卡耐基演讲·2.避免使用专业术语
如果你是从事某种技术性的专业工作，例如律师、医生、工程师，或是其他高度专业化的行业，当你向本行以外的人谈话时，要加倍小心地使用普通的词句来解释，同时加上必要的细节。If you belong to a profession the work of which is technical-if you are a lawyer, a physician, an engineer, or are in a highly specialized line of business-be doubly careful, when you talk to outsiders, to express yourself in plain terms and to give necessary details.
我说过，要加倍小心，是由于我的专业责任的关系。我已经听过几百场因为不小心而失败的演讲，是失败得那么惨。演讲者显然完全不知道，一般听众对他们的特殊行业普遍缺乏了解。这样的结果会怎么样呢？他们滔滔不绝地高谈阔论，用他们经验中常用的词句——这些词句对他们当然有意义，但对于外行的听众来说，却是一头雾水，不知所云，就像大雨过后，爱荷华和堪萨斯新翻的泥土把密西西比河弄得浑浊不清一样。Be doubly careful, for, as a part of my professional duties, I have listened to hundreds of speeches that failed right at this point, and failed woefully. The speakers appeared totally unconscious of the general public's widespread and profound ignorance regarding their particular specialties. So what happened? They rambled on and on, uttering thoughts, using phrases that fitted into their experience and were instantly and continuously meaningful to them; but to the uninitiated, they were about as clear as the Missouri River after the June rains have fallen on the newly plowed cornfields of Iowa and Kansas.
这样的情况应该怎样避免呢？应该去读一读前任印第安纳州参议员毕佛里吉的建议：What should such a speaker do? He ought to read and heed the following advice from the facile pen of former Senator Beveridge of Indiana:
“最好的方法，是从听众群中挑选出一个看起来最不聪明的人作为对象，然后努力让那个人对你的演讲产生兴趣，那么你只能用清晰易懂的事实叙述，清楚地说明，这样才能做到这一点。另一个更好的方法，就是把你的演讲目放在那些让爸爸陪着的小男孩或小女孩身上。It is a good practice to pick out the least intelligent-looking person in the audience and strive to make that person interested in your argument. This can be done only by lucid statements of fact and clear reasoning. An even better method is to center your talk on some small boy or girl present with parents.
“然后，你在心里对自己说——或者你也可以大声对你的听众说出来，如果你喜欢的话——你会试着讲简单明白一些，让那个小孩子也能够了解并记住你对问题的解释，而且还能够把你告诉他的讲给别人听。”Say to yourself-say out loud to your audience, if you like-that you will try to be so plain that the child will understand and remember your explanation of the question discussed, and after the meeting be able to tell what you have said.
举一个培训班上的例子，一个医生演讲说：“用横膈膜呼吸，对肠子的蠕动作用有显著的帮助，是对健康的一种恩赐。”他想用这句话带过这部分内容，然后急忙讲述别的东西。而老师打断了他的讲演，请他对横膈膜式呼吸与其他方式呼吸有何不同，为什么它格外有益于健康以及蠕动作用是什么这三个问题有明确概念的听众举手。结果让医生大吃一惊，因此他回过头重新讲解：A physician in one of our classes remarked in a talk that" diaphragmatic breathing is a distinct aid to the peristaltic action of the intestines and a boon to health." He was about to dismiss that phase of his talk with that one sentence and to rush on to something else. The instructor stopped him, and asked for a show of hands of those who had a clear conception of how diaphragmatic breathing differs from other kinds of breathing, why it is especially beneficial to physical well-being, and what peristaltic action is. The result of the vote surprised the doctor; so he went back, explained, enlarged in this fashion:
“横膈膜是一层薄薄的肌肉，在肺叶基部形成胸腔的底部和腹腔的顶部。当胸腔呼吸时，它弓起来，像只上下倒置的洗脸盆。The diaphragm is a thin muscle forming the floor of the chest at the base of the lungs and the roof of the abdominal cavity. When inactive and during chest breathing, it is arched like an inverted washbowl.
“在做腹腔式的呼吸时，每一次呼吸都会迫使肌肉弓状物往下推，使它几乎成平坦状，此时人便会感觉到胃肠受到了腰带的压挤。横膈膜这种往下的压力会按摩并刺激到腹腔的上部器官——胃、肝、胰、脾等。In abdominal breathing every breath forces this muscular arch down until it becomes nearly flat and you can feel your stomach muscles pressing against your belt. This downward pressure of the diaphragm massages and stimulates the organs of the upper part of the abdominal cavity-the stomach, the liver, the pancreas, the spleen, the solar plexus.
“当把气呼出时，胃和肠又往上挤迫着横膈膜，再进行了一次按摩，这种按摩有助于排泄过程。When you breathe out again, your stomach and your intestines will be forced up against the diaphragm and will be given another massage. This massaging helps the process of elimination.
