Great Sentences 佛老英文好句欣赏：008 一个奇特又超简单的修辞法
今天跟你分享的句子是：
I hated sports, and I hated people who played them, and I hated people who watched them, and I hated people who didn’t hate people who watched or played them.
– John Green, “Looking For Alaska”
这句话好在哪里？
你再念一遍，念得稍微快一点，然后我再讲。
感觉怎么样？这句话是不是听着特别贫？有点绕，有点黏？
的确有点，而且后半句还有点刻意的痕迹，对吧。这是作家有意制造的一种语言效果。
这句话最不寻常的特点是什么？
有三个and.
你再看一遍，不用读出来，找一下句子里的三个and.
按照正常的英文文法，and和or这种连词一般只用在并列的最后一项前面。这句话正常写的话应该是这样的（下面我把原句和正常语法句放在一起，你看一下）：
作者原句：
I hated sports, and I hated people who played them, and I hated people who watched them, and I hated people who didn’t hate people who watched or played them.
正常文法：I hated sports, I hated people who played them, I hated people who watched them, and I hated people who didn’t hate people who watched or played them.
按照正常的英文文法，只需要用一个and，前两个and都是多余的。
但是，作者在不需要用and的地方都用了and，制造了一种独特的语言效果，使语气格外连绵急迫，目的是加重说话人“抱怨”的口气。你再念一遍，是不是感觉到了说话人真的很hate体育？那是真恨呐。
这种用法在英文修辞中有个专门的术语：polysyndeton 连词叠用（repetition of conjunctions in close succession）。
Polysyndeton is a literary technique in which conjunctions (e.g. and, but, or) are used repeatedly in quick succession, often with no commas, even when the conjunctions could be removed. It is often used to change the rhythm of the text, either faster or slower, and can convey either a sense of gravity or excitement. (https://thewritepractice.com)
这样的例子数不胜数，很多作家喜欢这样玩，海明威、狄更斯、莎士比亚、奥斯汀都喜欢在行文中借某个人物之口玩这个修辞法。
再给你看一个例句，摘自我本周在读的一本书。
He and his father and his mother and his four-year-old and six-year-old sisters lived in his grandmother’s house with his grandmother and his great-aunt Mary and his bachelor uncle.
– Alice Munro, “Family Furnishings: Selected Stories, 1995-2014.
*Alice Munro, Canadian short story writer, laureate of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013.
门罗在这句话里一口气用了6个and，提到了8个人挤在一个房子里。她巧妙地用polysyndeton表达了那种拥挤不堪的画面感。
以后你在英文阅读时可以留心这种修辞方法，仔细体会一下叠用连词和正常使用连词的不同语言效果——这就是语言的乐趣之一。
最后，需要提醒一下，polysyndeton是一种比较高级的英文修辞手法，一般情况下不建议滥用，东施效颦的话只会让人反感。等你当了领导，放个屁都有人鼓掌，或者成了成名作家，随便喊一嗓子“史达林啊，你是我亲爷爷”时都算诗歌时，你随便用。
哦，对了，补充一点。今天讲的连词叠用跟你在电视上看到的某些明星说话时重复很多个“然后，然后，然后“完全不同。我讲的是高级的英文修辞法，明星说话时的那些个零碎儿在语言学上叫做fillers，以后专门讲吧。
