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TED是一家非盈利機構(gòu)，該機構(gòu)以它組織的TED大會著稱。TED指技術(shù)、娛樂、設(shè)計英語中縮寫，這三個廣泛的領(lǐng)域共同塑造著我們的未來。TED演講特點是開門見山、觀點響亮、看法新穎、種類繁多、毫無繁雜冗長的專業(yè)講座。每一個演講都可以說是最值得傳播的思想，互聯(lián)網(wǎng)讓這些閃光的、值得傳播的思想在世界各地傳播......而TED大會宗旨就是：用思想的力量來改變世界！備受愛戴的紙質(zhì)字典是不是注定要絕跡了？在這個充滿感染力和活力的演講里，首席字典編纂家愛琳·麥奇，從多方面看印刷字典的轉(zhuǎn)型。Now, have any of y'all ever looked up this word?You know, in a dictionary? Yeah, that's what I thought.How about this word? Here, I'll show it to you.Lexicography: the practice of compiling dictionaries.Lexicography(字典學(xué)):編纂字典的活動。Notice -- we're very specific -- that word 'compile.'The dictionary is not carved out of a piece of granite, out of a lump of rock. It's made up of lots of little bits.字典并不是從一大塊巖石里鑿出的花崗巖，而是由很多的小塊小塊合起來的。It's little discrete -- that's spelled D-I-S-C-R-E-T-E -- bits. And those bits are words.分離的，英語里邊的串法是D-I-S-C-R-E-T-E——小塊。我們這里說的小塊就是指單詞了。Now one of the perks of being a lexicographer --besides getting to come to TED -- is that you get to say really fun words, like lexicographical.除了有機會來 TED演講以外，就是可以說很有趣的單詞，例如，lexicographical,字典編纂學(xué)。Lexicographical has this great pattern: it's called a double dactyl.And just by saying double dactyl, I've sent the geek needle all the way into the red.只要說到“揚抑抑格”，古怪指數(shù)就可以飆升到紅色警戒。But 'lexicographical' is the same pattern as 'higgledy-piggledy.'其實，lexicographical與 'higgledy-piggledy'(“雜亂無章”的意思)有一樣的押韻。Right? It's a fun word to say, and I get to say it a lot.Now, one of the non-perks of being a lexicographeris that people don't usually have a kind of warm, fuzzy, snuggly image of the dictionary.Right? Nobody hugs their dictionaries.But what people really often think about the dictionary is, they think more like this.Just to let you know, I do not have a lexicographical whistle.But people think that my job is to let the good wordsmake that difficult left-hand turn into the dictionary, and keep the bad words out.做一個有難度的左轉(zhuǎn)拐入字典，而把所謂的壞詞擋于門外。But the thing is, I don't want to be a traffic cop.For one thing, I just do not do uniforms.And for another, deciding what words are good and what words are bad is actually not very easy.And it's not very fun. And when parts of your job are not easy or fun,還不好玩。如果你的工作中有這么一部分既不容易又不好玩，you kind of look for an excuse not to do them.So if I had to think of some kind of occupation as a metaphor for my work, I would much rather be a fisherman.由此，如果要找一種工作來比喻我在干的活，我寧可當一個漁夫。I want to throw my big net into the deep, blue ocean of English我要在英語這個深藍的海洋里撒上我的大網(wǎng)，and see what marvelous creatures I can drag up from the bottom.But why do people want me to direct traffic, when I would much rather go fishing?可是現(xiàn)實中，為什么人們期望我去當交警而不是漁夫呢？Well, I blame the Queen. Why do I blame the Queen?Well, first of all, I blame the Queen because it's funny.But secondly, I blame the Queen because dictionaries have really not changed.另外的原因是，自維多利亞女王以來，字典并沒有什么變化。Our idea of what a dictionary is has not changed since her reign.我們對字典的理解自維多利亞女王統(tǒng)治時期以來沒有改變過。The only thing that Queen Victoria would not be amused by in modern dictionariesis our inclusion of the F-word, which has happened in American dictionaries since 1965.對臟話的引入，自1965年起出現(xiàn)在美國字典里。So, there's this guy, right? Victorian era.James Murray, first editor of the Oxford English Dictionary.I do not have that hat. I wish I had that hat.So he's really responsible for a lot of what we consider modern in dictionaries today.就是他把我們至今還認為是現(xiàn)代的元素放在字典里。When a guy who looks like that, in that hat, is the face of modernity, you have a problem.如果把一個如此打扮的人，看那帽子，作為現(xiàn)代的代表，那你們就有麻煩了。And so, James Murray could get a job on any dictionary today.