一 words and expressions
1. Clutter is the laborious phrase that has pushed out the short word that means the same thing.
laborious: 耗时费力的；辛苦的；艰难的If you describe a task or job as laborious, you mean that it takes a lot of time and effort
2. he blunts the painful edge of truth.
blunt: to make a feeling less strong减弱
3. Clutter is political correctness gone amok.
amok: to get out of control and cause a lot of problems失控
4. and justifying its vast budgets on the need for “counterforce deterrence.
deterrent: something that makes someone less likely to do something, by making them realize it will be difficult or have bad results制止物，威慑物，威慑力量
5. Orwell’s warning that clutter is not just a nuisance but a deadly tool has come true in the recent decades of American military adventurism.
nuisance: something or someone that annoys you or causes trouble for you恼人的事物（或人）；麻烦的事物（或人）
6. Verbal camouflage reached new heights during General Alexander Haig’s tenure as President Reagan’s secretary of state.
camouflage：something that is meant to hide something, or behavior that is intended to hide the truth掩饰；伪装；隐瞒
7. We must push this to a lower decibel of public fixation.
decibel：a unit for measuring the loudness of sound分贝（衡量声音强度的单位）
fixation：a very strong interest in or love for someone or something, that is not natural or healthy痴迷，不正常的依恋，固执的偏爱 [+on / with / about]
8. They are all weeds that will smother what you write.
smother：to completely cover the whole surface of something with something else, often in a way that seems unnecessary or unpleasant完全覆盖
9. Just as insidious are all the word clusters with which we explain how we propose to go about our explaining
insidious：an insidious change or problem spreads gradually without being noticed, and causes serious harm〔变化或问题〕暗中为害的，不知不觉间加剧的
10. we not all stupefied by what follows when someone says
stupefy：使震惊;使惊呆;使惊愕;使神志不清If something stupefies you, it shocks or surprises you so much that you cannot think properly for a while.
11. But these are writers who spent years learning their craft, and when at last they raised their fanciful turrets and hanging gardens
fanciful：imagined rather than based on facts – often used to show disapproval想象的，空想的，幻想的〔常含贬义〕
12. —to embellish the plain words so that readers will recognize you as someone special.
embellish：to make something more beautiful or interesting by adding something to it装饰，修饰；给…锦上添花，渲染
13. You think how august it will look in print.
august：impressive and respected威严的，尊严的，庄严的
14. casting about for grand phrases that wouldn’t occur to you if you weren’t trying so hard to make an impression, you plunge in.
plunge into ：suddenly experience a difficult or unpleasant situation, or to make someone or something do this（使某人/某物）陷入（遭受）某种情况
15. before they have grappled with the discipline of assessing a work on its merits and on external sources.
grapple with ：to try hard to deal with or understand something difficult尽力解决，设法理解〔某困难问题〕:
16. “I” can be a self-indulgence and a cop-out.
cop-out：a way of avoiding doing something difficult or unpleasant that you should do, or the excuse that you use to do this逃避，回避；借口
17. Style is tied to the psyche, and writing has deep psychological roots.
psyche：the mind, or the deepest thoughts, feelings or beliefs of a person or group心灵；精神；心态
18. You might want to talk to the reader in the casual voice that The New Yorker has strenuously refined.
strenuous：needing or using a lot of physical or mental effort or energy费力的，费劲的；繁重的；耗费精力的
19. It’s hard to know where to begin picking from his trove of equivocal statements
equivocal：if you are equivocal, you are deliberately unclear in the way that you give information or your opinion〔所给的信息或意见〕模棱两可的，含糊的
二 thoughts
今天读的是第三章和第四章。
第三章是Clutter，在本章的末尾作者讲到
You can develop the same eye. Look for the clutter in your writing and prune it ruthlessly. Be grateful for everything you can throw away. Reexamine each sentence you put on paper. Is every word doing new work? Can any thought be expressed with more economy? Is anything pompous or pretentious or faddish? Are you hanging on to something useless just because you think it’s beautiful?
Simplify, simplify.
我在写作时就存在这个问题。最近在写一个presentation的演说文稿，规定的时长是两分钟，可是我的演讲文稿以很快的语速读完都得3分钟。一开始我以为是因为我准备的太充分了，读了几遍发现，发现有一些信息是clutter，经过我再三的rewrite，文稿就显得清爽了很多。
第四章是Style，作者在其中提到：
Writing is an act of ego, and you might as well admit it. Use its energy to keep yourself going.
这章使我意识到我之前自以为的良好鲜明的风格有可能是clutter。不是说不能有风格，而是要明白，风格是建立在传情达意的基础上的。
