出处: Seth's Blog http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/ 第一次翻译，以後也打算继续练习，希望各位前辈有所指点 文末有一些自己都很不确定的翻译问题，请高手鞭策，谢谢!! Should you teach the world a new word? Posted by Seth Godin on February 22, 2014 你该教这个世界一个新的词吗? A long time ago, I was a "book packager." I didn't actually make the package that books came in... I was a producer of books, the way someone might produce a movie. Sometimes I wrote them, too. 在很久以前，我是个包装书的人。我不是真的在做书的包装，我是生产书的人，就像那些 制造电影的人一样。有时候我也会写书。 What a confusion this name causes. When people asked what I did, my job title gave them too much (too little) information. I should have just told non-industry people I was an author. 这个名称带来了一些混淆。当有人问起我是做什麽时候，我的职称给他们太多(或太少)资 讯，我应该告诉那些工业界以外的人说我是个作家。 Innovation involves making something that hasn't been made before, and one way to signal that you're doing something new is to give it a new name. But often, the new name gets in the way of people experiencing what you have to offer. 创新牵涉到做出某些东西是过去从未出现过的，而标示出你做了某些全新的东西的一个方 法就是给他一个新的名字。但经常，一个新的名字会让人有期待於你必须提供些什麽。 The iPhone isn't really a phone, it's actually not a very good phone at all, but calling it a phone made it easy for people to put it into a category. The category was expanded by the behavior of the iPhone, and now "phone" means something far more than it used to. "What do you mean your phone can't tell me how far away the diner is?" Of course, this was an absurd thing to expect from a phone not very long ago. iPhone并不完全是个电话，事实上他一点也不是个好的电话，但是称她为一支电话会比较 容易让人替这个产品分类。电话这个类别因为iPhone可以产生的行为而延伸，到现在「电 话」代表的意义比他以前代表的多了更多。「你说你的电话不能告诉我餐厅还有多远是什 麽意思?」当然，在很久以前期待一支手机可以做出这件事是一件非常荒谬的事情。 Mario Batali calls himself a chef, but of course he rarely if ever sets up in a kitchen and cooks meals for strangers at minimum wage. But chef is a lot easier and simpler than a whole bunch of hyphens. Mario Batali 称他自己为厨师，但是他当然不仅仅是个拿着最低薪资在厨房里煮饭给陌 生人吃的家伙，但是「厨师」比一大堆连字号要来的简单明了多了。 Your job might be like no other one like it in the world, but that doesn't mean you need a new job title. The short version: if you can happily succeed while filling an existing niche, it's far easier than insisting that people invent a new category for you. On the other hand, if you need (and can earn) a new category, that's a shortcut to becoming a category of one. 你的工作或许独一无二，但这不代表你需要一个新的职称。简单来说，你可以很快乐且成 功地塞进一个令人兴奋的壁橱里时，比你坚持要人们为你创造一个新的类别要容易多了。 此外，如果你希望(并且可以得到)有一个新的类别，是有一个捷径去成为一个独特的 类别的。 Choose a new name when it helps you achieve your goals, not because you're worried about some truth-in-taxonomy commission giving you a hassle. 选择一个可以帮你达成目标的新名字，不是因为你担心什麽「分类学真理委员会」会找你 麻烦。 (One more example: Tweet is a new word, a risk because it might have been rejected. In the opposite direction, Facebook took a big risk with the words, 'like' and 'friend' because they redefined them to mean something new, something a bit different. It paid off, certainly, but not without some thin ice. It doesn't matter if you're right, it matters if you are understood.) (还有一个例子，Tweet是一个新的词，它的风险是可能不被接受；另一方面，Facebook里 面使用的字也承担着巨大的风险，「赞」和「好友」，他们重新定义并改变了这两个字的 原始意义。可以肯定的是，他成功了，但也不是这麽轻而易举。你是否正确并不重要，重 要的是你能不能够被理解。) 1. the new name gets in the way of people experiencing what you have to offer. 一个新名字跟你提供的服务会给人们产生什麽样的经验?还是人们会依据过去的经验来想 像你该是什麽样子? 不太清楚这句的文意 2. On the other hand, if you need (and can earn) a new category, that's a shortcut to becoming a category of one. 不太清楚这里的"that's"是指上文所述，还是下文即将提供意见。 one该怎麽翻才好? 3. It paid off, certainly, but not without some thin ice. 不太理解thin ice所代表的意义，就是薄冰吗? 感谢各位前辈指教!! --

※ 发信站: 批踢踢实业坊(ptt.cc) ◆ From: 1.169.250.59