TED英文演講：用新詞改變世界
“英語(yǔ)像是一塊偉大的海綿，融合了許多種語(yǔ)言，但它也有缺憾。希臘語(yǔ)中有一個(gè)詞叫l(wèi)achesism，意思是渴望災(zāi)難，比如你在海平面上看到雷雨，為暴風(fēng)雨的到來而歡呼雀躍。波蘭語(yǔ)中有一個(gè)詞叫jouska，它代表著你腦海中不斷出現(xiàn)且無法停止的假象對(duì)話。”John Koenig花7年時(shí)間編撰了一本字典，名為《晦澀情感詞語(yǔ)字典》下面是小編為大家收集關(guān)于TED英文演講：用新詞改變世界，歡迎借鑒參考。
演講者：John Koenig
中英對(duì)照翻譯
Today I want to talk about the meaning of words, how we define them and how they, almost as revenge,define us.
今天我想和大家談?wù)剢卧~的含義，我們是如何定義它們的，反過來它們又是如何，像復(fù)仇一般的 定義了我們。英語(yǔ)語(yǔ)言就像是一塊華麗的吸水海綿，
The English language is a magnificent sponge. I love the English language. I'm glad that I speak it. But for all that, it has a lot of holes. In Greek, there's a word, "lachesism" which is the hunger for disaster. You know, when you see a thunderstorm on the horizon and you just find yourself rooting for the storm.
我喜愛英語(yǔ)，很高興我會(huì)說英語(yǔ)，但是，它依然有很多缺陷。在希臘語(yǔ)中有一個(gè)詞，“Lachesism"，意思是對(duì)災(zāi)難的渴求，就像是當(dāng)你看到遠(yuǎn)方地平線的雷雨，發(fā)現(xiàn)自己已對(duì)風(fēng)暴做好了一切準(zhǔn)備。
In Mandarin, they have a word "yù yī" -- I'm not pronouncing that correctly -- which means the longing to feel intensely again the way you did when you were a kid. In Polish, they have a word "jouska" which is the kind of hypothetical conversation that you compulsively play out in your head. And finally, in German, of course in German, they have a word called "zielschmerz" which is the dread of getting what you want.
在中文里，有一個(gè)詞叫“yù yī ” —— 不好意思，我發(fā)音不準(zhǔn)—— 意思是希望再次強(qiáng)烈體會(huì)到當(dāng)你還是個(gè)孩子時(shí)的感覺。在波蘭語(yǔ)里，他們有一個(gè)詞叫“Jouska", 形容一種假想的對(duì)話，在自己的腦海里被迫上演。最后，在德語(yǔ)里，當(dāng)然，是德語(yǔ)。他們有一個(gè)詞叫做“Zielschmerz”，意思是害怕得到你想要的。
Finally fulfilling a lifelong dream. I'm German myself, so I know exactly what that feels like.
雖然最后實(shí)現(xiàn)了你畢生的夢(mèng)想。我自己是個(gè)德國(guó)人，所以很了解那是什么感覺。
Now, I'm not sure if I would use any of these words as I go about my day, but I'm really glad they exist. But the only reason they exist is because I made them up.
在我的日常生活里，不確定我會(huì)不會(huì)用這些詞，但是我對(duì)這些單詞的存在感到高興。僅僅因?yàn)椋揖幵炝怂鼈儭?/p>
I am the author of "The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows," which I've been writing for the last seven years. And the whole mission of the project is to find holes in the language of emotion and try to fill them so that we have a way of talking about all those human peccadilloes and quirks of the human condition that we all feel but may not think to talk about because we don't have the words to do it.
我是《自造詞典》的創(chuàng)始人，(The Dictionary of ObscureSorrows) 這是我在過去七年里所編寫的東西。整個(gè)計(jì)劃的目標(biāo)，是為了找到語(yǔ)言情感里的漏洞，去填補(bǔ)它們，如此我們就有了一種全新的方式 去討論人類情感里的種種小缺失，那種我們常常能感受，卻無法去形容的概念，因?yàn)槲覀儧]有適合的詞去表達(dá)。
And about halfway through this project, I defined "sonder," the idea that we all think of ourselves as the main character and everyone else is just extras. But in reality, we're all the main character, and you yourself are an extra in someone else's story.