詹姆斯·穆雷即使活在今天也還是能為任何一本字典擔任編纂工作，There'd be virtually no learning curve.And of course, a few of us are saying: okay, computers!Computers! What about computers?The thing about computers is, I love computers.I mean, I'm a huge geek, I love computers.I would go on a hunger strike before I let them take away Google Book Search from me.如果有人不讓我用谷歌的圖書搜索，我一定會絕食抗議。But computers don't do much else other than speed up the process of compiling dictionaries.但是，在字典編纂工作中，計算機能起到的作用，就是加快了編纂的工作進程，僅此而已。They don't change the end result.Because what a dictionary is, is it's Victorian design merged with a little bit of modern propulsion.因為字典就是維多利亞時代的設(shè)計和現(xiàn)代推動力的整合。It's steampunk. What we have is an electric velocipede.You know, we have Victorian design with an engine on it. That's all!給維多利亞時代的設(shè)計加上一個引擎，僅此而已！The design has not changed. And OK, what about online dictionaries, right?Online dictionaries must be different.This is the Oxford English Dictionary Online, one of the best online dictionaries.This is my favorite word, by the way.Erinaceous: pertaining to the hedgehog family; of the nature of a hedgehog.Very useful word. So, look at that. Online dictionaries right now are paper thrown up on a screen.非常有用的詞。看看這里，線上字典目前就是把紙質(zhì)版本放到屏幕前。This is flat. Look how many links there are in the actual entry: two!Right? Those little buttons, I had them all expanded except for the date chart.對吧？那些小按鍵，除了日期紀錄，我把他們都展開了。So there's not very much going on here. There's not a lot of clickiness.And in fact, online dictionaries replicate almost all the problems of print, except for searchability.事實上，線上字典繼承了印刷品幾乎所有的毛病，除了搜索功能。And when you improve searchability, you actually take away the one advantage of print, which is serendipity.而當搜索功能改善了，你同時也把印刷品的優(yōu)勢拿走，那就是能不經(jīng)意間有新的發(fā)現(xiàn)的能力。Serendipity is when you find things you weren't looking for,你能發(fā)現(xiàn)一些并不是你要找的東西，because finding what you are looking for is so damned difficult.So -- now, when you think about this, what we have here is a ham butt problem.所以，現(xiàn)在，當你想到這些，我們面對的問題其實是火腿屁股的問題。Does everyone know the ham butt problem?Woman's making a ham for a big, family dinner.She goes to cut the butt off the ham and throw it away,and she looks at this piece of ham and she's like,'This is a perfectly good piece of ham. Why am I throwing this away?'She thought, 'Well, my mom always did this.'So she calls up mom, and she says, 'Mom, why'd you cut the butt off the ham, when you're making a ham?'于是她打電話給她媽媽，問，“媽媽，為什么你做火腿的時候要把火腿屁股切掉？”She says, 'I don't know, my mom always did it!'So they call grandma, and grandma says, 'My pan was too small!'于是她們又打電話給外婆，外婆說，“我的鍋太小了！”So, it's not that we have good words and bad words. We have a pan that's too small!所以，這不是因為有好詞和壞詞的存在，只是我們的鍋太小了！You know, that ham butt is delicious! There's no reason to throw it away.The bad words -- see, when people think about a placeand they don't find a place on the map, they think, 'This map sucks!'卻不能在地圖上找到這個地方，他們就認為，“這地圖一點用也沒有！”When they find a nightspot or a bar, and it's not in the guidebook,當人們發(fā)現(xiàn)一個旅游指南上沒有的夜店或酒吧，they're like, 'Ooh, this place must be cool! It's not in the guidebook.'他們又認為，“旅游指南上沒有的，這地方一定很酷！”When they find a word that's not in the dictionary, they think,而當人們發(fā)現(xiàn)一個字典上沒有的單詞，他們就覺得'This must be a bad word.' Why? It's more likely to be a bad dictionary.“這個一定是壞詞”。為什么呢？這其實更像是一本壞字典的問題。Why are you blaming the ham for being too big for the pan? So, you can't get a smaller ham.為什么要責怪火腿比鍋大呢？你不能找到小一點的火腿，The English language is as big as it is.So, if you have a ham butt problem, and you're thinking about the ham butt problem,所以如果你知道火腿屁股這事兒，而你又正在考慮這個問題，the conclusion that it leads you to is inexorable and counterintuitive: paper is the enemy of words.它引向的結(jié)論是決絕又有違直覺的：紙張是文字的敵人。