On Writing Well 11.16

一 words and expressions

1. They will trot out the hard-won words of their college education

trot out: 复提出，反复说（陈旧的观点或过时的信息）If you say that a person trots out old ideas or information, you are criticizing him or her for repeating them in a way that is not new or interesting.

2. the temptation to make a name at the expense of some talentless ham is too strong for all but the most saintly.

ham: C informal an actor who performs with too much false emotion演技做作的演员，表演过火的演员

3. Florid adjectives smack of the panting prose with which Vogue likes to disclose its latest chichi discovery

smack of: 令人想起;类似于;含有…的意味If one thing smacks of another thing that you consider bad, it reminds you of it or is like it.

The engineers' union was unhappy with the motion, saying it smacked of racism.                    工程师联盟对这项提议感到很不满，称该提议有点种族主义的味道。

4. Therefore if you want to be a critic, steep yourself in the literature of the medium you hope to make your specialty.

steep sth/sb in sth

■If something or someone is steeped in something, they are completely surrounded by or involved in it, or they know a lot about it使沉浸于；使深深浸入；使精通

5. her greatest being the wife of the plantation owner in The Letter who murders her treacherous lover in cold blood

treacherous: A person who is treacherous deceives someone who trusts them, or has no loyalty（人）不忠的，背信弃义的

二 thoughts

A distinction should therefore be made between a “critic” and a “reviewer.”As a reviewer your job is more to report than to make an aesthetic judgment. You are the deputy for the average man or woman who wants to know. 

这里简单区分了reviewer和critic。critic 较 reviewer需要更多美学上评判。

One is that critics should like—or, better still, love—the medium they are reviewing.

Another rule is: don’t give away too much of the plot. Tell readers just enough to let them decide whether it’s the kind of story they tend to enjoy, but not so much that you’ll kill their enjoyment.

这就是我们常说的不要剧透。作为一个好的critic，应该时刻谨记这点。

A third principle is to use specific detail.

A final caution is to avoid the ecstatic adjectives that occupy such disproportionate space in every critic’s quiver—words like “enthralling” and “luminous.”

为了向读者展示一些艺术作品的魅力，可以描写一些细节。（但这并不等于剧透）

最后一点也很重要，要避免大篇幅使用ecstatic adjectives