一 words and expressions
1. Clutter is the laborious phrase that has pushed out the short word that means the same thing.
laborious: 耗時費力的绑莺；辛苦的纺裁；艱難的If you describe a task or job as?laborious, you mean that it takes a lot of time and effort
2. he blunts the painful edge of truth.
blunt: to make a feeling less strong減弱
3. Clutter is political correctness gone amok.
amok: to get out of control and cause a lot of problems失控
4. and justifying its vast budgets on the need for “counterforce deterrence.
deterrent: something that makes someone less likely to do something, by making them realize it will be difficult or have bad results制止物，威懾物栋豫，威懾力量
5. Orwell’s warning that clutter is not just a nuisance but a deadly tool has come true in the recent decades of American military adventurism.
nuisance: something or someone that annoys you or causes trouble for you惱人的事物（或人）丧鸯；麻煩的事物（或人）
6. Verbal camouflage reached new heights during General Alexander Haig’s tenure as President Reagan’s secretary of state.
camouflage：something that is meant to hide something, or behavior that is intended to hide the truth掩飾嫩絮；偽裝；隱瞞
7. We must push this to a lower decibel of public fixation.
decibel：a unit for measuring the loudness of sound分貝（衡量聲音強度的單位）
fixation：a very strong interest in or love for someone or something, that is not natural or healthy癡迷穆刻，不正常的依戀，固執(zhí)的偏愛 [+on / with / about]
8. They are all weeds that will smother what you write.
smother：to completely cover the whole surface of something with something else, often in a way that seems unnecessary or unpleasant完全覆蓋
9. Just as insidious are all the word clusters with which we explain how we propose to go about our explaining
insidious：an insidious change or problem spreads gradually without being noticed, and causes serious harm〔變化或問題〕暗中為害的蛹批，不知不覺間加劇的
10. we not all stupefied by what follows when someone says
stupefy：使震驚;使驚呆;使驚愕;使神志不清If something?stupefies?you, it shocks or surprises you so much that you cannot think properly for a while.
11. But these are writers who spent years learning their craft, and when at last they raised their fanciful turrets and hanging gardens
fanciful：imagined rather than based on facts – often used to show disapproval想象的，空想的试躏，幻想的〔常含貶義〕
12. —to embellish the plain words so that readers will recognize you as someone special.
embellish：to make something more beautiful or interesting by adding something to it裝飾颠蕴，修飾助析；給…錦上添花，渲染
13. You think how august it will look in print.
august：impressive and respected威嚴(yán)的寡键，尊嚴(yán)的西轩，莊嚴(yán)的
14. casting about for grand phrases that wouldn’t occur to you if you weren’t trying so hard to make an impression, you plunge in.
plunge into ：suddenly experience a difficult or unpleasant situation, or to make someone or something do this（使某人/某物）陷入（遭受）某種情況
15. before they have grappled with the discipline of assessing a work on its merits and on external sources.
grapple with ：to try hard to deal with or understand something difficult盡力解決藕畔，設(shè)法理解〔某困難問題〕:
16. “I” can be a self-indulgence and a cop-out.
cop-out：a way of avoiding doing something difficult or unpleasant that you should do, or the excuse that you use to do this逃避注服，回避措近；借口
17. Style is tied to the psyche, and writing has deep psychological roots.
psyche：the mind, or the deepest thoughts, feelings or beliefs of a person or group心靈瞭郑；精神凰浮；心態(tài)
18. You might want to talk to the reader in the casual voice that The New Yorker has strenuously refined.
strenuous：needing or using a lot of physical or mental effort or energy費力的苇本，費勁的瓣窄；繁重的俺夕；耗費精力的
19. It’s hard to know where to begin picking from his trove of equivocal statements
equivocal：if you are equivocal, you are deliberately unclear in the way that you give information or your opinion〔所給的信息或意見〕模棱兩可的劝贸，含糊的
二 thoughts
今天讀的是第三章和第四章映九。
第三章是Clutter件甥，在本章的末尾作者講到
You can develop the same eye. Look for the clutter in your writing and prune it ruthlessly. Be grateful for everything you can throw away. Reexamine each sentence you put on paper. Is every word doing new work? Can any thought be expressed with more economy? Is anything pompous or pretentious or faddish? Are you hanging on to something useless just because you think it’s beautiful?
Simplify, simplify.
我在寫作時就存在這個問題哼拔。最近在寫一個presentation的演說文稿倦逐，規(guī)定的時長是兩分鐘，可是我的演講文稿以很快的語速讀完都得3分鐘檬姥。一開始我以為是因為我準(zhǔn)備的太充分了导帝，讀了幾遍發(fā)現(xiàn)，發(fā)現(xiàn)有一些信息是clutter穿铆，經(jīng)過我再三的rewrite您单，文稿就顯得清爽了很多。
第四章是Style荞雏，作者在其中提到：
Writing is an act of ego, and you might as well admit it. Use its energy to keep yourself going.
這章使我意識到我之前自以為的良好鮮明的風(fēng)格有可能是clutter虐秦。不是說不能有風(fēng)格，而是要明白凤优，風(fēng)格是建立在傳情達意的基礎(chǔ)上的悦陋。
