词汇大师-- Hunting for the Snark

　　AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on WORDMASTER, we talk with David Denby. He's a film critic for the New Yorker magazine and author of a new book. In it, he attacks a form of expression used increasingly in public discourse¹ in the United States and other countries.
RS: We're talking about snark. Denby defines snark as an anti-creative "strain of nasty, knowing abuse ... provoked and encouraged by the new hybrid² world of print, television, radio and the Internet."
AA: The title of his book says it all: "Snark: It's Mean, It's Personal, and It's Ruining the Conversation."

　　DAVID DENBY: "I'm not against satire³ or angry wit. On the contrary, I think it's great and we have a lot of it. But we also have a lot of lazy second-rate, third-rate writing and anonymous⁴ expression also on the Web that I would call snark that doesn't make that effort to create something new. And the awful thing, guys, about this -- I mean if, you know, if you're well-established in life, you just shrug⁵ it off or you don't even know about it, right? But kids can be hurt by this.
"In Japan this is a serious enough problem that the government is considering intervening at the high school level. Or if you go for a job interview when you're let's say twenty-six, twenty-seven and this nasty thing that has been posted about you will Google up. And that could hurt your employment possibilities. It's a serious issue that legal scholars in this country are beginning to worry about."
RS: "What is this saying about who we are, taking us as Americans -- the American snark, if you can separate that out -- what is this saying about who we are and our level of public discourse?"
DAVID DENBY: "You know, we've had a democratic revolution here in the Internet, and in the wake of it there's been an enormous amount of real generous sharing of information and opinion. But there's also been, as de Tocqueville said in 'Democracy in America,' in the wake of a democratic revolution you also get an explosion of anger, egotism, and everything that's been suppressed jumps out there.
"So part of it is, I think, the economic difficulties we're having. Part of it is the jostling in a country with many different ethnic⁶ groups, accounting⁷ for some of this anger. And a third thing is that everyone wants to be funny. Comics are cultural heroes. But professional comedians⁸ work extremely hard to get that feeling of spontaneity. So the rest of us who aren't naturally witty⁹ in that way, we can easily fall into a kind of low, mean sarcasm¹⁰ because that's easy."
AA: "One thing, where did the term come from?"
DAVID DENBY: "Lewis Carroll, a wonderful children's book writer -- wrote 'Alice in Wonderland' and 'Through the Looking-Glass' -- wrote a nonsense poem in eighteen seventy-six about the hunt for the snark, 'The Hunting of the Snark.' And he just made it up, and the snark is a mythical¹¹ beast and all the representatives of Victorian society gather on a ship and hunt it.
"By around nineteen-oh-four or five the meaning had migrated to something closer to what it means now in the work of another children's book writer, E. Nesbit. And she used it to mean when you're ragging at someone, when you're criticizing someone, when you're trying to get at them for something they've done. But the word wasn't active in the United States certainly until recently, until maybe the last ten years."
RS: "How can we get above it and beyond it and not get hurt by it?"
DAVID DENBY: "I think you have to tell your kids that it's a lousy tone and it's unacceptable and they certainly can't snark people anonymously¹². I mean I tell my boys 'Say whatever you want, but at least sign your name.' Admit responsibility. I think that alone would sober up people quite a lot."
AA: "And one last question: Have you ever been snarked?"
DAVID DENBY: "Oh, of course. And the book 'Snark' has been snarked, particularly in New York. I mean I called out people on what I think is the lousy way they write, and some of them have hit back very hard. And that, I expected. Around the rest of the country the response has been very good, and I've been all over National Public Radio."
AA: "So New Yorkers are more snarky by nature, you're saying?"
DAVID DENBY: "Well, it's the center of journalism¹³ and it's the center of ambition for young writers who want to be noticed, and it's a kind of way of making your mark. The trouble is that editors can be very ruthless and get rid of you once styles in comedy change -- and they tend to change very rapidly. If you're still doing last year's style as a writer, you're not going to make it. So, in other words, you have to 'up your game' and say something more serious at some point if you're going to survive and prosper¹⁴."
RS: David Denby is author of the new book "Snark." And that's WORDMASTER for this week.
AA: With Rosanne Skirble, I'm Avi Arditti.
AA/RS/fil