How can this be? I mean, I love books. I really love books.Some of my best friends are books.But the book is not the best shape for the dictionary.Now they're going to think 'Oh, boy. People are going to take away my beautiful, paper dictionaries?'有人會疑惑：“不要吧，人們不是要把優(yōu)美的紙質(zhì)字典拿走吧？”No. There will still be paper dictionaries.When we had cars -- when cars became the dominant mode of transportation,we didn't round up all the horses and shoot them.You know, there're still going to be paper dictionaries,but it's not going to be the dominant dictionary.The book-shaped dictionary is not going to be the only shapedictionaries come in. And it's not going to be the prototype for the shapes dictionaries come in.So, think about it this way: if you've got an artificial constraint,artificial constraints lead to arbitrary distinctions and a skewed worldview.這種制約就會引致一個武斷的區(qū)分和一個傾斜的世界觀。What if biologists could only study animals that made people go, 'Aww.' Right?如果生物學(xué)家只研究人們喜歡的動物，對吧，What if we made aesthetic judgments about animals,and only the ones we thought were cute were the ones that we could study?We'd know a whole lot about charismatic megafauna, and not very much about much else.我們就只能了解那些有魅力的大群落，對其它的物種就不太了解了。And I think this is a problem. I think we should study all the words,我認為這是一個問題。我們應(yīng)該研究所有的詞，because when you think about words, you can make beautiful expressions from very humble parts.因為使用詞可以創(chuàng)造出美麗的表達，即使是從非常卑下的部分。Lexicography is really more about material science.字典編纂學(xué)是研究物質(zhì)的科學(xué)。We are studying the tolerances of the materials that you use to build the structure of your expression: your speeches and your writing.我們在研究不同物料的偏差，當你去架構(gòu)你的表達的時候：你的演說和寫作。And then, often people say to me, 'Well, OK, how do I know that this word is real?'于是人們常常對我說，“那好，我怎么知道這詞是真實存在的？”They think, 'OK, if we think words are the tools that we use to build the expressions of our thoughts,他們認為，“好，如果詞語是我們用于表達思想的工具，how can you say that screwdrivers are better than hammers?How can you say that a sledgehammer is better than a ball-peen hammer?'They're just the right tools for the job.And so people say to me, 'How do I know if a word is real?'由此，人們對我說，“我怎么知道一個詞是真正的詞？”You know, anybody who's read a children's book knows that love makes things real.If you love a word, use it. That makes it real.Being in the dictionary is an artificial distinction.It doesn't make a word any more real than any other way.If you love a word, it becomes real. So if we're not worrying about directing traffic,如果你愛一個詞，它才會變真實。如果我們不需要花心思在指揮交通上，if we've transcended paper, if we are worrying less about control and more about description,如果我們超越了紙張，如果我們少擔心控制而更關(guān)注表述，then we can think of the English language as being this beautiful mobile.And any time one of those little parts of the mobile changes, is touched, any time you touch a word,當其中的一個小組件變化了，被觸動了--任何時候你接觸到一個單詞，you use it in a new context, you give it a new connotation, you verb it, you make the mobile move.你把它用到新的內(nèi)容中，你賦予它新的涵義，你就讓它活起來了--讓它移動了。You didn't break it. It's just in a new position,and that new position can be just as beautiful.Now, if you're no longer a traffic cop -- the problem with being a traffic cop is現(xiàn)在，你不再是交警--交警管理交通的問題是there can only be so many traffic cops in any one intersection, or the cars get confused. Right?要么你得在每個十字路口都安排交警，要么就讓車輛犯糊涂。對吧？But if your goal is no longer to direct the traffic,but maybe to count the cars that go by, then more eyeballs are better.You can ask for help! If you ask for help, you get more done. And we really need help.你可以找人幫忙！越多人幫忙，你可以完成更多的活。我們真的很需要幫忙。