研究生英语11 13 14课文翻译.docVIP

13 Nine Years for A and B 为了A和B条目花费了九年的时光 By Christopher Ricks 克里斯多夫·瑞克斯 Dr. Johnson was the greatest man who made a dictionary. James A.H. Murray was the man who made the greatest dictionary: From 1879 to 1915, when he died, he devoted his life to the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary. 约翰逊博士是编辑词典最伟大的人。那么詹姆斯·默里就是编辑最好的词典的那个人：从1879至1915年，直到他去世，他把自己的一生都贡献给了《牛津英语词典》的编辑事业。 Dr. Johnson had earned the right, as we have not, to call the lexicographer “ a harmless drudge.” For Johnson knew not only that a great deal more than drudgery is involved, but also that the amount of drudgery in the making of a dictionary is simply unimaginable. Even the dictionary maker fortunately can’t make it real to himself in advance. 约翰逊博士赢得了那个，我们没有的，称作“无害的苦差事”的词典编纂者的头衔。因为约翰逊知道不仅编辑词典要比相关的杂事多得多，而且编辑一部词典的单调工作简直难以想像。实际上，幸好词典的编辑者无法事先预料单调的程度。 So the lexicopgrapher—even a profoundly thoughtful and experienced one like James Murray—will grasp at the notion that the letter A is typical (apparently it has lots of classically derived words, and these don’t have great many senses), but that the whole idea of a typical letter is a will-o’-the-wisp. Or again, the lexicographer estimates the amount of time and effort involved in chasing up rare words or scientific terms and then finds that the hardest words are the ones that might seem easiest. The longest entry in the Oxford English Dictionary is for that simple slippery little word set, and Murray was plunged into black despair by “the terrible word Black and its derivatives.” 所以词典的编纂者—甚至像詹姆斯·默里这样深思熟虑，富有经验的人—都会有一种想法，那就是字母A很典型（显然它有许多源自希腊语和拉丁语的派生词汇，而且这些词的词的意思并不多），但有关典型字母的整个想法与实际情况不符。此外，词典编纂者估计了查找生词或科学术语所要花费的时间和精力，随即却发现，最难的词汇却是那些看似最简单的词汇。在《牛津英语词典》中，最长的条目却是那个简单却不稳定的小词set，而且默里因“那个让人烦恼的词汇Black及其派生词”陷入了绝望之中。 The dictionary maker runs against time. He has to, because unless he gets a move on he will fall further and further behind, while the dictionary is taking longer to record linguistic events than they take to happen. For another thing, a giganti