心得-学好英语不容易

by Dave Barry

THE BASIC RULES OF BUSINESS GRAMMAR

1. USE THE WORD "TRANSPIRE" A LOT.

*Wrong: The dog barked.
*Right: What transpired was, the dog barked.
*Even Better: A barking of the dog transpired.

2. ALSO USE "PARAMETER."

*Wrong: Employees should not throw paper towels into the toilet.
*Right: Employees should not throw paper towels into the parameters of the toilet.

3. ALWAYS FOLLOW THE PHRASE "TED AND" WITH THE WORD "MYSELF."

*Wrong: Ted and I think the pump broke.
*Right: Ted and myself think the pump broke.
Even better: It is the opinion of Ted and myself that a breakage of the pump transpired.

4. IF SOMETHING IS FOLLOWING SOMETHING ELSE, ALWAYS LET THE READER KNOW IN ADVANCE VIA THE WORDS: "THE FOLLOWING."

*Wrong: We opened up the pump and found a dead bat.
*Right: We opened up the pump and found the following: a dead bat.

5. ALWAYS STRESS THAT WHEN YOU TOLD SOMEBODY SOMETHING, YOU DID IT VERBALLY.

*Wrong: I told him.
*Right: I told him verbally.

6. NEVER SPLIT AN INFINITIVE.
An infinitive is a phrase that has a "to" at the beginning, such as "Today, I am going to start my diet." You should not split such a phrase with another word, as in "Today, I am definitely going to start my diet," because it makes you sound insecure about it. It sounds like you know darned well you'll be hitting the pecan fudge before sundown.

7. NEVER END A SENTENCE WITH A PREPOSTION.
Prepositions are words like "with," "into," "on," "off," "exacerbate," etc. The reason you should never end a sentence with one is that you would be violating a rule of grammar.

*Wrong: Youse better be here with the ransom money, on account we don't want to have to hack nobody's limbs off.
*Right: ... on account we don't want to have to hack off nobody's limbs.
*Even better: ... on account we don't want to have to hack off nobody's limbs with a chain saw.

8. AVOID DANGLING PARTICIPLES.
A participle is the letters "ing" at the end of words like "extenuating." You want to avoid having it "dangle" down and disrupt the sentence underneath:

There appear to be some extenuati circumstances.
n
Ted and myself feel that these g Hey! Get that participle out of
here!!

注：Dave Barry 是挺有名的幽默作家。我最喜欢了