在我的計(jì)劃進(jìn)行了一半的時(shí)候，我創(chuàng)造了一個(gè)詞“Sonder”，這個(gè)點(diǎn)子是關(guān)于我們把自己想象成世間的主角，其他人都是臨時(shí)演員。但是在現(xiàn)實(shí)中，你認(rèn)為自己是主角，可是你在其他人的故事中卻只是個(gè)配角罷了。
And so as soon as I published that, I got a lot of response from people saying, "Thank you for giving voice to something I had felt all my life but there was no word for that." So it made them feel less alone. That's the power of words, to make us feel less alone.
當(dāng)我發(fā)表了這一想法時(shí)，很多人來告訴我，“謝謝你，你為我一生都感覺到卻一直沒能找到合適的詞去表達(dá)的感覺下了定義。” 這使得他們不再那么孤單。這就是文字的魅力，讓我們不再孤獨(dú)。
And it was not long after that that I started to notice sonder being used earnestly in conversations online,and not long after I actually noticed it, I caught it next to me in an actual conversation in person. There is no stranger feeling than making up a word and then seeing it take on a mind of its own. I don't have a word for that yet, but I will.
在那不久以后，我開始注意到Sonder這個(gè)詞，很多人真的已經(jīng)開始在 網(wǎng)絡(luò)交談中使用了，就在我注意到這個(gè)沒多久，我就發(fā)現(xiàn)這個(gè)詞已經(jīng)用在我身邊人與人直接的交談中了。沒有什么感覺比 自己造了一個(gè)單詞，然后發(fā)現(xiàn)它被所有人 所接受更奇怪了?，F(xiàn)在還沒有能形容這種感覺的詞，但我會(huì)造一個(gè)出來的。
I'm working on it.
我已經(jīng)在想了。
I started to think about what makes words real, because a lot of people ask me, the most common thing I got from people is, "Well, are these words made up? I don't really understand." And I didn't really know what to tell them because once sonder started to take off, who am I to say what words are real and what aren't.
我開始想，到底是什么讓一個(gè)單詞具象化，因?yàn)楹芏嗳藛栠^我，我也最常聽到的提問是，“好吧，這些單詞是造出來的?我真的不明白。” 我也真的不知道該怎么解釋，因?yàn)橐坏﹕onder開始流行起來，我又該跟誰(shuí)說哪些單詞是真實(shí)的，哪些不是?
And so I sort of felt like Steve Jobs, who described his epiphany as when he realized that most of us, as we go through the day, we just try to avoid bouncing against the walls too much and just sort of get on with things.But once you realize that people -- that this world was built by people no smarter than you, then you can reach out and touch those walls and even put your hand through them and realize that you have the power to change it.
我有點(diǎn)感覺像是喬布斯在描述他的頓悟，當(dāng)他意識(shí)到，我們中的很多人在生活中，都在為了避免給自己制造太多的麻煩，只是希望一切都順利。但是一旦你了解到那些人—— 了解到這個(gè)世界是由并不比 你聰明多少的人所建立的，那么你就會(huì)試著去跨越這些高墻，甚至?xí)檬秩ネ品鼈儯憔蜁?huì)意識(shí)到，原來你也有改變世界的力量。
And when people ask me, "Are these words real?" I had a variety of answers that I tried out. Some of them made sense. Some of them didn't. But one of them I tried out was, "Well, a word is real if you want it to be real." The way that this path is real because people wanted it to be there.
當(dāng)人們問我，“這些單詞是真的嗎?” 我曾經(jīng)準(zhǔn)備了很多答案。有些可以理解，有些卻行不通。但是我的一個(gè)答案是，“單詞唯有你想要它是真的時(shí)候，它才會(huì)變成真的。” 這條路之所以會(huì)存在，是因?yàn)槿藗兌枷胍嬖凇?/p>
It happens on college campuses all the time. It's called a "desire path."
這種路在大學(xué)校園里隨處可見，我叫它“渴望之路“。
But then I decided, what people are really asking when they're asking if a word is real, they're really asking,"Well, how many brains will this give me access to?" Because I think that's a lot of how we look at language.A word is essentially a key that gets us into certain people's heads. And if it gets us into one brain, it's not really worth it, not really worth knowing. Two brains, eh, it depends on who it is. A million brains, OK, now we're talking. And so a real word is one that gets you access to as many brains as you can. That's what makes it worth knowing.
