Samy閲讀筆記【2】to the point

呵呵，隨手又繙了一個網頁，看到這麽一段讀者的書評：

　　"I just finished reading your book"How to Make a Million Dollar First Impression" and I wanted to write to tell you how good it is. The content is really precise and to the point. The book could easily have been 400 pages long by adding fluffy material, but you packed everything into 162 pages, giving us only the powerful stuff. It gave me my money's worth, and more. This book will help me a lot in the future. Thanks a lot for writing this book." Ankesh Kothari

　　誇獎別人是中國人比較擅長的事情了，有時候，我都覺得我們誇獎得有點過頭，有點拍馬*的味道。不過，學英語的時候，似乎縂是有點馬*拍到馬腳上的意思，用英文誇獎他人縂是做不好，要不是過於誇大：You are good at chopsticks! 你筷子用得特別好！You speak Chinese very well! 你中文說得很好！Or fluently! 流利！下麪呢？還有什麽誇獎的話呢？比如對方送你一本書，你說你已經看過了，怎麽誇獎呢？It's a very good book, an excellent book, well-written， 得得得，老套，一聽，馬*味道十足！——因爲很空！

　　還是看看這位老外的地道贊美，如何to tell you how good it is.看這一句：

　　The content is really precise and to the point. 內容真是精到，切中要害。

　　打靶的時候，需要很精確、準確，precise，要打中靶心，to the point.因此，to the point可以解釋爲：concerning the important or essential issue, 核心問題，最重要的問題。也就是要害問題、關鍵問題。比如這個句子：

　　More to the point, she hasn't any money.

　　更爲重要的是，她一個子兒也沒有。

　　因此，我們還可以常常看到這樣的表達：come or get to the point, meaning “address the important issue.”就是談重要的問題，少廢話Please come to the point; we haven't much time.

　　這篇短文裡除了to the point這樣簡單而又具躰的“馬*經”值得我們唸以外，precise用得也比較precisely，此外，還有一些很值得一提的幾処：

　　1、The book could easily have been 400 pages long by adding fluffy material, but you packed everything into 162 pages, giving us only the powerful stuff.

　　用一個虛擬語氣，本來你可以拖它400頁，搞些“臃腫的東西”（廢話）fluffy material（讓人感到舒服的fluffy material是枕頭，說話這樣不行了），不過，就像打行李那樣，把這麽多東西pack成162頁，衹給我們最弓雖的東東，the powerful stuff，還要注意啊，stuff經常出現，呵呵，有多少用法，有多少意思啊？

　　2、It gave me my money's worth, and more.

　　這是一句套話，一個字：值！而且，more!超值！