1 discourse   

n.论文，演说；谈话；话语；vi.讲述，著述

参考例句：

• We'll discourse on the subject tonight.我们今晚要谈论这个问题。
• He fell into discourse with the customers who were drinking at the counter.他和站在柜台旁的酒客谈了起来。

2 hybrid   

n.(动，植）杂种，混合物

参考例句：

• That is a hybrid perpetual rose.那是一株杂交的四季开花的蔷薇。
• The hybrid was tall,handsome,and intelligent.那混血儿高大、英俊、又聪明。

3 satire   

n.讽刺，讽刺文学，讽刺作品

参考例句：

• The movie is a clever satire on the advertising industry.那部影片是关于广告业的一部巧妙的讽刺作品。
• Satire is often a form of protest against injustice.讽刺往往是一种对不公正的抗议形式。

4 anonymous   

adj.无名的；匿名的；无特色的

参考例句：

• Sending anonymous letters is a cowardly act.寄匿名信是懦夫的行为。
• The author wishes to remain anonymous.作者希望姓名不公开。

5 shrug   

v.耸肩(表示怀疑、冷漠、不知等)

参考例句：

• With a shrug,he went out of the room.他耸一下肩，走出了房间。
• I admire the way she is able to shrug off unfair criticism.我很佩服她能对错误的批评意见不予理会。

6 ethnic   

adj.人种的，种族的，异教徒的

参考例句：

• This music would sound more ethnic if you played it in steel drums.如果你用钢鼓演奏，这首乐曲将更具民族特色。
• The plan is likely only to aggravate ethnic frictions.这一方案很有可能只会加剧种族冲突。

7 accounting   

n.会计，会计学，借贷对照表

参考例句：

• A job fell vacant in the accounting department.财会部出现了一个空缺。
• There's an accounting error in this entry.这笔账目里有差错。

8 comedians   

n.喜剧演员，丑角( comedian的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The voice was rich, lordly, Harvardish, like all the boring radio comedians'imitations. 声音浑厚、威严，俨然是哈佛出身的气派，就跟无线电里所有的滑稽演员叫人已经听腻的模仿完全一样。 来自辞典例句
• He distracted them by joking and imitating movie and radio comedians. 他用开玩笑的方法或者模仿电影及广播中的滑稽演员来对付他们。 来自辞典例句

9 witty   

adj.机智的，风趣的

参考例句：

• Her witty remarks added a little salt to the conversation.她的妙语使谈话增添了一些风趣。
• He scored a bull's-eye in their argument with that witty retort.在他们的辩论中他那一句机智的反驳击中了要害。

10 sarcasm   

n.讥讽，讽刺，嘲弄，反话 （adj.sarcastic）

参考例句：

• His sarcasm hurt her feelings.他的讽刺伤害了她的感情。
• She was given to using bitter sarcasm.她惯于用尖酸刻薄语言挖苦人。

11 mythical   

adj.神话的；虚构的；想像的

参考例句：

• Undeniably,he is a man of mythical status.不可否认，他是一个神话般的人物。
• Their wealth is merely mythical.他们的财富完全是虚构的。

12 anonymously   

ad.用匿名的方式

参考例句：

• The manuscripts were submitted anonymously. 原稿是匿名送交的。
• Methods A self-administered questionnaire was used to survey 536 teachers anonymously. 方法采用自编“中小学教师职业压力问卷”对536名中小学教师进行无记名调查。

13 journalism   

n.新闻工作，报业

参考例句：

• He's a teacher but he does some journalism on the side.他是教师，可还兼职做一些新闻工作。
• He had an aptitude for journalism.他有从事新闻工作的才能。

14 prosper   

v.成功，兴隆，昌盛；使成功，使昌隆，繁荣

参考例句：

• With her at the wheel,the company began to prosper.有了她当主管，公司开始兴旺起来。
• It is my earnest wish that this company will continue to prosper.我真诚希望这家公司会继续兴旺发达。