TED演讲:短信是语言杀手(4)

 And that's where texting comes in.  这时短信就出现了。

And so, texting is very loose in its structure.  所以，短信在结构上非常松散。

No one thinks about capital letters or punctuation¹ when one texts,  没有人在写短信的时候在乎大写字母或者标点，

but then again, do you think about those things when you talk?  话说回来，你在说话的时候也会想到这些东西吗？

No, and so therefore why would you when you were texting?  不, 那么为什么要在写短信的时候这样做呢？

What texting is, despite the fact that it involves the brute² mechanics of something that we call writing,  除了与用手操作的书面文字表达有关外，短信其实就是一种指语。

is fingered speech. That's what texting is.  这就是短信。

Now we can write the way we talk.  现在我们可以像说话一样打字。

And it's a very interesting thing, but nevertheless easy to think that still it represents some sort of decline. 这是非常有趣的事情，尽管人们很容易认为短信的出现象征着一种倒退。

We see this general bagginess³ of the structure,  我们看到短信在结构上的松散，

the lack of concern with rules and the way that we're used to learning on the blackboard, and so we think that something has gone wrong. 缺乏一定的规则，和我们习惯在黑板上学习的方式不同，我们就想当然的认为出问题了。

It's a very natural sense.  这么想也很自然。

But the fact of the matter is that what is going on is a kind of emergent complexity⁴. 但事实上，它其实是自然而然产生的，并具有一定的复杂性。

That's what we're seeing in this fingered speech.  这就是我们在这种指语上看到的。

And in order to understand it, what we want to see is the way, in this new kind of language, 为了更好的理解它，我们想要看到的是，在这种新的语言中，

there is new structure coming up.  它其实是具有一种新的结构。

And so, for example, there is in texting a convention,  比如说，在短信里有这样一个习惯用语，

which is LOL.  就是LOL。

Now LOL, we generally think of as meaning "laughing out loud. 我们通常认为LOL的意思是捧腹大笑。

And of course, theoretically, it does,  当然，从理论上看，它确实是这个意思，

and if you look at older texts, then people used it to actually indicate laughing out loud. 如果我们看看过去的一些短信，人们确实用它来表示笑的很开心。

But if you text now, or if you are someone who is aware of the substrate of texting the way it's become, 但是对于现在的短信，或者你很注意短信从根本上是怎么出现的，

you'll notice that LOL does not mean laughing out loud anymore.  你就会注意到LOL不再意味着捧腹大笑了。

1 punctuation   

n.标点符号，标点法

参考例句：

• My son's punctuation is terrible.我儿子的标点符号很糟糕。
• A piece of writing without any punctuation is difficult to understand.一篇没有任何标点符号的文章是很难懂的。

2 brute   

n.野兽，兽性

参考例句：

• The aggressor troops are not many degrees removed from the brute.侵略军简直象一群野兽。
• That dog is a dangerous brute.It bites people.那条狗是危险的畜牲，它咬人。

3 bagginess   

n.多臭虫

参考例句：

4 complexity   

n.复杂(性)，复杂的事物

参考例句：

• Only now did he understand the full complexity of the problem.直到现在他才明白这一问题的全部复杂性。
• The complexity of the road map puzzled me.错综复杂的公路图把我搞糊涂了。