{
  "format": "arthurs-review-publication-proof/v1",
  "createdAt": "2026-07-13T15:35:45.696Z",
  "publicUrl": "https://blog.leesaitool.com/commentary/talk-but-vaguely",
  "publishedAt": "2026-05-18T09:51:52.399Z",
  "updatedAt": "2026-05-18T09:51:52.399Z",
  "article": {
    "titleZh": "关于中文语境中用词模糊的讨论",
    "titleEn": "Vague vague vague vague vague",
    "slug": "talk-but-vaguely",
    "category": "commentary",
    "excerptZh": "用词模糊好处多，说话宽泛大家爱",
    "excerptEn": "Vague words pay well; broad speech sells",
    "seoDescription": "",
    "bodyZh": "这是我一年以前写的一篇文章，当时我还在公办，这算是我第一篇正儿八经的评论问题的文章。现在一看愈加讽刺，当时把所有东西都归到权力问题上了。现在看一看AI相关的用语。还有硅谷界那些词汇，不得不感叹。把语言变得模糊，宽泛，好处实在太多了。你想的话也可以试试哟！！？\n\n在前几天的年级大会上，几位同学分享了他们关于期中考试的经验和学习方法，在仔细聆听后，我发现有以下几个词汇频繁提到：提高正确率，构建知识体系，有效利用时间等等。这些词语都有一个共同的特点，即只提出了观点，没有具体路径。可能是因为时间关系，他们来不及深入阐释。然而，从这种用词模糊的现象，值得引起我们的思考。\n\n我认为，这个现象本质上体现了中国社会一贯的自上而下的自由裁量权。古代中国使用文言文，文言文是一种非常简略的语言，使用不同的方法翻译便会有不同的解释。古代规章制度都使用文言文书写，这导致一个村民对制度的理解可能跟一个县官的解读完全不一样。这种文字上的模糊性赋予了古代帝王甚至地方官员拥有近乎无限的权力。这种语言的模糊性，使管理十分便利（如在规定中有适当的、恰当的等用词），而自然延续到了现代语言中。\n\n此外，模糊性除了社会原因外，还因为其宽泛性不易导致明显错误。中国有句俗语：祸从口出，病从口入。无论在写作、演讲还是辩论时，简单宽泛的语言都更不容易出现漏洞，写一些宽泛的话也更不耗费脑力。在波兰球漫画社区有一副著名的漫画，画上一个国人在大会上发言，他说：我们要（四字词语）（四字词语）（四字词语）。\n\n在大部分生活场景下，用词模糊不会产生过多影响，然而如果模糊的用词被应用到规则制定中，便易产生各种不同的理解，这就导致拥有话语解释权的一方得到极大权力。\n当然，在本篇小文中也有不少词汇存在模糊之处，敬请指正。\n",
    "bodyEn": "I wrote this piece about a year ago, back when I was still at a state school — my first real attempt at writing critically about anything. Reading it now, the irony is rather hard to miss. I blamed everything on power. Everything. Now I look at the language surrounding AI, or the vocabulary that drifts out of Silicon Valley, and I can only marvel. The benefits of making language vague and expansive are, it turns out, considerable. Feel free to try it yourself.\n\nAt a recent grade-wide assembly, several students shared their experiences and study methods for the midterm exams. Listening carefully, I noticed a handful of phrases recurring throughout: improving accuracy, building a knowledge framework, making effective use of time, and so on. These expressions share a common trait — they state a position without offering any concrete path forward. Time constraints, perhaps, prevented the speakers from elaborating. Yet this epidemic of deliberate vagueness is worth a moment's reflection.\n\nThe phenomenon, I would argue, reflects something deeply structural in Chinese society: discretionary authority flowing from the top down. Classical Chinese was an extraordinarily compressed language — lean to the point of ambiguity, susceptible to wildly different interpretations depending on who happened to be holding the brush. Laws and regulations were written in it, which meant a villager's understanding of a given rule could differ entirely from a county magistrate's reading of the same characters. Convenient, that. This textual flexibility granted emperors — and their rather eager subordinates — something approaching unlimited power. The tradition has proved remarkably durable: terms like appropriate and suitable continue to populate official language today, performing the same useful function they always have.\n\nBeyond its venerable institutional roots, vagueness persists for a more prosaic reason: broad language is simply harder to be caught out on. There is a Chinese saying — disaster comes from the mouth, illness enters through it. Whether writing, speaking, or arguing, sweeping generalities offer fewer handholds for criticism and demand considerably less cognitive effort to produce. A well-known Polandball comic captures the art form neatly: a figure stands at a podium and delivers, with great conviction, We must [four-character idiom] [four-character idiom] [four-character idiom].\n\nIn most everyday situations, imprecise language causes little harm. But when vague phrasing finds its way into rule-making, it invites divergent interpretations — and whoever holds the authority to interpret holds, by extension, rather a lot of everything else.\n\nI should note, of course, that this short piece contains more than a few instances of the very thing it criticizes. Corrections are welcome.",
    "coverImagePath": "uploads/2026/05/63d80c90-0c6b-41bf-82f4-1c9a3e4bedc2.webp",
    "tags": []
  }
}