二十一世纪英文报·初三版 676期

《Is this new internet trend clever wordplay or just a lot of ‘nonsense’?》

“废话文学”是啥？

Sounds like nonsense(废话)? Yes. These sentences look like they make sense, but they actually express little useful information. They are part of a recent internet sentence-making craze (热潮) called “nonsense literature”.

上面这些是不是看起来很像废话？没错，这些句子看起来像是有意义的，但实际上它们几乎没表达什么有用的信息。它们是近年来互联网造句热潮中的一种，被称为“废话文学”。

“Nonsense literature” was originally invented by internet users to make fun of the empty, fussy and redundant (累赘的) writing style often used by media and celebrities. Like any good internet joke, it became a popular word game. Plenty of “nonsense” has been created. 

“Every time I don’t know what to say, I don’t know what to say.” 

“Listening to your words is like listening to words.”

“废话文学”最初是由网友创造的，目的是为了讽刺那些写作风格空洞、繁琐、冗余的媒体和名人。和其他网络笑话一样，“废话文学”逐渐流行成为了一种文字游戏。大家创造出了各种各样的“废话”，例如：“每次我不知道该说什么时，我就不知道该说什么。”、“听君一席话，如听一席话。”

Some even said that famous writers like Lu Xun used the style. For example, they said, Lu Xun once wrote: There are two trees in my backyard. One is a jujube (枣) tree, and the other is also a jujube tree.

有些人甚至觉得，像鲁迅这样的著名作家也曾用过这样的表达手法。比如，他们说鲁迅曾经写过：我家的后院有两棵树，一棵是枣树，另一棵也是枣树。

图源：包图网

Is it true? Not really. Repetition in writing is not necessarily “nonsense literature”. Lu Xun’s writing on the jujube trees comes from a piece of his prose (散文). If you have read it, as well as understanding his time of writing, you’d find these repeated lines are powerful, showing that the author was frustrated (挫败) by social reality.

然而，事实真的如他们所说的那样吗？也不一定。要知道，写作中的重复不一定是我们所说的“废话文学”。这句话出自鲁迅的散文《秋夜》，如果你读过这篇散文，也对该文章的背景有所了解，我们就会知道这些看似重复的语句蕴含着巨大的能量，表达了作者对于社会现实感到挫败。

实际上，“废话”和“文学”是两个矛盾的词。废话是荒唐和无用的，很快就会被大家遗忘。但是文学是有艺术价值的作品，是一种值得传承的精神遗产。

Internet crazes like “nonsense literature” might amuse you for a while. But they will soon disappear. Don’t throw yourself into it. Read some real literature. It will help us stop talking nonsense.

像“废话文学”这样的互联网热潮可能会让你感到一时的好玩儿，但它们很快就会失去热度，所以不要沉溺其中。多去读一些真正的文学作品吧，它会让我们谈吐更有内涵。

图源：包图网

实习编辑：王子怡

责任编辑：魏浩兰 王雪辰