说点脏话也无妨

I gave a TEDx talk organised by London Business School a few weeks ago. I did not think it went particularly well — all the faffing and rehearsing that TED demands had the effect of making me a cheesy, stilted version of myself. As I skulked offstage, an MBA student came up to me in a state of great excitement. “That was awesome!” he said. I demurred but he went on: “I couldn’t believe you said that!”

几周前，我参加了伦敦商学院(LBS)组织的一次TEDx大会并发表了演讲。我自己觉得那次演讲效果并不是特别好——所有那些按要求进行的瞎忙活和排练只让我在台上变得做作生硬。当我在台下偷偷摸摸地走着的时候，一位极度兴奋的MBA学员来到我面前。“那样讲棒极了！”他说。我表示不赞同，但他接着说：“我简直不敢相信你居然说了那个词！”

This was puzzling, given I had just spent 18 minutes giving a motherhood-and-apple-pie talk about why I was junking journalism to be a maths teacher. Then he explained: “You said the word bullshit! In a TED talk!”

他的话有点费解，因为在那18分钟里我谈论的东西应该是大家喜闻乐见的，关于我为什么要放弃记者生涯，成为一名数学老师。然后他解释说：“你说了‘bullshit’（狗屎，瞎扯淡）这个词！在一场TED演讲里！”

We stared at each other in mutual amazement. He was shocked at my use of the word. I was shocked at his shock.

我们大眼瞪小眼，双方都很震惊。他震惊于我用了那个词，而我震惊于他的震惊。

To me bullshit is not a swear word: it is my meat and potatoes. It is what I have written about for decades. I use the word because there is none other that does the trick. I suppose I could say “nonsense” instead, but that would be a euphemism. And euphemism is almost always bullshit.

对我来说，“bullshit”不是脏话：这是我的基本用语。这是我在几十年的写作中的用词。我用这个词，是因为没有别的词可以达到同样的效果。理论上我可以换用“nonsense”（胡扯），但那就是婉约的说法了。而婉约说法几乎都是狗屎。

Yet recently I have noticed something odd is happening. The corporate world, despite producing bullshit in ever greater amounts, is increasingly prudish about the word itself. When I wrote a column on how to spot bullshit, a reader posted underneath: “I object to using BS (spelt out) in a daily newspaper, especially one as esteemed as the FT. These points can be made just as well without scatological language.”

然而，最近我注意到有些怪事正在发生。尽管出产了与日俱增的废话，企业界对这个词却日益谈之色变，大惊小怪。我曾经写过一篇论如何发现狗屁不通的废话的专栏文章，一名读者在下方评论：“我反对在一份日报上使用“BS”（bullshit的缩写）这个词，尤其是在像英国《金融时报》这样受到尊敬的报纸上。不使用脏话也能表达这些观点。”

A surprisingly large number of Financial Times readers recommended the message.

给这条信息点赞的FT读者数目大的惊人。

Equally, when Travis Kalanick banged another nail in his own coffin by getting caught on camera yelling at an Uber driver, the headlines were about his swearing. He said the dread word “bullshit” at least three times, but his real offence was that he refused to listen to the financial woes of the driver, preferring to jab his finger and shout in an obnoxious fashion.

同样的，当特拉维斯?卡兰尼克(Travis Kalanick)又一次自掘坟墓，被人拍到冲着一位优步(Uber)司机大喊大叫的时候，各大报纸头条都是关于他爆粗口的事情。他说了那个恶劣的词——“bullshit”——至少3次，但他真正的过错是拒绝倾听那名司机的经济困境，宁可用手指戳着对方，以一种令人反感的方式叫嚷。

My all-time favourite story of misplaced prudery over swearing comes from Goldman Sachs. During the financial crisis a leaked internal email described one of its mortgage-backed securities as “one shitty deal”. The bank’s response? An anti-swearing policy, which meant henceforth employees would be protected from language that might upset them.

