Words & Phrases

1. drape

vt.①(cover, swathe)懸掛

?cloth?he draped his coat over the back of a chair他把上衣搭在椅背上

to drape a shawl around one's shoulders把披巾披在肩上

to drape oneself over [something]四肢舒展地躺在某物上

②(cover with)覆蓋?furniture?

walls draped in ivy爬滿常春藤的墻

Consider all the prepositions that are draped onto verbs that don’t?need any help.

You will?reach for gaudy similes and tinseled adjectives, as if “style” were?something you could buy at the style store and drape onto your words in?bright decorator colors.

2. deprive(oxygen-depriving)

vt.剝奪

to deprive [somebody] of [something];剝奪某人的某物

he was deprived of his rights 他被剝奪了權(quán)利

“In the unlikely possibility that the aircraft?should experience such an eventuality,” she begins—a phrase so oxygen-depriving in itself that we are prepared for any disaster.

3. belly-up

vi. hopelessly ruined or defeated; (常用來表達(dá)破產(chǎn)的含義，bankrupt)

the business went belly-up.

Companies?that go belly-up have “a negative cash-flow position.”

4. nuisance

①(annoyance)麻煩事

it's a nuisance that …; 惱人的是…

②(person)討厭的人

to be a nuisance (to [somebody]);令（某）人討厭

to make anuisanceof oneself;討人嫌

③(Law)滋擾行為

Orwell’s warning that clutter is not just a?nuisance but a deadly tool has come true in the recent decades of?American military adventurism.

5. inflate

①(fill with air or gas)給…充氣?object?;使…脹大?lungs?

②figurative(exaggerate)夸大

flattery inflates one's ego or self-esteem贊揚吹捧使人自高自大

Our national tendency is to inflate and thereby sound important.

Don’t inflate what needs no inflating.

6. to go out on a limb

limb的含義有肢體；主枝的意思

to be or go out on a limb 意思是使自己孤立無援；自已與大多數(shù)人的觀念相左

在這里是說，美國人避免在文章中用‘I’的原因是不愿意表達(dá)出來自己真實的觀點，以免被人當(dāng)成非主流

But I’ve also noticed a new reason for avoiding “I”: Americans are?unwilling to go out on a limb.

Thoughts

Clutter is the laborious phrase that has pushed out the short word that?means the same thing.

在寫作過程中，一些對于表意或者闡述毫無幫助的詞匯都是冗余的，都應(yīng)該刪除掉。不能為了讓自己的文章看起來很絢麗華美而用很多無意義的修飾詞。

You can develop the same eye. Look for the clutter in your writing?and prune it ruthlessly. Be grateful for everything you can throw away.?Reexamine each sentence you put on paper. Is every word doing new?work? Can any thought be expressed with more economy? Is anything?pompous or pretentious or faddish? Are you hanging on to something?useless just because you think it’s beautiful?

去除clutter的最佳方式，我認(rèn)為就是rewriting。在返回去看自己寫下的句子的時候，一定要明白自己想要表達(dá)的是什么。要看分清楚有哪些是對表達(dá)毫無幫助的，又有哪些是必須留下幫助表達(dá)的。哪些毫無意義的成分可以直接刪除掉。

The point is that you have to strip your writing down before you can?build it back up. You must know what the essential tools are and what?job they were designed to do. Extending the metaphor of carpentry, it’s?first necessary to be able to saw wood neatly and to drive nails. Later you?can bevel the edges or add elegant finials, if that’s your taste. But you can?never forget that you are practicing a craft that’s based on certain?principles. If the nails are weak, your house will collapse. If your verbs?are weak and your syntax is rickety, your sentences will fall apart.?and serviceable, take satisfaction in its plain strength.

寫作最原始的目的就是將作者的想法傳遞給讀者，所以一篇文章最基本的要求就是要表意清晰。一篇文章如果最基本的結(jié)構(gòu)和用詞都不準(zhǔn)確的話就失去了它的作用。把簡單的句子寫好，把意思表達(dá)清楚之后才有資格去追求那些的style。

You are so busy?thinking of your awesome responsibility to the finished article that you?can’t even start.

Done is better than perfect. 在寫文章之前不要想這么多。一個字都還沒動呢，想那么多干嘛？？？當(dāng)務(wù)之是著手把文章寫出來，然后不滿意可以rewriting。