出處: Seth's Blog http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/ 第一次翻譯，以後也打算繼續練習，希望各位前輩有所指點 文末有一些自己都很不確定的翻譯問題，請高手鞭策，謝謝!! Should you teach the world a new word? Posted by Seth Godin on February 22, 2014 你該教這個世界一個新的詞嗎? 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，我是個包裝書的人。我不是真的在做書的包裝，我是生產書的人，就像那些 製造電影的人一樣。有時候我也會寫書。 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. 這個名稱帶來了一些混淆。當有人問起我是做什麼時候，我的職稱給他們太多(或太少)資 訊，我應該告訴那些工業界以外的人說我是個作家。 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. 創新牽涉到做出某些東西是過去從未出現過的，而標示出你做了某些全新的東西的一個方 法就是給他一個新的名字。但經常，一個新的名字會讓人有期待於你必須提供些什麼。 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並不完全是個電話，事實上他一點也不是個好的電話，但是稱她為一支電話會比較 容易讓人替這個產品分類。電話這個類別因為iPhone可以產生的行為而延伸，到現在「電 話」代表的意義比他以前代表的多了更多。「你說你的電話不能告訴我餐廳還有多遠是什 麼意思?」當然，在很久以前期待一支手機可以做出這件事是一件非常荒謬的事情。 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 稱他自己為廚師，但是他當然不僅僅是個拿著最低薪資在廚房裡煮飯給陌 生人吃的傢伙，但是「廚師」比一大堆連字號要來的簡單明瞭多了。 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. 你的工作或許獨一無二，但這不代表你需要一個新的職稱。簡單來說，你可以很快樂且成 功地塞進一個令人興奮的壁櫥裡時，比你堅持要人們為你創造一個新的類別要容易多了。 此外，如果你希望(並且可以得到)有一個新的類別，是有一個捷徑去成為一個獨特的 類別的。 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. 選擇一個可以幫你達成目標的新名字，不是因為你擔心什麼「分類學真理委員會」會找你 麻煩。 (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.) (還有一個例子，Tweet是一個新的詞，它的風險是可能不被接受；另一方面，Facebook裡 面使用的字也承擔著巨大的風險，「讚」和「好友」，他們重新定義並改變了這兩個字的 原始意義。可以肯定的是，他成功了，但也不是這麼輕而易舉。你是否正確並不重要，重 要的是你能不能夠被理解。) 1. the new name gets in the way of people experiencing what you have to offer. 一個新名字跟你提供的服務會給人們產生什麼樣的經驗?還是人們會依據過去的經驗來想 像你該是什麼樣子? 不太清楚這句的文意 2. On the other hand, if you need (and can earn) a new category, that's a shortcut to becoming a category of one. 不太清楚這裡的"that's"是指上文所述，還是下文即將提供意見。 one該怎麼翻才好? 3. It paid off, certainly, but not without some thin ice. 不太理解thin ice所代表的意義，就是薄冰嗎? 感謝各位前輩指教!! --

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