名篇背诵：The Hallmarks of Americans 美国人的特点

The Hallmarks of Americans 美国人的特点

亨利·L. 门肯(Henry L. Mencken)

Of the intrinsic differences that separate American from English the chief have their roots in the obvious disparity between the environment and traditions of the American people since the seventeenth century and those of the English. The latter have lived under a relatively stable social order, and it has impressed upon their souls their characteristic respect for what is customary and of good report. The Americans, though partly of the same blood, have felt no such restraint, and acquired no such habit of conformity. On the contrary, they have plunged to the other extreme, for the conditions of life in their country have put a high value upon the precisely opposite qualities of curiosity and daring, and so they have acquired that character of restlessness, that impatience of forms, that disdain of the dead hand , which now broadly marks them. Thus the American, on his linguistic side, likes to make his language as he goes along, and not all the hard work of the schoolmarm can hold the business back. A novelty loses nothing by the fact that it is a novelty; it rather gains something, and particularly it meets the national fancy for the terse, the vivid, and, above all, the bold and imaginative. The characteristic American habit of reducing complex concepts to the starkest abbreviations was already noticeable in colonial times, and such highly typical Americanisms as O.K., and P.D.Q. , have been traced back to the early days of the Republic. Nor are the influences that shaped these tendencies invisible today, for institution-making is yet going on, and so is language-making.

- disparity [dɪˈspærətɪ] n. 悬殊

- plunge [ˈplʌndʒ] v. 投入；陷入

disdain of the dead hand 蔑视传统与权威

- stark [stɑːk] a. 荒凉的；刻板的

P.D.Q. 马上，很快

将美国人和英国人区分开来的本性差异之中，其主要差异的根源在于从17世纪以来美国人和英国人在环境和传统上有天壤之别。英国人一直生活在相对稳定的社会秩序之中，这对他们的心灵影响巨大，使他们尊重合乎习俗的和声誉良好的东西。而美国人虽然部分血统与英国人相同，但他们没有束缚人们的限制，没有习惯传统要保持一致。相反，他们走向了另一个极端，因为美国的环境和生活条件给好奇和勇敢这些正好相反的素质高度评价，所以他们养成了求变的性格，对常规框框不以为然，对旧的势力、权威抱以藐视，这些都是他们现在显著的特点。在语言方面，美国人喜欢在自己的发展过程中自创语言，乡村女教师要把这种态势逆转费尽心机也办不到。新奇本身无所失，相反，能有所得，新奇特别符合全国性的鉴赏观点，要简短、生动，更重要的是大胆，有想象力。把复杂的概念浓缩为最简单的缩略语，这种典型的美国习惯早在殖民地时期就已出现，像O.K.和P.D.Q.这样高度典型的美国用语，能够追溯到美国立国的早期。形成如此发展趋势的影响至今还能感受到，因为美国的习俗形成还在进行，所以语言也在不断生成。