Library of Congress: 17 million books, of which half are in English.If only one out of every 10 of those books had a word that's not in the dictionary in it,that would be equivalent to more than two unabridged dictionaries.And I find an un-dictionaried word -- a word like 'un-dictionaried,' for example --我發(fā)現(xiàn)沒收錄到字典里邊的詞(un-dictionaried)--以一個像“un-dictionaried”那樣的未收錄詞為例--in almost every book I read. What about newspapers?Newspaper archive goes back to 1759, 58.1 million newspaper pages.報紙藏品從1759年開始，共有五千八百一十萬個報紙頁面。If only one in 100 of those pages had an un-dictionaried word on it, it would be an entire other OED.只要每100頁報紙有一個沒有收錄的單詞，那就相當于一整本OED(牛津英語字典)了，That's 500,000 more words. So that's a lot.And I'm not even talking about magazines. I'm not talking about blogs --and I find more new words on BoingBoing in a given week than I do Newsweek or Time.一周內(nèi)，我在 BoingBoing發(fā)現(xiàn)的新詞比新聞周刊或時代雜志還多。There's a lot going on there. And I'm not even talking about polysemy,那里正在創(chuàng)造出很多的新詞。這還沒說到一詞多義，which is the greedy habit some words have of taking more than one meaning for themselves.So if you think of the word 'set,' a set can be a badger's burrow,當你想到一個詞“set”—“set”可以指獾的穴，a set can be one of the pleats in an Elizabethan ruff, and there's one numbered definition in the OED.也可以指伊利沙白時代衣領(lǐng)上的褶--在OED里就有好幾個定義，The OED has 33 different numbered definitions for set. Tiny, little word, 33 numbered definitions.在OED里“set”共33種定義。小小的一個單詞，33種定義。One of them is just labeled 'miscellaneous technical senses.' Do you know what that says to me?其中一個只是說“不同的技術(shù)時態(tài)?！蹦阒肋@對我來說意味著什么？That says to me, it was Friday afternoon and somebody wanted to go down the pub. (Laughter)That's a lexicographical cop out, to say, 'miscellaneous technical senses.'用字典編纂學(xué)的術(shù)語來說，就是“不同的技術(shù)時態(tài)?！?/span>So, we have all these words, and we really need help!And the thing is, we could ask for help -- asking for help's not that hard.I mean, lexicography is not rocket science.See, I just gave you a lot of words and a lot of numbers, and this is more of a visual explanation.看，我剛給了你很多詞和很多數(shù)字，這里是個更形象的解釋。If we think of the dictionary as being the map of the English language,these bright spots are what we know about, and the dark spots are where we are in the dark.If that was the map of all the words in American English, we don't know very much.如果這個地圖指美國英語的所有單詞，我們還有很多不知道。And we don't even know the shape of the language.If this was the dictionary -- if this was the map of American English --look, we have a kind of lumpy idea of Florida, but there's no California!We're missing California from American English.We just don't know enough, and we don't even know that we're missing California.我們知道的確實很不夠，我們甚至連缺了加州這個事情也不知道。We don't even see that there's a gap on the map. So again, lexicography is not rocket science.我們連地圖里有個空白也不知道。再強調(diào)，字典編纂不是開發(fā)火箭。But even if it were, rocket science is being done by dedicated amateurs these days. You know?即使是火箭開發(fā)科學(xué)，當今也有熱誠的業(yè)余愛好者參與其中了。是吧？It can't be that hard to find some words!So, enough scientists in other disciplines are really asking people to help, and they're doing a good job of it.足夠多的科學(xué)家在其它領(lǐng)域正尋求大家?guī)兔Γ掖蠡镆哺傻牟诲e。For instance, there's eBird, where amateur birdwatchers can upload information about their bird sightings.例如，有一種電子鳥，業(yè)余觀鳥愛好者可以把自己的觀察結(jié)果上傳，And then, ornithologists can go and help track populations, migrations, etc.之后鳥類學(xué)家可以從中追蹤數(shù)量，遷徙情況等。And there's this guy, Mike Oates. Mike Oates lives in the U.K.He's a director of an electroplating company. He's found more than 140 comets.他是一家電鍍公司的總監(jiān)。他發(fā)現(xiàn)了超過140個彗星。He's found so many comets, they named a comet after him. It's kind of out past Mars. It's a hike.他發(fā)現(xiàn)了如此之多的彗星，有一顆彗星就以他命名。那些彗星比火星還遠，是一個長途旅行。I don't think he's getting his picture taken there anytime soon.But he found 140 comets without a telescope.他發(fā)現(xiàn)的140顆彗星，并沒有用望遠鏡，He downloaded data from the NASA SOHO satellite, and that's how he found them.