第158期：牛津新词展现英语流动之美

想成为我们的主播，欢迎加微信 xdfbook 投稿。 一段美文，一首英文歌，或是一点生活感想，全由你做主。 《牛津新词展现英语流动之美》 The Oxford Dictionary’s New Words Are a Testament to the Fluid Beauty of English The Oxford English Dictionary—the “OED” to its friends—has announced a 2016 update, consisting of over 1,000 new words and word meanings, along with the revision or expansion of over 2,000 entries1). The revisions are not just new words or phrases, like “glamping,” “air-punching,” “sweary” and “budgie smugglers.” The OED has also revised its entry of “bittem,” an obsolete2) word over 1000 years old, meaning “the keel or lower part of a ship’s hull.” Where did the new words come from? Some are borrowed from other languages, such as “narcocorrido” (a Spanish word for a traditional Mexican ballad recounting the exploits of drug traffickers), “potjie” (from Afrikaans, a three-legged cast iron cooking pot for use over a fire), and “shishito” (from Japanese, a particular kind of chili used in Asian cooking). Some additions are deeply revealing of our modern preoccupations—such as the terms “assisted death.” This category also includes the word “agender” (without gender), born of a communal reaction to our deeply binary thinking around gender. The OED dates its use first to the year 2000. The OED has also added new “initialisms.” To its existing list, which included IMF (International Monetary Fund) and IDB (illicit3) diamond buyer), it has added ICYMI (in case you missed it), IRL (in real life), IDK (I don’t know), and FFS (look that one up if you don’t know it already!) Many of the new entries are made by combining words. Some of these fit the definition of “compound words,” that is, words formed by joining two together, such as “air-punching,” “bare-knuckle” and “self-identity.” Others are just two words put side-by-side, such as “power couple,” “hockey mum4),” “test drive” and “star sign.” Clearly some of these terms—“budgie smugglers” for instance—have been around for some time. The OED dates this term to 1998. The source is The Games, the Australian mockumentary5) television series about the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney. The expression “battle of the sexes,” meanwhile, has only just made it into the dictionary. The OED first attests its use right back to 1723. Then there are the new forms from old stock. For instance, to the verb “exploit,” the OED is adding an adjective (“exploitational”), an adverb (“exploitatively”), and a noun to denote someone who is exploiting someone or something (“exploiter”). To the verb “to swear” the OED now includes “sweary,” both as noun (a swear word can be called “a sweary”) and adjective (meaning something or someone characterized by a lot of swearing). Why the Wait? So how do words get into the dictionary? “Lexicographers”—the folk who make dictionaries—add words only when there is evidence of usage over some period of time, and across various contexts of usage. A dictionary can never hold every word of a language. The only estimate I know suggests that well over half the words of English are not recorded by dictionaries. Since this research is based on the Google Books corpus, the data is only from published books in university libraries. We can safely say this figure is very conservative. Somewhere around 400 million people speak English as a native language. But linguist David Crystal estimates three times as many speak English as an additional language. Thanks to colonization, English is the primary language for countries as diverse as Barbados, Singapore, and Belize. This latest OED update includes the publication of written