SELF-CULTIVATION IN ENGLISH, by George Herbert Palmer, published 1909 by the Houghton Mifflin Company of Boston as one of the “Riverside Education Monographs.”

George Herbert Palmer （1842-1933）, American philosopher and teacher of English at Harvard University.

Obviously, good English is exact English. Our words should fit our thoughts like a glove, and be neither too wide nor too tight. If too wide, they will include much vacuity beside the intended matter. If too tight, they will check the strong grasp. Of the two dangers, looseness is by far the greater. There are people who say what they mean with such a naked precision that nobody not familiar with the subject can quickly catch the sense. George Herbert and Emerson strain the attention of many. But niggardly and angular speakers are rare. Too frequently words signify nothing in particular. They are merely thrown out in a certain direction, to report a vague and undetermined meaning or even a general emotion. The first business of everyone who would train himself in language is to articulate his thought, to know definitely what he wishes to say, and then to pick those words which compel the hearer to think of this and only this. For such a purpose two words are often better than three. The fewer the words, the more pungent the impression. Brevity is the soul not simply of a jest, but of wit in its finest sense where it is identical with wisdom. He who can put a great deal into a little is the master. Since firm texture is what is wanted, not embroidery or superposed ornament, beauty has been well defined as the purgation of superfluities. And certainly many a paragraph might have its beauty brightened by letting quiet words take the place of its loud words, omitting its “verys,” and striking out its purple patches of “fine writing.” Here is Ben Jonson's description of Bacon's language: “There happened in my time one noble speaker who was full of gravity in his speech. No man ever spoke more neatly, more pressly, more weightily, or suffered less emptiness, less idleness, in what he uttered. No member of his speech but consisted of his own graces. His hearers could not cough or look aside without loss. He commanded when he spoke, and had his judges angry or pleased at his discretion.” Such are the men who command, men who speak “neatly and pressly.” But to gain such precision is toilsome business. While we are in training for it, no word must unpermittedly pass the portal of the teeth. Something like what we mean must never be counted equivalent to what we mean. And if we are not sure of our meaning or of our word, we must pause until we are sure. Accuracy does not come of itself. For persons who can use several languages, capital practice in acquiring it can be had by translating from one language to another and seeing that the entire sense is carried over. Those who have only their native speech will find it profitable often to attempt definitions of the common words they use. Inaccuracy will not stand up against the habit of definition. Dante boasted that no rhythmic exigency had ever made him say what he did not mean. We, heedless and unintending speakers, under no exigency of rime or reason, say what we mean but seldom, and still more seldom mean what we say. To hold our thoughts and words in significant adjustment requires unceasing consciousness, a perpetual determination not to tell lies; for of course every inaccuracy is a bit of untruthfulness. We have something in mind, yet convey something else to our hearers. And no moral purpose will save us from this untruthfulness unless that purpose is sufficient to inspire the daily drill which brings the power to be true. Again and again we are shut up to evil because we have not acquired the ability of goodness. But after all, I hope nobody who hears me will quite agree. There is something enervating in conscious care. Necessary as it is in shaping our purposes, if allowed too direct and exclusive control, consciousness breeds hesitation and feebleness. In piano-playing we begin by picking out each separate note; but we do not call the result music until we play our notes by the handful, heedless how each is formed. And so it is everywhere. Consciously selective conduct is elementary and inferior. People distrust it, or rather they distrust him who exhibits it. If anybody talking to us visibly studies his words, we turn away. What he says may be well as school exercise, but it is not conversation. Accordingly if we would have our speech forcible we shall need to put into it quite as much of audacity as we do of precision, terseness, or simplicity. Accuracy alone is not a thing to be sought, but accuracy and dash. It was said of Fox, the English orator and statesman, that he was accustomed to throw himself headlong into the middle of a sentence, trusting to God Almighty to get him out. So must we speak. We must not, before beginning a sentence, decide what the end shall be; for if we do, nobody will care to hear that end. At the beginning, it is the beginning which claims the attention of both speaker and listener and trepidation about going on will mar all. We must give our thought its head, and not drive it with too tight a rein, nor grow timid when it begins to prance a bit. Of course we must retain coolness in courage, applying the results of our previous discipline in accuracy; but we need not move so slowly as to become formal. Pedantry is worse than plundering. If we care for grace and flexible beauty of language, we must learn to let our thought run. Would it, then, be too much of an Irish bull to say that in acquiring English we need to cultivate spontaneity? The uncultivated kind is not worth much; it is wild and haphazard stuff, unadjusted to its uses. On the other hand, no speech is of much account, however just, which lacks the element of courage. Accuracy and dash, then, the combination of the two, must be our difficult aim; and we must not rest satisfied so long as either dwells with us alone.