但是之后，當(dāng)他們問 這個(gè)單詞是否是真的，他們其實(shí)是在問，“好吧，通過這個(gè)單詞我又能讀懂幾個(gè)人的內(nèi)心呢?” 因?yàn)槲矣X得這就是我們?cè)趺纯创Z(yǔ)言的。單詞的本質(zhì)就是一把鑰匙，一把開啟人們內(nèi)心的鑰匙。如果這把鑰匙只能走進(jìn)你一個(gè)人心里，這真的不值得，也沒什么必要存在。如果能讀懂兩個(gè)人，嗯，這要看另一個(gè)是誰(shuí)。如果能走進(jìn)千千萬萬的內(nèi)心，很好，這就是我們現(xiàn)在對(duì)話的意義。所以一個(gè)真實(shí)存在的單詞，能幫助你了解很多人。這就是一個(gè)單詞的意義。
Incidentally, the realest word of all by this measure is this.[O.K.]
順便一提，用這種方式獲得的最真實(shí)的一個(gè)詞是：【O. K.】
That's it. The realest word we have. That is the closest thing we have to a master key. That's the most commonly understood word in the world, no matter where you are. The problem with that is, no one seems to know what those two letters stand for.
就是這個(gè)。這是我們最真實(shí)的單詞。這就是我們最熟悉的單詞。同時(shí)也是這個(gè)世界上 被最多人所熟知的詞，無論你來自哪里，問題是，沒人知道為什么要用這兩個(gè)字母。
Which is kind of weird, right? I mean, it could be a misspelling of "all correct," I guess, or "old kinderhook."No one really seems to know, but the fact that it doesn't matter says something about how we add meaning to words. The meaning is not in the words themselves. We're the ones that pour ourselves into it.
這是不是有點(diǎn)不可思議?我猜它可能是 “All Correct”(都對(duì))的錯(cuò)誤拼寫，或者是“Old Kinderhook”的錯(cuò)誤拼寫。似乎沒人知道為什么，但是這都無所謂了，這說明了我們是如何 給詞語(yǔ)賦予含義的。單詞的含義不在于單詞本身，而是在于那些賦予單詞意義的人們。
And I think, when we're all searching for meaning in our lives, and searching for the meaning of life, I think words have something to do with that. And I think if you're looking for the meaning of something, the dictionary is a decent place to start. It brings a sense of order to a very chaotic universe. Our view of things is so limited that we have to come up with patterns and shorthands and try to figure out a way to interpret itand be able to get on with our day. We need words to contain us, to define ourselves.
而且我覺得，我們都在 尋找我們生命中的意義，尋找生活的意義時(shí)，我覺得單詞和我們尋找的東西息息相關(guān)。我覺得你在尋找某些東西的含義時(shí)，字典是一個(gè)開始尋找的好地方。字典為混沌的宇宙帶去了一絲秩序。我們對(duì)事物的了解十分有限，以至于我們不得不想出 一些規(guī)律或者速記的方法，去嘗試尋找該詞的解釋，讓我們的生活得以繼續(xù)。我們需要單詞來蘊(yùn)含自己，來定義我們自己。
I think a lot of us feel boxed in by how we use these words. We forget that words are made up. It's not just my words. All words are made up, but not all of them mean something. We're all just sort of trapped in our own lexicons that don't necessarily correlate with people who aren't already like us, and so I think I feel us drifting apart a little more every year, the more seriously we take words.
我覺得我們中的很多人都感覺，被我們所用的詞匯所束縛了，我們忘了所有的單詞都是編造出來的，不光光是我用的詞，所有的詞都是編造出來的，但不是所有的詞都有含義。我們只是有點(diǎn)被困在自己的字典里，而我們的字典和其他人的字典并不全都一樣，所以我覺得每一年我們都在變得疏遠(yuǎn)，我們對(duì)用詞也越來越認(rèn)真。
Because remember, words are not real. They don't have meaning. We do.
但是請(qǐng)記住，單詞不是真的。它們本身沒有任何意義，是我們賦予了它們含義。
And I'd like to leave you with a reading from one of my favorite philosophers, Bill Watterson, who created "Calvin and Hobbes." He said, "Creating a life that reflects your values and satisfies your soul is a rare achievement. To invent your own life's meaning is not easy, but it is still allowed, and I think you'll be happier for the trouble."
最后我想跟各位分享一段我最喜歡的一位哲學(xué)家，比爾·沃特森在《凱文的幻虎世界》中說的，“創(chuàng)造一個(gè)能反應(yīng)你的價(jià)值，并充實(shí)你的靈魂的生活，是一件了不起的成就。去創(chuàng)造你自己生活的意義 不容易，但仍值得你去嘗試，并且我覺得你會(huì)因自找麻煩變得更快樂。“
Thank you.(Applause)
謝謝。(掌聲)
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