“许多影响健康的原因都来自肠胃的不适。假使我们的肠胃因为深深的横膈膜呼吸而有适当的运动，大部分的不消化、便秘及体内中毒现象都会消失。”A vast amount of ill health originates in the intestines. Most indigestion, constipation, and autointoxication would disappear if our stomachs and intestines were properly exercised through deep diaphragmatic breathing.
不论作什么解说，总是由简入繁好。比如，你想对一群家庭主妇解释为什么冰箱必须除霜。如果像下面这样开始便错了：It is always best to go from the simple to the complex in giving explanations of any kind. For example, suppose you were trying to explain to a group of housewives why refrigerators must be defrosted. This would be the wrong way to go about it:
“冷冻的原理是蒸发器从冰箱内部吸收热气散发到外面。当热被吸出的时候，伴随的湿气会附着在蒸发器上，堆起厚厚的一层，造成蒸发器绝热的现象，进而造成频频开动马达，以补偿逐渐增厚的霜层形成的绝热。”The principle of refrigeration is based on the fact that the evaporator pulls heat from the inner portion of the refrigerator. As the heat is pulled out, the accompanying humidity clings to the evaporator, piling up into a thickness which insulates the evaporator and necessitates more frequent turning on of the motor to compensate for the thickening frost.
大多数家庭主妇是不会明白你所说的内容的。如果从主妇们所熟悉的事物开始，那就容易让她们明白了：Notice how much easier it is to understand if the speaker starts with what the housewives are familiar with:
“各位知道肉类是放在冰箱的哪里。那各位也知道霜如何凝结在冷冻器上了。霜一天天的越结越厚，最后冷冻器就得进行除霜，以保持冰箱运转良好。冷冻器四周的霜就像你躺在床上时盖的毯子，或者像墙里用来隔热的石棉。霜结得越厚，冷冻器就越难从冰箱里吸出热气保持冰箱的温度。于是，冰箱马达就要开动得更频繁、更久，这样才能保持箱内的冷度。如果在冰箱里装个自动除霜器，霜便没有机会结厚，马达运转的次数和时间也能减少了。”You know where you freeze meat in your refrigerator. Well, you know, too, how the frost gathers on that freezer. Every day the frost gets thicker and thicker until the freezer must be defrosted to keep the refrigerator in good working order. You see, frost around the freezer is really like a blanket covering you in bed or like rock wool between the walls insulating your house. Now the thicker the frost gets, the harder it is for the freezer to pull the warm air out of the rest of the refrigerator and keep the refrigerator cold. The refrigerator motor then must work more often and longer to keep the box cold. Not with an automatic defroster on your refrigerator, the frost never gets a chance to build up thickly. Consequently, the motor works less often and for shorter periods.
关于这个问题，亚里士多德也曾有一句忠言：“思维如智者，说话如常人。”如果必须使用专业术语，要在给听众解释过后再用，这样能让人人都懂得讲演的主旨，而你频繁使用关键词更要这样。Aristotle gave some good advice on the subject: Think as wise men do, but speak as the common people do. If you must use a technical term, don't use it until you have explained it so everybody in the audience knows what it means. This is especially true of your keystone words, the ones you use over and over.
一次，我去听一位证券经纪商对一群妇女讲话。这些妇女想了解一些有关银行与投资的基本原则，他使用简单的语言，谈话的方式让她们轻松下来。本来他每件事情都说得清清楚楚，只有一些基本词对她们很陌生。比如他提到“票据交换所”、“课税与偿付”、“退款抵押”以及“短期买卖和长期买卖”。这样就把好好一场精彩动人的讨论就变成了一团迷雾，只因为他不明白听众对他的行话不熟悉。I once heard a stock broker speak to a group of women who wanted to learn fundamentals of banking and investment. He used simple language and he put them at ease in a conversational way. He made everything clear except his foundation words, which were strange to them. He spoke of the" clearing house", "puts and calls", "refunding mortgages" and "short sales and long sales". What could have been a fascinating discussion became a puzzle because he did not realize his hearers were unfamiliar with the words that were part and parcel of his trade.
不过，即使你知道某个关键词听众不会了解，也没有必要非得避免它，只要在使用时尽快解释就行。一定要去解释，要知道你有的是词典供你使用！There is no reason to avoid a keystone word which you know will not be understood. Just explain it as soon as you use it. Never fail to do this, the dictionary is all yours.
你对歌唱广告可有意见要发表吗？或者关于冲动购买，关于人文科学课程或者成本会计，关于政府津贴，或反方向开的汽车，是否对孩童采取宽容的态度，或是LIFO评估存货的方法，等等。不论什么题材，都一定要让听众对你这些领域里的关键词，和你一样对它们有同样的了解。Do you want to say something about singing commercials? Or about impulse buying? About liberal arts courses, or cost accounting? About government subsidies, or automobiles that pass on the wrong side? Would you like to advocate a permissive attitude toward children, or the LIFO system of valuing inventories? Merely make sure that your hearers accept your keystone words in these specialized fields in the same sense in which you accept them.