显然，好的英语一定是用词准确的英语。言语要符合思想，就像戴手套，不能太松也不能太紧。太松会在表意之余留下大片空白；太紧又会阻碍深度理解。两种危险之下，松的弊端更突出。有些人，他们表达意思时用词吝啬至极，但凡不熟悉话题的人都不能迅速会意。乔治·赫伯特和爱默生的语言，很多人听了都会走神。但吝啬生硬的演说家还是少数。很多情况下，词并不指示任何事物，它们只是被抛出来，表达模糊的不确定的意思或一种笼统的情感。任何人想要练习语言的时候，第一件事就是学会准确表达自己的想法，明确知道自己想要表达什么，然后只挑出能让听众准确会意的那些词。因此，两个字能表达的就不要用三个字。用词越少，越一针见血。简洁不仅是笑话的精髓，更是妙语的灵魂，此处妙语等同于智慧。能把复杂问题三言两语说清楚，这是大师。因为他所追求的是坚实的质地，而非刺绣式的重叠装饰，所以美是对多余的净化。在许多段落中，通过用安静的词替代喧闹的词，删掉类似“很、非常、极其”等词，以及那些体现“文采”的辞藻华丽的语句，整个段落就活色生香，美不胜收了。本·琼森曾这样描述培根的语言：“我所在的时代出现了一位伟大的演说家，他的言词充满了吸引力。没有人能像他那般用词简短、紧迫、落地有声，讲话不空洞不闲散。他的演说有他的优雅，听众咳嗽一下或是向一边张望一下都会是一种损失。他讲话时他就是主宰，让他的评判者在他的判定中愤怒或是喜悦。”这样的人具有语言的操控力，他们的言说“简洁有力”。但要做到如此精准是要花功夫的。训练过程中，每个词都要“过牙关”。有些貌似是我们所指，实则并非我们本意。如果我们对自己的意思或者话语无法确定，停下来，想好再说。准确不会不请自来。会说几种语言的人，可以试着把一种语言翻译成另一种语言，看意义是不是得以完整传递，进而做到准确。只会说母语的人可以试着定义自己经常使用的词，也可从中获益。下定义的习惯不会与精确相左。但丁曾骄傲地说即便苛求韵律他从未言不由衷。在无须苛求韵律和严密推理的情况下，我们漫不经心的讲话，很少能用语言完全地表达自己的意思，自己的表达也很少就是心里的所想。协调思想与话语保持一致就需要有一种讲真话的持久意志力，因为每一次的用词不当都会有些许言不属实。我们脑子里想的是一回事，说给听众的又是另一回事。道德目标并不能让我们免于这种不真实，除非这一目的足以激励日常言语练习，直到我们有能力做到言必实。我们一次又一次地对邪恶缄默，就是因为我们尚未获得真实善良的能力。但我终究不希望我的每一位听者完全赞同我的上述观点。因为关注意识这一点有些苍白。纵然意识对实现目标很重要，但如果控制得太直接，太在乎，就又会导致犹豫不决，语言软弱无力。拿弹钢琴来说，一开始我们挑出的只是独立的音符，但只有弹了几个音符之后，才能产生音乐，虽然我们并没有在意这段音乐是如何形成的。同样的道理无处不在。有意识有选择的行为是初级的、劣等的。人们并不信任这种行为，更确切地说，不信任实施这种行为的人。如果有人跟我们说话明显在研究他该如何用词，我们会转身而去。他的语言可能是很好的课堂练习，但不能用来交谈。因此，我们的言说要有说服力，除了要准确、简洁、精炼外，还应当胆大无畏。我们追求的不单单是准确，我们追求的是准确以及胆大。英国演说家、政治家福克斯说过，他习惯于匆忙地讲一段话，然后指望万能的上帝将他从中解救。我们讲话的时候也必须这样。我们一定不能在一句话开始之前，就先确定好结尾。如果这样做了，就不会有人想听那个结尾。开始就是开始，需要说话人与听众双方都全神贯注，害怕继续会毁掉一切。我们必须得给自己的思路开个头，不要把缰绳勒得太紧，也不要在马儿稍一跳腾时就胆怯。当然，我们要在英勇中保持冷静，用之前提到的自制力力求准确，但也不必太过缓慢前行，不然就拘谨了。谨小慎微比粗心大意更糟糕。我们要想追求语言优雅灵活，就必须学会放手自己的思想任其奔跑。要习得英语，我们需要培养英语母语者才具有的那种自发性，这是自相矛盾的吗？未经训练的语言没有多少价值可言，它不受控制，杂乱任性，无法达到预定目的。不过，从另一方面来看，缺乏勇气的言说，无论它有多么恰如其分，一定是无关紧要的。所以，精确与胆大应该合二为一。做到这一点很难，但只要我们还只是拥有其一，就永不该满足。

But are the two so hostile as they at first appear? Or can, indeed, the first be obtained without the aid of the second? Supposing we are convinced that words possess no value in themselves, and are correct or incorrect only as they truly report experience, we shall feel ourselves impelled in the mere interest of accuracy to choose them freshly, and to put them together in ways in which they never coöperated before, so as to set forth with distinctness that which just we, not other people, have seen or felt. The reason why we do not naturally have this daring exactitude is probably twofold. We let