2. 外语
  3. Language is, and should be, a living thing, constantly enriched with new words and forms of expression. But there is a vital dis

Language is, and should be, a living thing, constantly enriched with new words and forms of expression. But there is a vital dis

admin2014-03-22  90
问题     Language is, and should be, a living thing, constantly enriched with new words and forms of expression. But there is a vital distinction between good developments, which add to the language, enabling us to say things we could not say before, and bad developments, which subtract from the language by rendering it less precise. A vivacious(有生气的), colourful use of words is not to be confused with mere slovenliness(不修边幅). The kind of slovenliness in which some professionals deliberately indulge is perhaps akin(性质相同)to the cult of the unfinished work, which has eroded most of the arts in our time. And the true answer to it is the same — that art is enhanced, not hindered, by discipline. You cannot carve satisfactorily in butter.
    The corruption of written English has been accompanied by an even sharper decline in the standard of spoken English. We speak very much less well than was common among educated Englishmen a generation or two ago. The modern theatre has played a baneful(不良的)part in dimming our appreciation of language. Instead of the immensely articulate dialogue of, for example, Shaw(who was also very insistent on good pronunciation), audiences are now subjected to streams of barely literate trivia, often designed, only too well to exhibit "lack of communication", and larded with the obscenities and grammatical errors of the intellectually impoverished. Emily Post once advised her reader: "The theatre is the best possible place to hear correctly-enunciated speech." Alas, no more. One young actress was recently reported to be taking lessons in how to speak badly, so that she should fit in better.
    But the BBC is the worst traitor. After years of very successfully helping to raise the general standard of spoken English, it suddenly went into reverse. As the head of the Pronunciation Unit Covly put it, "In the 1960s the BBC opened the field to a much wider range of speakers". To hear a BBC disc jockey talking to the latest apelike pop idol is a truly shocking experience of verbal squalor. And the prospect seems to be of even worse to come. School teachers are actively encouraged to ignore little Johnny’s incoherent grammar, atrocious spelling and haphazard punctuation, because worrying about such things might inhibit his creative genius.
The writer relates linguistic slovenliness to tendencies in the arts today in that______.
选项 A、both appear to shun perfection
B、both occasionally aim at a certain fluidity
C、both may make use of economical short cuts
D、both from time to time show a regard for the finishing touch
答案A
解析 首段倒数第三句指出随意英语和当代艺术的共同之处：狂热追求不完美(the cult ofthe unfinished work)，故A)为答案。B)和C)在原文中未提及；D)与文意相悖。选项中的finishing touch意为“最后一笔”。
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