2019年经济学人 约翰逊语言专栏--政治对语言的影响(2)（在线收听）

The vocabulary that causes offence today would puzzle those who roared at “bloody”. Consider an insult that occupied the British press for several days in December 2018. Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the Labour opposition, seemed to mouth “stupid woman” as Theresa May, then the prime minister, spoke from the dispatch box. Mr Corbyn was forced to deny he had said those words. He is “opposed to the use of sexist and misogynist language in any form”; what he had actually said was “stupid people”.

如今，那些令人感到冒犯的词汇可能会使那些因为“血腥的bloody”而生气的人感到困惑。想想2018年12月英国媒体连续几天受到的侮辱吧。工党反对党领袖杰里米?科尔宾在时任英国首相特里萨?梅在议院发表讲话时，好像在说“愚蠢的女人”。科尔宾先生被迫否认他说过那些话。他“反对以任何形式使用性别歧视和厌恶女性的语言”；他实际上说的是“蠢人”。

Mrs May’s successor now stands accused of misogyny on the front bench. As Mr Corbyn was speaking in early September, Boris Johnson, now prime minister, yelled, “You great big girl’s blouse!” On the same day Mr Johnson also used the word “shit” (he was quoting a Labour politician’s reference to that party’s economic policy as “shit or bust”, meaning “all or nothing”). Once, the earthy Anglo-Saxon word would never have fallen from the mouth of a prime minister in Parliament. Yet “big girl’s blouse” dominated the coverage.

特蕾莎·梅的继任者现在被指控在议会前座反对党领袖座位上歧视女性。科尔宾9月初发表演讲时，英国现任首相鲍里斯?约翰逊喊：“没种的懦弱娘炮！” 同一天，约翰逊还使用了“shit”一词(他引用了一位工党政客的话，指工党的经济政策“shit or bust”，意思是“要么一坨屎，要么一团糟”)。一旦出现一次，朴实的盎格鲁-撒克逊词汇就永远不会从议会的首相口中消失。而“没种的懦弱娘炮！”占领了整个封面报道。

A watershed moment has arrived: traditional taboo words, pertaining to the body and excrement, no longer have the punch of group-based insults related to sex, disabilities and other such qualities, about which Western societies are increasingly sensitive. (Race-based gibes ha ve been anathema for a while.)

一个具有分水岭意义的时刻已经到来：与身体和粪便相关的传统禁忌语，不再具有与性、残疾和其他此类特质相关的群体侮辱的冲击力，而西方社会对这些特质正变得越来越敏感。（以种族为基础的嘲笑已经被人们唾弃了一段时间。）