【正文】 se our skill and sensitivity with a little effort and patience. In this way we shall not only improve our writing, but also our reading.（1） 他死的時侯很窮。而看很可能比去看更強調看火車這一動作。（2） 當我是個小孩子的時候我喜歡看火車開過。句子用詞改變了，句子就不再是原來的意思了。但是無論意思上如何相近的詞總是存在著些許區(qū)別。“Distillation (提煉)”意味得到本質（essence）的東西。一名記者在一篇有關圣誕節(jié)的社論中這樣引出狄更斯的話： All that was ever thought or written about Christmas is imprisoned in this sentence…. Imprisonment suggests force, coercion（強迫）, as if the meaning were held against its will. It would be better to write contained or summed up. Epitomized （集中體現(xiàn)）might do, though it is rather a clumsysounding word. Searching a little farther for the “mot juste” we might hit on the word distilled（提?。? This has more force than contained or summed up. Distillation suggests essence and we might further improve the sentence by adding this word at the beginning: 任何有關圣誕節(jié)的想法和文字已經被禁錮(imprisoned )在這句話中……“Imprisonment” 暗示著強迫，威逼，這么一來似乎意思是有悖其初衷的。 This stirring appeal is spoilt by a malapropism in the last phrase, the word singularity. What the writer meant, I think, was singleness of mind, holding steadfastly to the purpose in mind, without being drawn aside by less worthy objects. Singularity means oddity or peculiarity, something that singles a man out from other men 這一激動人心的呼吁被最后一個詞“奇異（singularity）” 的誤用破壞掉了。 ”“Anxiety” 含有煩惱和恐懼的意味。有一種屠殺工具叫“humane killer ( 麻醉屠宰機)，而不是human killer ( 殺人機器)。Some English words have a mon root but are used in very different senses. Consider human and humane（人道，仁慈的）, for example. Their origin is the same and their meanings are related, but their usage is distinct. A human action is not the same thing as a humane action. We cannot speak of a Declaration of Humane Rights. There is a weapon called a humane killer, but it is not a human killer.一些英語詞匯詞根相同而意義卻截然不同。一旦找到了那個詞，我們就會感到很欣慰：辛勞得到了回報。這不僅僅是扎實的語言功底和相當大的詞匯量的問題，還需要人們絞盡腦汁，要觀察敏銳。 they are subtle（微妙的） and delicate（細膩的） in their different shades（色調） of meaning, and it is not easy to find the ones that express precisely（正是，恰恰） what we want to say. It is not only a matter of having a good mand of language and a fairly wide vocabulary。一位優(yōu)秀的藝術家譴詞造句上力求準確而有力地表達自己的觀點。 the good craftsman will choose words that drive home his point firmly and exactly. A word that is more or less right, a loose phrase, an ambiguous expression, a vague adjective（模糊的形容詞）, will not satisfy a writer who aims at clean English. He will try always to get the word that is pletely right for his purpose.你見過一個笨手笨腳的男人往箱子上釘釘子嗎？只見他左敲敲，右敲敲，說不準還會將整個釘子錘翻，結果敲來敲去到頭來只敲進了半截。而嫻熟的木匠就不這么干。差不多的詞，不準確的短語，摸棱兩可的表達，含糊不清的修飾，都無法使一位追求純真英語的作家滿意。 it is also necessary to think hard and to observe accurately. Choosing words is part of the process of realization, of defining our thoughts and feelings for ourselves, as well as for those who hear or read our words. Someone once remarked: “How can I know what I think till I see what I say?” this sounds stupid, but there is a great deal of truth in it. 法國人有一個很貼切的短語來表達這樣一個意思，即“l(fā)e mot juste”, 恰到好處的詞。