关于对脏话不知所谓的假正经，一直以来我最爱的故事来自高盛(Goldman Sachs)。在金融危机期间，一封外泄的邮件称高盛的一只抵押支持债券是“屎一样的买卖”。高盛的回应呢？出台一项反粗口政策，这意味着从此以后高盛的员工将被保护起来，任何可能惹恼他们的话都不会落入他们的耳朵里。

While companies become more priggish, the evidence mounts that swearing at work is something we should be encouraging. I have just been sent an advance copy of Swearing is Good for You: the Amazing Science of Bad Language by Emma Byrne, an impressive catalogue of research showing how effing and blinding helps us deal with pain, bond with others, is associated with intelligence and makes us more inclined to trust each other.

尽管企业变得更加自命清高，越来越多的证据表明，我们应该鼓励在工作中说脏话。最近我拿到了一本埃玛?伯恩(Emma Byrne)的《说脏话对你有益：脏话的奇妙科学》(Swearing is Good for You: the Amazing Science of Bad Language)先行版。这本令人印象深刻的著作列举了一系列研究，表明说脏话能帮助我们应对伤痛和与他人拉近关系，不仅与智力相关，还能让我们更倾向于信任彼此。

It is a glorious, uplifting read, but I do not think it quite gets to the heart of it. My own research shows how swearing can help you be more successful by getting your point across and having your own way. I have just searched the 41,000 emails in my FT inbox for the word fuck and got 146 results. Most were from friends and colleagues engaging in banter, yet the few that came from strangers used expletives to great effect. One man emailed asking for my help on something with a message that began: “Your podcasts are fucking fantastic.” The addition of the swear word slowed me down, made me judge the outrageous flattery to be sincere and tricked me into saying yes.

这是一本值得称道和令人振奋的书，但我不认为这本书说到了点子上。我自己的研究表明，说脏话能够帮助你更成功，因为它不仅有助传达你的观点，并且还能让你达成自身所求。我搜索了我的工作邮箱收件箱里的41000封电子邮件，里面有146个“fuck”。其中大多数是朋友和同事在开玩笑时说的，然而少数几个陌生人把这个词用到了极致。一位希望我在某件事上帮助他的人是这样给邮件开头的：“你的播客真是他妈的棒极了。”这句脏话让我放慢了阅读速度，并且让我得出这种“别具一格”的恭维是真诚的，这诱使我答应了他的请求

In another, a reader forwarded a message that he had received from a McKinsey consultant that ended “Bests”. “Who the fuck says ‘bests’?” the reader wrote. Once again, I paid attention, laughed and put it in my bullshit cupboard with a view to giving it a prize.

另外一封邮件里，一位读者转发了他从一位麦肯锡(McKinsey)咨询师那里收到的邮件，那封邮件以“Bests”（致以最美好的祝愿）结尾。“谁他妈的会说‘bests’？”这位读者写道。我再一次报以关注，大笑起来，然后把这一条放到我的“狗屎收藏”中，心里想着我得给它评个奖。

Just in case anyone priggish is reading this, I ought to end with something obvious. Context is all. Swearing is only recommended for people who are amiable and know how to communicate. It should never be used by those who are nasty or angry.

以防万一，如果本文的读者里有一本正经的人士，我必须得用一些显而易见的事情来给这篇文章收尾。语境是重点。粗口只推荐给那些平和友善，知道如何沟通的人。那些不友好或者愤怒的人绝对不宜说脏话。

Among the messages in my collection was one from a man who had taken exception to something I had written. His stream of obscenities deserved to be deleted unread, but I have kept it as evidence that swearing can still hurt and disgust — when it is used with just that intention.

搜索结果中还有一条来自一位强烈反对我写的某篇文章的男士。他的邮件满篇都是污言秽语，我其实可以完全不看，直接删除，但我还是保留了这封邮件，这是一个证据，证明说脏话依然有可能带来伤害，引人反胃——当一个人说脏话就是抱着这种意图的时候。