奎因和儿子道格拉斯和孙子女亚历山大、维多利亚（1998，北达科他）
信件英语原文（2025年1月1日）
信件汉语翻译
信件附件：一段奎因的文字及（我的翻译和GOOGLE回译）
奎因之子回信（2025年1月1日）
信件英语原文：
Dear Doug,
Happy New Year! I wish you good health and happiness in the coming year!
I translated the entry Belief from the book Quiddities into Chinese at the turn of the year. Quiddities is one of the two books that WVQ gave me in 1994. The other book, The Web of Belief, was translated by me by the end of 1990s and published by the Chinese People's University Press in 2007. The Commercial Press has recently decided to republish it. However, I value The Time of My Life and Quiddities more because they allow readers to understand more aspects of WVQ. The literary eloquence and the breadth of knowledge in them are too formidable for me, which have double impacts on me: on the one hand, I enjoys translating such books which pose a challenge to me; on the other hand, I am hesitant to start translating them for fear that I might not do a good job. But with the increasing power of the internet search, especially with your valuable help, I have finished translating The Time of My Life with two of my students! This has given me great encouragement. I hope to continue the momentum to finish the translation of Quiddities. I have already translated more than 20 philosophical and logical entries, such as Truth, Knowledge, Necessity, Variables, Paradoxes, to cite a few of them. But the most difficult entries for me in this book are those he was likely to group under what he calls "lowlier themes." But I believe that as long as I am willing to invest time and delve into research, and make full use of the internet, I can overcome the difficulties in understanding the original text.
Belief is the first such entry I have tried to translate; incidentally, I found on your website that it is a favorite of the QUINE family. So, I boldly send you my translation of the most difficult paragraph in it, along with GOOGLE's English back-translation of my translation, hoping to get your guidance.
Keep in touch!
Best wishes!
Yours sincerely, Yuzhang
信件汉语翻译：
亲爱的道格，
新年好！祝你在新的一年里身体健康、生活幸福！
我在跨年之际将QUIDDITES一书中的词条“信念”翻译成了汉语。Quiddities是1994年WVQ赠送给我的两本书之一。另一本书The Web of Belief早就被我译出并于2007年在中国人民大学出版社出版。但我内心更看重The Time of My Life和这本Quiddities，因为它们能让读者更全面地了解WVQ。它们在文学上的优雅和知识上的广博对我来说是相当具有挑战性的，这两点对我的影响是双重的：一方面，我喜欢翻译这些对我有挑战的书籍；另一方面，我又担心自己翻译不好而不敢轻易开始。但随着互联网查阅功能的日益强大，特别是有了您的宝贵的帮助，我居然和我的两个学生把The Time of My Life译出来了！这给了我很大的鼓舞。我希望乘胜前进，也把Quiddities译出来。我已经译出了其中的不少哲学和逻辑性较强的词条，如Truth, Knowledge，Necessity, Variables, Paradoxes, 等等。但本书对我来说最难译的，却是他可能归类为“较为低级主题”的那些词条。但我相信，只要我肯花时间，肯钻研，充分利用互联网，是可以克服原文理解中的困难的。
Belief就是我试译的第一个这样的词条；碰巧，我在你的网站上发现，它是QUINE大家庭的一个favorite. 所以我斗胆把我对该词条中最难译的一段发给你，并附上了GOOLE对我的翻译的英语回译，希望能得到您的指教。
Keep in touch!
Best wishes!
Yours sincerely, Yuzhang
信件附件：
Belief (信念)
One way of testing belief, powerful where applicable, is by calling upon the professed believer to put his money where his mouth is. Acceptance of a wager evinces sincerity, and the odds [20]accepted conveniently measure the strength of the belief. But this method is applicable only in cases where the believed proposition is one that can eventually be decided to the satisfaction of both parties, so that the bet can be settled. It is not applicable to the one about beauty, or about one's Redeemer. One wonders whether Keats really believed that one about beauty or whether he was merely bent on creating a bit of beauty on his own, like Christian Morgenstern's weasel who sat on a Kiesel in a Bachgeriesel only for the sake of the rhyme. Or Poe's Lenore, Yaanek, and Guy De Vere. Or Al Smith's Mamie O'Rourke. There are those who would commit mayhem -- not murder, perhaps, but mayhem -- for the sake of a rhyme. I recall a line from a song: "Fair Naples sleeping, a vigil keeping. " Cognitive content to the winds.
一种检验一个人是否持有某个信念的方法，是让他把钱押在该信念上。如果他愿意下注，就表明他真的持有该信念。而该信念的强度则可以很方便地用他愿意接受的赔率大小来衡量。这种方法很有效，但只适用于这样的场合：被下注的信念的真假能得到令双方满意的解决以便能决出谁将赢得赌金。这种方法并不适用于关于美和关于某人的救赎者的那两个信念。也许，济慈并不真的持有那个关于美的信念，他只是想自己创造一些美，就像克里斯蒂安·莫根斯特恩笔下的黄鼠狼，为了押韵而坐在溪流中的卵石上 。爱伦坡笔下的莱诺尔、雅尼克和盖伊·德·维尔 ，以及阿尔·史密斯的玛米·奥罗克 ，情况也是如此；这些名字都是为了押韵而被创造出来的。但押韵可能会扼杀意义，尽管可能还不至于杀人。我想起一首歌中的一句歌词：“美丽的那不勒斯在沉睡，彻夜不眠” 。确实押韵，但却没有认识内容 。
GOOGLE: A method to test whether a person holds a certain belief is to have them wager their money on it. If they are willing to bet, it indicates that they truly hold that belief. The strength of the belief can be conveniently measured by the size of the odds they are willing to accept. This method is effective, but it only applies in situations where the truth or falsity of the belief being bet on can be resolved to the satisfaction of both parties in order to determine who will win the wager. This method is not applicable to beliefs about beauty or about someone's redeemer. Perhaps Keats did not truly hold the belief about beauty; he just wanted to create some beauty on his own, like the weasel in Christian Morgenstern's writings, who sat on a pebble in a brook for the sake of rhyme. The same is true for Edgar Allan Poe's Lenore, Yaanek, and Guy De Vere, as well as Al Smith's Mamie O'Rourke; these names were created with rhyming in mind. Rhyming might kill meaning, although it might not go so far as to kill people. I recall a line from a song: "Fair Naples sleeping, keeping vigil through the night." It does rhyme, but it lacks cognitive content.
奎因之子回信（2025年1月1日）：
Dear Yuzhang,
Happy (western) New Year.
Yes, your paragraph looks good. I agree quality translations are essential. Quiddities is probably the post engaging and accessible of Dad’s books. （你的这段翻译文字看起来不错。我同意高质量的翻译至关重要。在爸爸的书中，Quiddities可能是最吸引人且最容易上手的。）
I suspect the “lowlier” pieces are difficult to translate because they talk about idioms, culture, and life in the west which are hard to learn from abroad. Interestingly, this also means they can be the ones that are more accessible to native English speakers.（我怀疑那些“低级”的作品之所以难以翻译，是因为它们谈论的是西方的习语、文化和生活，这些从国外很难学到。有趣的是，这也意味着它们可能是对母语为英语的人来说更易于理解的作品。）
Best regards - Doug
