- Intro -
In this fun, short talk from TEDYouth, lexicographer Erin McKean encourages — nay, cheerleads — her audience to create new words when the existing ones won’t quite do. She lists out 6 ways to make new words in English, from compounding to “verbing,” in order to make language better at expressing what we mean, and to create more ways for us to understand one another.
这个TEDYouth里短小有趣的演讲中，词典编纂者艾琳•麦基恩鼓励，不，带头鼓励她的观众在发现现有词不够用时，去创造新词。她列举了英语中6种造词的方法，从组合法到动词化法，就是为了让我们更好地用语言表达自己的意思，以及创造更多地方式让我们能互相理解。
- Audio -
- Transcript -
I'm a lexicographer. I make dictionaries. And my job as a lexicographer is to try to put all the words possible into the dictionary. My job is not to decide what a word is; that is your job.
我是一个词典编纂者 我的工作是编词典 而我作为一个词典编纂者，所要做的 就是尽可能的把所有的词语都加入到词典里边去 我不是来决定怎样的词算是一个词语 那些事是你们来决定的
Everybody who speaks English decides together what's a word and what's not a word. Every language is just a group of people who agree to understand each other. Now, sometimes when people are trying to decide whether a word is good or bad, they don't really have a good reason. So they say something like, "Because grammar!" (Laughter) I don't actually really care about grammar too much -- don't tell anybody.
每个讲英语的人一起决定 怎样算一个词怎样不算一个词 在每一种语言里就这么一帮人 同意理解对方 有时候当人们决定一个词的褒贬的时候 他们并没有给出很好的理由 所以他们经常说： “因为这是语法规定的！” （笑） 我并不太在乎语法... 可别告诉人
But the word "grammar," actually, there are two kinds of grammar. There's the kind of grammar that lives inside your brain, and if you're a native speaker of a language or a good speaker of a language, it's the unconscious rules that you follow when you speak that language. And this is what you learn when you learn a language as a child. And here's an example: This is a wug, right? It's a wug. Now there is another one. There are two of these. There are two ... Audience: Wugs. Erin McKean: Exactly! You know how to make the plural of wug. That rule lives in your brain. You never had to be taught this rule, you just understand it. This is an experiment that was invented by a professor at [Boston University] named Jean Berko Gleason back in 1958. So we've been talking about this for a long time.
但是“语法”这个词，实际上有两种语法 一种是在你脑子固定形成的语法 如果你以某一语言为母语 或者你能流利地说某种语言 是你在说那种语言时 所遵循的潜规则 这是你还是小孩子的时候学到规则 这有一个例子 这是个 WUG，对吧？ 这是个 WUG 现在又有一个（wug） 那么这有两个这样的东西 有两个.... 观众：Wugs Erin Mckean: 没错！你们知道如何用wug的复数了 那是你们脑子里固定形成的规则 你从来没有被教过怎么用复数形式 你只是明白它的用法 这是在1958年一个叫 Jean Berko Gleason的 波士顿大学教授发明的一个实验 所以我们已经讨论了这事情很久了
Now, these kinds of natural rules that exist in your brain, they're not like traffic laws, they're more like laws of nature. And nobody has to remind you to obey a law of nature, right? When you leave the house in the morning, your mom doesn't say, "Hey, honey, I think it's going to be cold, take a hoodie, don't forget to obey the law of gravity." Nobody says this. Now, there are other rules that are more about manners than they are about nature. So you can think of a word as like a hat. Once you know how hats work, nobody has to tell you, "Don't wear hats on your feet." What they have to tell you is, "Can you wear hats inside? Who gets to wear a hat? What are the kinds of hats you get to wear?" Those are more of the second kind of grammar, which linguists often call usage, as opposed to grammar.
那么，这些在你脑子里形成的自然规则 他们不像交通规则 他们更像是自然法则 你不需要任何人提醒你去遵守自然法则，对吧？ 你早上出门的时候 你妈妈不会说， “嘿，亲爱的 今天天冷穿件外套吧 别忘了遵循万有引力哦” 没人这么说 而另外的一些规则更注重使用方法而非词本身 你可以把一个词想象成一顶帽子 一旦你知道怎么戴帽子 没人会告诉你 “别往脚上穿啊” 他们要告诉你的是 “你能在室内戴帽子么？ 谁能戴帽子？ 能戴怎么样的帽子“ 这些更像第二类语法 语言学家常说的用法，与语法相反
Now, sometimes people use this kind of rules-based grammar to discourage people from making up words. And I think that is, well, stupid. So, for example, people are always telling you, "Be creative, make new music, do art, invent things, science and technology." But when it comes to words, they're like, "Don't! No. Creativity stops right here, whippersnappers. Give it a rest." (Laughter) But that makes no sense to me. Words are great. We should have more of them. I want you to make as many new words as possible. And I'm going to tell you six ways that you can use to make new words in English.
有时候人们以规则型的语法 来阻止人们造新词 我觉得，这个挺愚蠢的 比方说，人们总是告诉你 “要有创造力，编新的音乐 创作艺术，发明新的科技 但是在对待词语的时候 ”停！你的创意到此为止 你们这些自以为是的年轻人，一边凉快去“ （笑） 但是在我看来这说不通 词语棒极了 我们应该有更多的词语 我要你们尽可能的创造出更多的新词 而且我将告诉你们六种造新词的方法
The first way is the simplest way. Basically, steal them from other languages. ["Go rob other people"] (Laughter) Linguists call this borrowing, but we never give the words back , so I'm just going to be honest and call it stealing. We usually take words for things that we like, like delicious food. We took "kumquat" from Chinese, we took "caramel" from French. We also take words for cool things like "ninja," right? We took that from Japanese, which is kind of a cool trick because ninjas are hard to steal from. (Laughter)
