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Until last month, Paul Romer, chief economist at the World Bank, was best known for his brilliant research in the field known as “endogenous growth theory” — the idea that growth comes from the decisions made within an economic system rather than as a result of external factors.
直至上个月，世界银行(WB)首席经济学家保罗罗默(Paul Romer)最为人熟知的还是他在名为“内生增长理论”领域的出色研究。内生增长理论认为，增长来自经济体系内部做出的决策，它并非外部因素作用的结果。
Now, however, Romer is creating waves for a very different reason: he is waging war on how economists use the word “and”. Yes, you read that right. Last month, Romer sent an email to World Bank staff demanding that they tighten up their writing skills. In particular, he implored them to be more concise and clear when compiling reports, and to avoid creating hopelessly long, confusing documents crammed with lists of pious goals linked by that offending word “and”.
然而，如今罗默却在因为非常不同的原因掀起风波：他正对经济学家使用“以及”(and)这个单词的方式发动战争。是的，你没有看错。上个月，罗默向世行员工发出了一封电子邮件，要求他们加强写作技能。特别是，罗默恳请他们在编制报告时更简明而清晰，避免制造冗长难懂的文件，避免文件中大量出现以令人不适的“以及”连接起来的长串不切实际的目标。
“Because of...pressure to say that our message is ‘this, and this, and this too, and that...’ the word ‘and’ has become the most frequently used word in Bank prose,” Romer complained. “To drive home the importance of focus,” he added, “I’ve told the authors that I will not clear [a] final report if the frequency of ‘and’ exceeds 2.6 per cent.” The 2.6 per cent goal came about because that was the pattern found in World Bank reports a few decades ago (though Romer says it was merely a symbolic threshold). In contrast, “and” has recently accounted for 7 per cent of all words used in the organisation’s reports.
“由于……有压力要表达出我们传递的信息是‘这个、以及这个、还有这个、以及那个……’，‘以及’一词已成为世行文章中最常用的词汇。”罗默抱怨称。“为清楚地表明关注这一点的重要性，”他补充说，“我已告诉各位作者，如果一篇最终报告中‘以及’一词的使用频率超过2.6%，这份报告我不会批。”提出2.6%的目标，是因为这是几十年前的世行报告符合的规律（不过罗默表示这个数字只是一个象征性阈值）。相比之下，“以及”一词最近在该机构报告中出现的次数占了总字数的7%。
Is Romer’s request reasonable Not if you talk to many World Bank staff. Romer is not the first chief economist to create angst, but his demands have left some colleagues so incensed that he has been stripped of management control of the research division (Jim Yong Kim, World Bank president, wrote in a note to staff that another senior official would lead the Development Economics Group in order to create a stronger link between the Bank’s research and operational divisions, but that Romer would continue to provide “timely thought leadership on trends directly affecting our client countries”).
罗默的要求合理么？如果你问许多世行员工，答案是否定的。罗默不是第一位在世行内部引发焦虑的首席经济学家，然而他的要求让部分同僚怒不可遏，以至于他被剥夺了对发展经济学部(Development Economics Group)的管理控制权（世行行长金墉(Jim Yong Kim)在给员工的一份通知中写道，另一位高级官员将领导发展经济学部，以便在该行研究和运营部门之间建立更紧密的联系，不过罗默会继续对“直接影响我们客户国的趋势提供及时的、思想上的领导”）。
Personally, I am inclined to applaud what Romer has done. That 2.6 per cent threshold might seem bizarre; and perhaps it is a little unfair to focus on a single word. But speaking as someone who, in my work as a journalist, has been forced to read numerous official reports from bodies like the World Bank, I fully share Romer’s frustration with the impenetrable jargon that is bandied about.
从个人角度来说，我倾向于为罗默所做的事鼓掌欢呼。这一2.6%的上限看起来可能很奇怪，而且仅关注一个单词可能有失公平。不过，出于记者工作需要，我不得不阅读大量世行等机构出具的报告，作为一个读者，对于满篇难以理解的行话，我有着与罗默完全相同的不满。
It is not only multilateral organisations that fail in this respect. Last month, the veteran British journalist and editor Harold Evans published a guide to good writing, entitled Do I Make Myself Clear, which identifies numerous examples of turgid and impenetrable prose from politicians, philanthropists, company executives and so on.