選詞是認識過程的一個步驟，也是詳細描述我們的思想感情并表達出來使自己以及聽眾和讀者深刻理解的一個環(huán)節(jié)。準確地用語言有助于我們深入了解我們描述的事物。例如human 和humane,二者的詞根相同，詞義也相關，但用法完全不同。 We don’t have to look far afield to find evidence of bad carpentry in language. A student, replying to an invitation to dinner, finished his letter: “I shall be delighted to e and I am looking forward to the day with anxiety.” Anxiety carries with it suggestions of worry and fear. What the writer meant was possibly eagerness. Anxiety has some kinship（親屬關系） with eagerness but it will not do as a substitute（替代） in this context. 語言中的壞手藝的例子在我們身邊隨處可見。作者想表達的很可能是一種翹首期盼的心情。我猜想作者真正要表達的意思是思想的專一，即抱定一個信念永不改變，咬定青山不放松，不被次要的目的干擾。用 “包含(contained )”或 “歸結（summed up ）”就要好些。因此我們可以進一步把這個句子修改為： The essence of all that was ever thought or written about Christmas is distilled in this sentence.所有有關圣誕節(jié)的想法和文字的精華都被提煉到這句話之中。作為學生就要敏感地意識到這些區(qū)別。”這也許過于絕對，但是很難駁倒。At fist glance these two sentences are exactly the same. But look more closely and you will see that there are very tiny differences. In my childhood is a shade more abstract than when I was a child. Watching perhaps emphasizes the looking at trains a little more than to watch. This is a very subtle example, and it would be possible to argue about it, but everyone would at once agree that there is a marked difference between the next two statements:乍一看這兩個句子的意思完全一樣。這個例子不是很明顯，可能有待商榷。（2） 他斷氣時窮困潦倒。也許當好一個 譴詞造句的工匠比當好一個與木頭釘子打交道的木匠要難一些，但是只要我們付出努力和耐心，我們就能提高自己的技能和敏感性。我們可以說行軍，踱步，巡邏，潛進，跨過，踐踏，重步走，蹦蹦跳跳地走，昂首闊步，高視闊步，徘徊，沉重緩慢地走，溜達，曳足而行，搖搖晃晃地走，側身而行，跋涉，蹣跚學步，漫步，徜徉，漫游，閑蕩，悄悄地走。今天普通英國人的詞匯量在12000到13000之間。衡量一個木匠的好壞并不在于他擁有工具的數(shù)量多少，而是在于他運用工具的技藝如何。 利恩 1Every year 100 million holidaymakers are drawn to the Mediterranean. With onethird of the world39。s sea surface, but carries more than half the oil and tar floating on the waters. Thousands of factories pour their poison into the Mediterranean, and almost every city, town and village on the coast sluices its sewage, untreated, into the sea.雖然地中海僅占全球海洋面積的百分之一，但在它的海面上卻漂浮著全球海面一半以上的汽油和焦油。4Typhoid, paratyphoid, dysentery, polio, viral hepatitis and food poisoning are endemic in the area, and there are periodic outbreaks of cholera.傷寒、副傷寒、痢疾、小兒麻痹癥、病毒性肝炎和食物中毒是這個地區(qū)的常見病，并且還會引發(fā)階段性的霍亂。地中海的120 個海濱城市中85 ％的垃圾被傾人到供居民們和參觀者游泳嬉戲正如我們的地圖所顯示的那樣，希臘還算是北方海岸比較干凈的國家之一。 but almost all of them agree that bathers are at risk.一點也不感到驚奇的是，大面積的淺水區(qū)都滋生著細菌，而它們接觸到人并不需要花費太多的時間。9An even greater danger 5lurks in the seductive seafood dishes tbat add much interest to holiday menus. Shellfish are prime carriers of many of the most vicious diseases of the areas.在那些誘人的、為假日的菜單增色不少的海鮮中還隱藏著一種更大的危險。11Industry adds its own poisons. Factories cluster round the coastline, and even the most modern rarely has proper wastetreatment plant. They do as much damage to the sea as sewage.工業(yè)也加重了地中海的污染。60 , 。14Thousands of tons of pesticides are blown off the fields into the sea, detergents from millions of sinks kill fish, and fertilizers, flushed out to sea, nourish explosions of plankton which cover bathers with itchy