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BOCTAOE

我以前在介绍phishing的时候提到过Dilbert漫画。作者Scott Adams十分了得，除了漫画家的身份，他还是位作家，写过风格跟Dilbert系列相差十万八千里的God’s Debris和The Religion War。

去年十月底左右，Scott Adams也开始blog了。如果你还没有读过的话，赶紧过去看看吧！

不是说“老徐”不好，不过她的blog跟Adams的一比，实在是逊色太多了。Adams的文章不但幽默，而且有内容、有深度，看了之后可以学到东西。而且他很擅长和读者互动，拼写和语法也都做出了好榜样，连带着回帖的质量都很高（至少没有“沙发！”、“板凳！”之类的无聊回复）。绝对可以当新浪那些名人博客的示范。

当然，推荐他的blog还跟语言有关。他是个很擅长发明新词的家伙，突出的表现是他在blog里常用的BOCTAOE迅速流传开来，出现在大众的日常用语里。这个词是But Of Course There Are Obvious Exceptions的首字母，一般在大放厥词之后加上这么一句可以确保安全。比如：

Women are so shallow. They will never forgive you if you forget to bring her flowers or chocolate on Valentine’s Day. BOCTAOE. （女人真是肤浅。要是你在情人节那天忘了送花或者巧克力，她们绝对不原谅你。当然，不是所有女人都这样。）

Americans are extremely bad at mathematics. They will believe you if you say 500 is 30% more than 400. BOCTAOE. （美国人的数学奇差无比。如果你告诉他们500比400多了30%，他们会信你的。当然，不是所有美国人都这样。） *我在美国目睹的真实事件：两个成年人在讨论一道数学题。题目是：某某上个月的工资是400，这个月的工资是500，如果按照同样的比例上升，下个月的工资应该是多少？他们争论了好一阵子，其中一位两手叉腰，沮丧地说：“This is too hard! I give up!”

对于BOCTAOE的流行，Adams是这么说的：

On one hand, it’s fun to add words and phrases to the popular culture. But on the other, I can’t help feeling bad about bloating the overhead of an already wordy language. I’m worse than that guy who invented the phrase “on one hand, blah blah blah, but on the other hand blah blah blah.” I hate him. I also hate the guy who decided we should use three blahs when one would do nicely.

呵呵，幽默的本质显露无疑。他在后面又补充了一段：

Inventing words feels hypocritical because I believe we should trim the existing supply of redundant and unpleasant words. And when it comes to the following trio, I say we keep just one and get rid of the other two. I don’t care which one we keep. Having all three just begs trouble:

Their
There
They’re

放心，这绝对是玩笑话，讽刺对象是谁一目了然。还母语呢，真丢人。BOCTAOE.

Bous video: Kelly Clarkson - Walk Away

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 23rd, 2006 at 11:40 pm and is filed under Miscellany, Abbreviation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

17 Responses to “BOCTAOE”

sophia Says:
March 24th, 2006 at 3:11 am
Really want to check out his blog, but there’s no link here. Could you add one, thanks.

That way, it’s probably easier for us to enjoy his beautiful language.

Yan:

I did link to his blog. Just click on the word “blog” in this post. Or if you still can’t find it, here: http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/
snrsinica Says:
March 25th, 2006 at 12:45 am
其实我觉得老徐真不错。

Yan:

她的字很漂亮，性格我也喜欢，blog则一般啦。
amberocat Says:
March 25th, 2006 at 1:44 am
哈哈，这句挺像是先把人绊倒了再扶起来说，没关系……

Yan:

你常看Scott Adams的漫画就知道了，他最擅长这个，呵呵。
snrsinica Says:
March 25th, 2006 at 9:57 am
她的性格很漂亮，长得我也喜欢，字则一般啦（当然我这个眼高手低的家伙早就说过我写不出）。
至于blog这东西，我觉得能比得上您的不多，剩下我们大家彼此彼此吧。

Yan:

呵呵，能被你这么改编，很有面子。后面那句话更是让我受宠若惊。
漫彤 Says:
March 25th, 2006 at 10:32 am
因为要做关于Crash的英语presentation所以上网搜索，居然来到了这里~

