一篇文章屬優屬劣,試試翻譯便有分曉。以 褚簡寧 先生週二的專欄文章為例,串嘴有餘但組識不足:
Legislative councillor Frederick Fung Kin-kee doesn't speak good English at all. But at least he dares to speak it. He's not a wimp like Gary Chan Hak-kan. Chan is wimp because he no longer dares to speak English after he was laughed at for saying “try my breast” instead of “try my best.” A wimp is a slang word that means a weak or cowardly person.You can say: “My husband is a wimp. He didn't dare pick up my wedding ring when it fell into a pile of dog excrement.” In case you don't know how to pronounce wimp, it rhymes with the word shrimp. Chan Hak-kan should read my column. He can learn a lot of pronunciations! (栗真的想不通,為何不在狗糞堆上檢東西,是沒膽的表現。有誰能解釋一下嗎?)
I respect Fung Kin-kee for daring to speak English even though he doesn’t speak it well. Therefore, I won’t point out the many mistakes he made during an English radio interview recently. As head of the Equal Opportunities Commission's policy and research committee, he was talking about the lack of access in buildings for disabled people. But instead of using the word disabled, he said many buildings could not be “easily used by handicaps.” (前一句才說不指出他的錯誤,後一句便已說了一個出來,這算甚麼?)
Saying handicaps is grammatically wrong. He should have said handicapped. But I won't bother about that. What I want to point out is it is not politically correct, especially in the US , to describe a disabled person as handicapped. The word handicapped is considered offensive and disrespectful. You should use disabled instead. In the US , people who cannot see are seldom called blind. They are described as visually impaired instead. Similarly, the word deaf is seldom used nowadays to describe people who cannot hear. It is considered offensive. The politically correct term is hearing impaired. Those who cannot speak are no longer called dumb or mute but speech impaired. You can jokingly say: “Chan Hak-kan has become speech impaired in speaking English since saying try my breast!” (點解只有 dumb 和 mute 是 no longer called?blind 和 deaf 還在灰色地帶嗎?插了兩個灰色地帶的字在中間,只會讓讀者覺得不知所措。)
希望 褚簡寧 先生留意他是在寫文章,而不是在主持廣播節目。白紙黑字,非謹慎不可。
留言列表