and spoken pronunciations for additional English varieties6), including those versions spoken in Australia, Canada, the Caribbean, Ireland, New Zealand, the Philippines, Scotland, Singapore, Malaysia and South Africa. While some of these varieties already had coverage, their presentation has been expanded. In Praise of Singlish The addition of Singapore English is new. Speakers of Singapore English (or “Singlish”)—I count myself as a reasonable speaker of this dialect7)—will be delighted to see the inclusion of words such as “ang moh” (a light-skinned person of Western origin), “killer litter” (objects thrown or falling from high-rise buildings, endangering the people below) and “shiok” (an expression of admiration). If you think English belongs to Anglos8), then you can start by banishing the word “yum cha” from your vocabulary. For a good laugh at Australian English, and the Indian variety, try the series “How to speak Australians,” from the “Dehli Institute of Linguistics.” By adding the “World Englishes” to the entries on British and American English, the OED has opened a Pandora’s box. For instance, read the OED’s explanation for choosing “White South African English” as the model to represent their entries on South African English. Changes to the OED remind us that a language is not a fixed entity. Not only is English constantly changing, but its boundaries are fluid. Languages are open and dynamic: open to other dialects and their many and varied users. Therein lies both the power and beauty of language. 《牛津英语词典》——熟悉的人称之为“OED”——推出了2016年的更新，其中收录了一千多个新词和词义，修订并扩充了两千多个词条。 修订版中不仅收录了“glamping”(豪华野营)、“air-punching”(向空中挥拳，指开心时或成功后向空中挥舞握紧的拳头的动作)、“sweary”(满口脏话的)以及“budgie smugglers”(紧身泳裤)这样的新词及短语，还包括了“bittem”这样一千多年前出现的旧词，指的是船的龙骨或相对较低的部分。 新词源自何处呢？有些借用了其他语种，如“narcocorrido”(西班牙语中指一种传统墨西哥民谣，讲述毒贩的事迹)、“potjie”(源自南非语，指架在火上使用的三足铸铁锅)以及“shishito”(源自日语，指亚洲菜里使用的一种特殊的辣椒)。 有些新词深刻揭示了当今人们的关注点，例如词组“assisted death”(协助死亡)。这一类新词汇还包括“agender”(无性别)，我们对性别有着根深蒂固的二元思维，而“agender”一词就源自公众对这二元思维的一种反应。OED推断这个单词在2000年开始使用。 OED还增添了新的“首字母缩略词”，在原有的缩略语词表——包括了IMF (世界货币基金组织)和IDB (非法钻石购买者)——之外新增了ICYMI (万一你错过了)、IRL (现实生活中)、IDK (我不知道)和FFS (如果你还不知道就赶紧查查吧！)。 许多新词条是合并几个单词构成的。有些新词条符合“合成词”的定义，即由两个词连接在一起组成的词。例如，“air-punching”“bare-knuckle”(不带拳击手套的)和“self-identity”(自我认同)。还有一些词只是把两个单词并排放在一起组合而成，比如：“power couple”(有影响力的夫妻)、“hockey mum”(冰球妈妈)、“test drive”(试驾)和“star sign”(星座)。 很显然一些新词，比如“budgie smugglers”，已经出现了一段时间。OED将这个单词的出现追溯到了1998年澳大利亚拍摄的系列电视伪纪录片《奥运会》中，该片讲述的是2000年悉尼奥运会。 另一方面，“battle of the sexes”(性别大战)前不久才被收录进词典里，但OED首次证实它的用法可以追溯到1723年。 此外，一些旧词有了新的形式。例如，对于动词“exploit”(剥削，开发)，OED收录了其形容词形式“exploitational”、副词形式“exploitatively”以及表示开拓者或剥削者之意的名词形式“exploiter”。 对于动词“swear”(咒骂)，OED如今收录了“sweary”，它既作名词(骂人的词可以叫做“sweary”)，也作形容词(用来形容喜欢骂人的人或经常被用来骂人的物)。 为什么要等待？ 那么，单词是怎样被收录到词典中的呢？词典学家，也就是编纂词典的人，只会收录有证据显示在不同的语境下使用了一段时间的词汇。 一部词典中不可能收录一种语言的所有词汇。就我所知，仅有的估算表明，超过一半的英语词汇没有被记载在词典中。由于这项研究是基于谷歌图书语料库开展的，因此数据只是源自大学图书馆收藏的已出版的图书。我们可以有把握地说这一数据是很保守的。 世界上大约有4亿人将英语当做母语使用，而语言学家大卫·克里斯托估计有三倍以上的人口把英语作为第二语言使用。由于殖民地化，在巴巴多斯、新加坡以及伯利兹这些不同的国家，英语都是其主要语言。 此次OED最新的更新包括了其他英语变体的书面形式和口语发音，包括澳大利亚、加拿大、加勒比海地区、爱尔兰、新西兰、菲律宾、苏格兰、新加坡、马来西亚和南非使用的英语变体。尽管OED已经涵盖了一些英语变体，但此次的范围有所扩大。 对新加坡英语的赞美 新加坡英语这次是首次被收录进《牛津英语词典》。讲新加坡英语的人(也称作“Singlish”)——我把自己算作说这一方言的优秀之人——看到“ang moh”(红毛，指具有西方血统的白皮肤的人)、“killer litter”(垃圾杀手，又称高空坠物，指被从高楼扔下因此会危及楼下人安全的物体)以及“shiok”(好的，用于表达赞赏)这些词被收录进去，将会非常高兴。 要是你认为英语属于盎格鲁人，那么你可以开始把“yum cha”(饮茶)这样的词踢出你的词库了。为了能好好取笑一下澳大利亚英语和印度英语变体，不妨试试“德里语言学研究所”开设的“如何说澳大利亚英语”系列课程。 通过把“世界英语”加到英式和美式英语的词条里，OED打开了潘多拉的盒子。比如，你不妨读一下OED选择“南非白人英语”作为模板代表南非英语词条时所做的解释。 OED的变化提醒我们，语言不是固定不变的实体。不仅英语在不断变化，而且它的边界也在变化。 语言是开放而富有活力的：对其他方言、对它的多种多样的使用者，都没有限制。语言的力量和魅力便在于此。 文章摘自：《新东方英语》杂志2016年10月号