而是從NASA SOHO衛(wèi)星下載數(shù)據(jù)分析出來的。If we can find comets without a telescope, shouldn't we be able to find words?如果我們可以不用望遠鏡就能發(fā)現(xiàn)彗星，為什么我們就不能發(fā)現(xiàn)單詞呢？Now, y'all know where I'm going with this.Because I'm going to the Internet, which is where everybody goes.我要去互聯(lián)網(wǎng)，就像大伙那樣。And the Internet is great for collecting words, because the Internet's full of collectors.互聯(lián)網(wǎng)非常合適搜集單詞，因為互聯(lián)網(wǎng)上有很多搜集者。And this is a little-known technological fact about the Internet,這是一個關(guān)于互聯(lián)網(wǎng)的不為人知的技術(shù)事實，but the Internet is actually made up of words and enthusiasm.互聯(lián)網(wǎng)實際上是由單詞和熱情組成的。And words and enthusiasm actually happen to be the recipe for lexicography. Isn't that great?So there are a lot of really good word-collecting sites out there right now,現(xiàn)在已經(jīng)有很多單詞搜集網(wǎng)站了，but the problem with some of them is that they're not scientific enough.They show the word, but they don't show any context. Where did it come from? Who said it?有些顯示了詞，沒有顯示上下文。詞從哪里來？誰說的？What newspaper was it in? What book? Because a word is like an archaeological artifact.源自哪張報紙？哪本書？因為一個詞就像一個考古學(xué)產(chǎn)物，If you don't know the provenance or the source of the artifact, it's not science, it's a pretty thing to look at.如果你不知道起源或源頭，這就不夠科學(xué)——這是應(yīng)該去考究的。So a word without its source is like a cut flower.You know, it's pretty to look at for a while, but then it dies. It dies too fast.So, this whole time I've been saying, 'The dictionary, the dictionary, the dictionary, the dictionary.'我一直在說，“字典，字典，字典，字典?！?/span>Not 'a dictionary,' or 'dictionaries.'And that's because, well, people use the dictionary to stand for the whole language.They use it synecdochically.And one of the problems of knowing a word like 'synecdochically' is that you really want an excuse to say 'synecdochically.'知道“synecdochically”會引起的問題是，你真的很想找個理由去說synecdochicallyThis whole talk has just been an excuse to get me to the point where I could say 'synecdochically' to all of you.這整個演講也就是個借口，為了能讓我可以有機會跟你們說synecdochically這個詞。So I'm really sorry. But when you use a part of something -- like the dictionary is a part of the language,真對不起。但如果你用一樣事物的一部分，例如字典是語言的一部分，or a flag stands for the United States, it's a symbol of the country -- then you're using it synecdochically.或者用國旗代表美國作為一個國家的象征--那樣你在用借代。But the thing is, we could make the dictionary the whole language.If we get a bigger pan, then we can put all the words in. We can put in all the meanings.如果我們有個大一點的鍋，那我們就可以把所有的單詞都放里邊了，還可以把所有的單詞解釋都放里邊。Doesn't everyone want more meaning in their lives?每個人不都想人生更有意義嗎（英語里，意義和單詞解釋是同一個單詞）？And we can make the dictionary not just be a symbol of the language -- we can make it be the whole language.那樣，我們就可以讓字典不僅僅是語言的象征，我們就可以讓字典涵蓋整個語言。You see, what I'm really hoping for is that my son,who turns seven this month -- I want him to barely remember that this is the form factor that dictionaries used to come in.這個月他就滿7歲了--我想他只記得這是過去的字典的形式，This is what dictionaries used to look like.I want him to think of this kind of dictionary as an eight-track tape.It's a format that died because it wasn't useful enough. It wasn't really what people needed.是種已經(jīng)過時的形式，不再適合人們的需求。And the thing is, if we can put in all the words,no longer have that artificial distinction between good and bad, we can really describe the language like scientists.不再人為的區(qū)分好詞壞詞，我們就可以像科學(xué)家那樣的描述語言，We can leave the aesthetic judgments to the writers and the speakers.If we can do that, then I can spend all my time fishing, and I don't have to be a traffic cop anymore.如果我們可以做到這點，那我就可以把我所有的時間花在捕魚上，用不著再當交警。Thank you very much for your kind attention.
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