Samy阅读笔记【2】to the point

呵呵，随手又翻了一个网页，看到这么一段读者的书评：

　　"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

　　夸奖别人是中国人比较擅长的事情了，有时候，我都觉得我们夸奖得有点过头，有点拍马*的味道。不过，学英语的时候，似乎总是有点马*拍到马脚上的意思，用英文夸奖他人总是做不好，要不是过于夸大：You are good at chopsticks! 你筷子用得特别好！You speak Chinese very well! 你中文说得很好！Or fluently! 流利！下面呢？还有什么夸奖的话呢？比如对方送你一本书，你说你已经看过了，怎么夸奖呢？It's a very good book, an excellent book, well-written， 得得得，老套，一听，马*味道十足！——因为很空！

　　还是看看这位老外的地道赞美，如何to tell you how good it is.看这一句：

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

　　打靶的时候，需要很精确、准确，precise，要打中靶心，to the point.因此，to the point可以解释为：concerning the important or essential issue, 核心问题，最重要的问题。也就是要害问题、关键问题。比如这个句子：

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

　　更为重要的是，她一个子儿也没有。

　　因此，我们还可以常常看到这样的表达：come or get to the point, meaning “address the important issue.”就是谈重要的问题，少废话Please come to the point; we haven't much time.

　　这篇短文里除了to the point这样简单而又具体的“马*经”值得我们念以外，precise用得也比较precisely，此外，还有一些很值得一提的几处：

　　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.

　　用一个虚拟语气，本来你可以拖它400页，搞些“臃肿的东西”（废话）fluffy material（让人感到舒服的fluffy material是枕头，说话这样不行了），不过，就像打行李那样，把这么多东西pack成162页，只给我们最弓虽的东东，the powerful stuff，还要注意啊，stuff经常出现，呵呵，有多少用法，有多少意思啊？

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

　　这是一句套话，一个字：值！而且，more!超值！