很轻爽的blog，而且可以从你这里学到很有趣的英语，开心。

Yan:

Good luck with your presentation! And thanks for the compliment.
chugol Says:
March 25th, 2006 at 10:56 am
能不能介绍一下你觉得比较热门的英文网站或论坛，比较有助于了解美国社会最新热门话题和提高英文品味的。比如类似于中文的天涯、猫扑等论坛。

Yan:

好多人提过这事儿。等我整理一下，改天专门发篇帖子。
rvon Says:
March 25th, 2006 at 8:34 pm
I saw your blog’s link on a magzine that says your blog is more interesting than other blogs like yours this afternoon, so I wrote it down and came here.

My English is poor. I haven’t learnt English for a long time, but I want to take the chance to exercise my English.

Yan:

Mind telling me which magazine? I’m flattered.

I hope you have fun here.
lastsmoke Says:
March 25th, 2006 at 11:36 pm
Being a celebrity has so many advantages. They can easily make a hot blog.
sally Says:
March 27th, 2006 at 10:08 am
我不知道最后的讽刺对象是谁呀，能告诉答案吗？谢谢！

Yan:

连“他们的/那里/他们是”都不分的人。
Liz Says:
March 27th, 2006 at 12:54 pm
看了你的介绍后，立刻去访问了Adams的blog。有几个题目还真是让我如获至宝，比如说减肥的那篇（本人较丰满），开头满正经的，不过到后面才发现原来还是在说笑。

我本来自诩为数学白痴，通过你的描述了解到美国人的真实水平后，信心顿时倍增，继而觉得整个中华民族的前途也明亮起来。

不过像their，there，they’re这样的情形，与中国人在汉语方面所犯的一些错误也有可比性。比如说“的、地、得”的用法很多人都会混淆，以至于现在无论是报章杂志还是字典中，对这三个字的区分也不是那么明显了。

Yan:

的、地、得的问题同感。
rvon Says:
March 27th, 2006 at 9:48 pm
The magzine’s name is 周末画报. ^_^
Leo Says:
March 27th, 2006 at 11:33 pm
我從現在開始要學習怎麽使用blog，覺得自己像個傻瓜，什麽都不明白的說。
snrsinica Says:
March 28th, 2006 at 12:43 am
说到这里想起来，上周的Lost给高丽语打的英文字幕就把your打成了you’re；
更神奇的是，昨天晚上俺们的本地新闻居然讲出了这样的句子：
“He was not seriously hurted.” 我靠，播音员的脑袋被 hitted 了吧；
“The robbery took place on a bank.” 画面上出现的可是银行，不是河岸…

Yan:

哈，我就知道你看Lost。这是我当时的评论：这一集的后期制作人员该打，那个医生对Sun说“你老公”的时候，字幕竟然是“you’re husband”，到网上看看，果然，有N多人跟我一样气愤！

你们的本地新闻真强，我年轻了十岁哦。
snrsinica Says:
March 28th, 2006 at 7:16 am
嗬嗬，我感觉你本来就很年轻
再年轻十岁别一下变preteen了

Yan:

开玩笑吧？真中听。

我再年轻十岁也快脱离teen了，更甭提preteen了。
JZ Says:
March 30th, 2006 at 5:27 pm
他已经推出这个词的2.0版了，哈哈： BOCTAOE^100. That means But Of Course There Are Obvious Exceptions – to the hundredth power.

P.S. 这一篇的有关的评论也挺精彩。

Yan:

呵呵，我也看到了。

P.S. 你的P.S.有歧义。就当你在赞美我了。
lastsmoke Says:
April 2nd, 2006 at 2:51 pm
I followed it for a few days. It’s a great blog. Thanks!
qb Says:
April 5th, 2006 at 2:23 pm
“Mind telling me which magazine? I’m flattered.”

Let me tell you. It’s ah……Modern Weekly, a wonderful magazine.

Yan:

Yeah, the original poster already told me. I got a copy.

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