被用滥了而且还把我给排除了。我压根就没领导过谁。

The final task was to convey quality — we weren't looking for any old “experienced leader” but for ones who would be absolute corkers as teachers.The word corker, delightful though it is, doesn't work on a website, yet inflation in language has been so rampant that none of the old words work any more.
最后需要申明我们的用人标准——我们要找的不是任何年长的“有经验的领导者”而是那些将会成为杰出教师的人。杰出者，这个词虽然赏心悦目，但却不适用于网站，语言的浮夸之风现已大行其道，从前的词都不管用了。

“Good” now means bad, and “great” means mediocre.Even “extraordinary” is now workaday: the word appears nearly 3m times on LinkedIn.The obvious answer is to avoid adjectives, only if you do, the result is too flat, which won't do if you are trying to sell yourself.So we went for “formidable”, and were almost all set, until along came an expert who said our words might have pleased us, but they would fail to impress Google's search algorithms.It was back to the drawing board.
现如今“好”就是不好，而“好极了”就是一般般。甚至“非同凡响”也就表示马马虎虎：这个词在领英上已经出现过近三百万次了。解决这个问题的办法显而易见，就是避免使用形容词，只是效果未免太平淡，而要想推销自己你就不会这么干。于是我们想出了“才华惊人”一词，并且差不多就要这么定了，却有一位专家指出或许我们对这些词很满意，但它们在谷歌的搜索算法那里讨不了好。我们只好重新想。

So now when I search, the first result says: “Now Teach is a teacher training programme for experienced career changers looking to reapply their skills to the classroom.” As a writer I dislike it.George Orwell would have had a fit.But then he didn't have to deal with search engines.And he was as much trying to cause offence as to avoid it.
所以现在我搜索Now Teach，第一条结果是：“Now Teach是一个教师培训计划，面向经验丰富、希望转行去课堂上重新发挥自身才干的人们。”作为一个作家我不喜欢这么说。这种说法估计会把乔治·奥威尔(George Orwell)气疯。可是他那会儿并不用去应付搜索引擎。而且他故意得罪人和尽量不得罪人的时候一样多。

Still, as someone who is trying to start a movement, I like the words a great deal.I've stopped demanding freshness or elegance of them; I only care that they do the job.And it seems they do.Despite the euphemism, cliché and fudge, nearly 650 people have applied already.Most are longish in the tooth.All are experienced, many impressively so.But most pleasingly, some are shaping up to be absolute corkers.
不过，作为一个试着发起一场运动的人，我又很是喜欢这些词。我已经不再追求它们是不是新颖或简洁；我只在意它们能不能起效果。而且它们似乎奏效了。即使当中不乏委婉语、陈词滥调和含糊其辞，它们也已经帮我们吸引到了将近650名申请者。这些人大多数都上了年纪。他们都经验丰富，很多人尤为资深。而最令人欣喜的是，有些人绝对会成为杰出的教师。