our experiences be blurred, not observing sharply, not knowing with any minuteness what we are thinking about; and so there is no individuality in our language. And then, besides, we are terrorized by custom, and inclined to adjust what we would say to what others have said before. The cure for the first of these troubles is to keep our eye on our object instead of on our listener or ourselves; and for the second, to learn to rate the expressiveness of language more highly than its correctness. The opposite of this, the disposition to set correctness above expressiveness, produces that peculiarly vulgar diction known as “school-ma'am English,” in which for the sake of a dull accord with usage all the picturesque, imaginative, and forceful employment of words is sacrificed. Of course we must use words so that people can understand them, and understand them, too, with ease; but this once granted, let our language be our own, obedient to our special needs.“Whenever,” says Thomas Jefferson, “by small grammatical negligences the energy of an idea can be condensed or a word be made to stand for a sentence, I hold grammatical rigor in contempt.” “Young man,” said Henry Ward Beecher to one who was pointing out grammatical errors in a sermon of his,“when the English language gets in my way, it doesn't stand a chance.” No man can be convincing, writer or speaker, who is afraid to send his words wherever they may best follow his meaning, and this with but little regard to whether any other person's words have ever been there before. In assessing merit, let us not stupefy ourselves with using negative standards. What stamps a man as great is not freedom from faults, but abundance of powers.
但是二者是否真的就像乍一看那么互不相容呢？或者说，没有后者的辅助能实现前者吗？假使我们相信词语本身并没有价值，只有当它们真正用来表述经验时才会有对与错，那么我们会觉得自己是为了表达准确而不得已临时选择词语，并将它们以之前不曾有的组合方式整合在一起，明确表达出我们自己而非他人所看到的或感受到的东西。我们并非天生准确且大胆，原因可能有二。首先，我们对自己的经验有些模糊，观察不敏锐，想法不透彻，所以我们的语言没有个性。其次，受习惯的钳制，我们倾向于根据别人之前说的话来调整自己的话语。前一个问题的解决办法是将目光关注于客观事物，而非听众或自身；后一个问题则需要我们把语言的生动性置于正确性之上。反之，如果将正确性置于生动性之前，那么措辞就会相当平庸，变成一板一眼的“女教师英语”——这种表达产生的乏味感却是以牺牲那么多栩栩如生、充满想象、铿锵有力的词为代价的。当然，我们必须使用人们能听得懂的词。能做到这一点，语言就可以自成一体，遵从我们自己的特殊需求。“任何时候，”托马斯·杰弗逊说道，“如果一点小小的语法失误能让思想更浓缩，抑或一个词就能代表一句话，那么我们就无须在乎语法。”亨利·沃德·比奇曾对一个指出他布道中语法错误的人说：“当英语成为我前进的羁绊时，我不会让它得逞的。”无论是作家还是演说家，但凡是知道哪些词最能表达自己但又不敢表达的，他的话就都不能让人心悦诚服，而这与其他人是否有过类似表达无关。在品评价值方面，我们不要用一些消极标准来麻木自己。伟人的特征不是不犯错，而是做事游刃有余。