在这方面做得不好的不仅仅是多边组织。上个月，英国资深记者兼主编哈罗德埃文斯(Harold Evans)出版了一本有关好文风的题为《我说清楚了吗？》(Do I Make Myself Clear）的写作指南。该书列出了大量造作难懂的文章范例，这些文章出自政客、慈善家、公司高管等各色人等之手。
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The kind of writing that Evans highlights is not merely irritating — it has serious, albeit subtle, implications. If official statements and documents are wrapped in layers of jargon, it becomes difficult for ordinary citizens to have any idea what is going on. And if voters are surrounded by baffling gobbledygook, they find it hard to trust what politicians are saying, or to take their utterances literally. One of the reasons for Donald Trump’s success as a politician is his blunt, no-holds-barred style of speech, which cuts through what Evans describes as the “endless fog” of linguistic complication. And while Trump’s words often seem contradictory, many voters simply ignore this fact — precisely because they have become so cynical about language.
埃文斯专门提到的那类文体不仅仅是令人烦恼而已——这类文章会产生微妙却很严重的影响。如果官方声明和文件被裹在一层又一层的行话之中，普通公民就很难了解发生了什么。如果选民被费解的官八股包围，他们将觉得很难信任政客所说的话，或很难照字面意思理解他们的话。唐纳德特朗普(Donald Trump)作为政客会获得成功，其中一个原因就是他直白、毫无顾忌的讲话风格，这种讲话风格能够穿透埃文斯所说的语言复杂性的“无尽迷雾”。而且，尽管特朗普的话经常看上去似乎相互矛盾，许多选民却完全忽视了这一事实——这恰恰是因为他们对语言已变得如此不抱希望。
Is there a solution Evans’s book offers plenty of practical advice for those seeking to improve their writing skills, with a 10-point checklist to encourage a clear approach (tips include “Banish clichés” and “Don’t be a bore”).
还有解决的办法么？对于那些寻求提高写作技能的人，埃文斯的书提供了大量实用建议，还提供了一份包含十个要点的清单，以鼓励清晰的文风（其中的诀窍包括“避免陈词滥调”和“不要让人讨厌”）。
It seems to be a message people want to hear: Do I Make Myself Clear has just hit the New York Times bestseller list, which is startling for a book about language, grammar and “proper” writing.
这似乎是人们愿意接受的信息：《我说清楚了吗？》冲上了《纽约时报》(New Yorks Times)的畅销书排行榜，一本有关语言、语法和“规范”写作的书籍能上榜是令人吃惊的。
The big question now is how institutions such as the World Bank will respond.
如今，最大的问题是世行这类机构会如何回应。
Romer was not the first person to complain about the World Bank’s reports; a couple of years ago, academics at the Stanford University Literary Lab declared the Bank’s communications so “codified, self-referential and detached from everyday language” that they were in effect a “technical code”, dubbed “Bankspeak”.
罗默并不是第一个抱怨世行报告的人。几年前，斯坦福大学文学实验室(Stanford University Literary Lab)的学者宣称，该行的对外沟通如此“刻板、自说自话和脱离日常语言”，它实质上是一种“技术代码”，别名“银行语”。
But it was not until Romer arrived there last October that anybody tried to reform the language. And I suspect he only acted because he was new to the job and knew he could return to a tenured post as an economics professor if his war on “and” went awry.
不过，在罗默去年10月来到世行之前，一直没有人试图改革这种语言。而且我怀疑，他会采取这一举措，仅仅是因为他新官上任，并知道就算他对“以及”发动的这场战争失利，他也可以重返经济学教授的终身职位。
Either way, Romer has no intention of abandoning his campaign. “There are many reasons why we must write clearly...it is a commitment to integrity,” he says. Indeed, he hopes this campaign will gather traction thanks to people such as Evans. “I can’t say enough about how much I admire Harry Evans and how important his new book is,” Romer told me. All eyes on the World Bank’s next Development Report.
不管怎么说，罗默不打算放弃这一运动。他说：“我们必须清晰行文的原因有许多……这是对诚信的承诺。”事实上，他希望，得益于埃文斯这类人，这一运动的声势会加大。罗默告诉我：“我对哈里埃文斯(Harry Evans)的钦佩无以言表，他的新书有多重要，我怎么讲都不为过。”对于世行的下一份《发展报告》(Development Report)，大家都拭目以待。
