美国国家公共电台 NPR 'Nabokov's Favorite Word Is Mauve' Crunches The (Literary) Numbers
时间：2018-12-17 作者：英语课 分类：2017年NPR美国国家公共电台4月
DAVID GREENE, HOST:
Bear with me because we're going to spend a minute or so talking about statistical 1 analysis, you know, the kind used to analyze 2 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, BYLINE 3: A statistician - his name is Ben Blatt - loaded thousands of novels into a huge database and crunched 4 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 cliche 5 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 stark 6 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. Frightful 7. Alibi 8.
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.
- 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。
- 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。
- 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。
- 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
- 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。
- 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。