1 min read

对错误使用标点符号采取零容忍政策

一本老书了,企鹅版,Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation(by Lynne Truss, Penguin.com,2004 ),翻成中文可以叫成《吃、开枪然后离开:对误用标点符号采取零容忍政策》。Lynne Trune是一个专栏作家,她是一个对标点符号规则的严格遵守者。这个书名很好玩,有个故事,英文版见这本书的网页

A panda walks into a café. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I’m a panda," he says at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

So punctuation really does matter, even if it is only occasionally a matter of life and death.

大意:

一头大熊猫走进一家小餐馆,叫了一份三明治,吃完就扣动扳机,朝天开了枪,然后离开(Eats, Shoots & Leaves)。

侍者大为不解。大熊猫向侍应扔出一本野生动物手册,其中标点符号错漏百出,把大熊猫的饮食习惯eats shoots and leaves(吃嫩枝和叶子)写成eats, shoots and leaves(吃﹑开枪然后离开),呵呵。

    <p>
       有兴趣的朋友可以去google book search看这本书。当然这本书的网站<a title="http://eatsshootsandleaves.com/" href="http://eatsshootsandleaves.com/">http://eatsshootsandleaves.com/</a>也包含大量有趣的东西,其中有<a href="http://eatsshootsandleaves.com/ESLquiz.html">一个标点符号的在线小游戏</a>以及一份<a href="http://eatsshootsandleaves.com/eslguide.pdf">关于本书的22页的介绍</a>。
    </p>

    <p>
      关于零容忍政策。零容忍政策最先见于司法领域,大概就是对哪怕轻微的犯罪活动也要无情打击残酷镇压(更多可以参见北大法学院王世洲、刘淑珺合写的《<a href="http://www.51dh.net/magazine/html/286/286901.htm">零容忍政策探析</a>》)。很多人认为上世纪就是年代纽约犯罪数量的减少跟纽约警方大力推行的零容忍政策有关,不过上次我介绍的<a href="http://panshanghu.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!48FF0CB3CA580A89!1432.entry">列维特</a>在《魔鬼经济学》第四章里批驳的就是这种观点。
    </p>