美国国家公共电台 NPR 'Nabokov's Favorite Word Is Mauve' Crunches The (Literary) Numbers

 

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Bear with me because we're going to spend a minute or so talking about statistical¹ analysis, you know, the kind used to analyze² data and predict who might win March Madness or an election. But what if we used data to look at literature? NPR's Glen Weldon tells us about a new book called "Nabokov's Favorite Color Is Mauve" (ph) and the patterns it reveals.

GLEN WELDON, BYLINE³: A statistician - his name is Ben Blatt - loaded thousands of novels into a huge database and crunched⁴ the numbers. One thing those numbers show is that male novelists write overwhelmingly about men. Women read about male and female characters roughly equally. Another thing - cliches.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Now or never.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: With all my heart.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Nick of time.

WELDON: Writers are supposed to avoid cliches like the plague. Who uses the fewest? Virginia Woolf, Edith Wharton and Jane Austen, all women. The top three cliche⁵ abusers? Men - Kurt Vonnegut, Tom Wolfe, and coming in at number one, James Patterson, whose go-to cliche, believe it or not, is...

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Believe it or not.

WELDON: Let's talk adverbs.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Happily.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Nearly.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Suddenly.

WELDON: Your teachers warned you not to use too many. And it turns out their advice holds up. Of the novels that dominate the lists of great books, 2 out of 4 contain few adverbs. Now, this stuff might not surprise you exactly, but it's fun to see your vague notions about writing turned into stark⁶ numerical facts. Here's one. Every author has a word that they use much more than others. Here's Jane Austen's.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Civility.

WELDON: Makes sense, right? How about Herman Melville?

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Whale.

WELDON: You probably saw that coming. Here's Agatha Christie's three favorite words.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Inquest. Frightful⁷. Alibi⁸.

WELDON: And as for Tom Wolfe, his favorite word is [expletive]. Ben Blatt's book gets its title from Vladimir Nabokov's favorite word - mauve. He used it at a rate 44 times higher than it's found in other people's writing. That's a lot of mauve. I'd say something about purple prose here but that would be a cliche. I'm Glen Weldon.

1 statistical   

adj.统计的，统计学的

参考例句：

• He showed the price fluctuations in a statistical table.他用统计表显示价格的波动。
• They're making detailed statistical analysis.他们正在做具体的统计分析。

2 analyze   

vt.分析，解析 (=analyse)

参考例句：

• We should analyze the cause and effect of this event.我们应该分析这场事变的因果。
• The teacher tried to analyze the cause of our failure.老师设法分析我们失败的原因。

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 crunched   

v.嘎吱嘎吱地咬嚼( crunch的过去式和过去分词 )；嘎吱作响；（快速大量地）处理信息；数字捣弄

参考例句：

• Our feet crunched on the frozen snow. 我们的脚嘎吱嘎吱地踩在冻雪上。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He closed his jaws on the bones and crunched. 他咬紧骨头，使劲地嚼。 来自英汉文学 - 热爱生命

5 cliche   

n./a.陈词滥调(的)；老生常谈(的)；陈腐的

参考例句：

• You should always try to avoid the use of cliche. 你应该尽量避免使用陈词滥调。
• The old cliche is certainly true:the bigger car do mean bigger profits.有句老话倒的确说得不假:车大利大。

6 stark   

adj.荒凉的；严酷的；完全的；adv.完全地

参考例句：

• The young man is faced with a stark choice.这位年轻人面临严峻的抉择。
• He gave a stark denial to the rumor.他对谣言加以完全的否认。

7 frightful   

adj.可怕的；讨厌的

参考例句：

• How frightful to have a husband who snores!有一个发鼾声的丈夫多讨厌啊！
• We're having frightful weather these days.这几天天气坏极了。

8 alibi   

n.某人当时不在犯罪现场的申辩或证明；借口

参考例句：

• Do you have any proof to substantiate your alibi? 你有证据表明你当时不在犯罪现场吗？
• The police are suspicious of his alibi because he already has a record.警方对他不在场的辩解表示怀疑，因为他已有前科。