【英语生活】找个拉丁座右铭

A couple of weeks ago I wrote what I thought was the definitive guide on how to sign off an e-mail and was confident that I had laid the matter to rest. Yet I’ve just received an e-mail that has given me pause. It was signed off “Audere est facere” – which is the motto of the Tottenham Hotspur football club and means “to dare is to do”.

I don’t like football. I don’t like men who go on about their football teams. I don’t like cheesy exhortations. I don’t understand Latin. But there is something about this that appeals to me.

In fact, I find myself strangely drawn to other football mottos. I like Bury’s motto: Vincit Omnia Industria (Hard Work Overcomes Everything) and I like Blackburn Rovers’ Arte et Labore (By Skill and Hard Work) even more.

Schools have some stirring mottos, too. A couple of years ago Gordon Brown was much mocked for quoting his motto: Usque Conabor (I Will Try Harder). Yet it seems to me that this is the best possible advice for every school child – and for every prime minister.

An even better motto is the startlingly honest Nous Maintiendrons – which is French for We Will Keep on Keeping on.

These mottos, though wonderful things in themselves, have a lot to answer for. The Victorians who thought them up were unwittingly laying the foundation stone for some of the most questionable practices in management. They are to blame for mission statements and were the beginning of the self-help industry.

My own school motto at Camden School for Girls was Onwards and Upwards (which as 14-year-olds we thought screamingly funny). Yet this sentiment is responsible for thousands of self-help books that say in about 50,000 words what the motto says in three.

Traditional mottos are good not merely because they are brief but because they come from an age that was pre-touchy-feely and pre-bullshit.

The newer ones show a shocking falling off. A primary school in north London has recently dreamt up the tiresomely wet slogan: Together Everyone Achieves More, which spells Team.

Traditional mottos are also strong enough to survive ridicule.

At William Ellis, the boys school over the road from the house where I grew up, the (excellent, in my view) motto – Rather Use than Fame – was subverted by the cool boys, who inked over some of the letters so that it read: “Rather U than me.”

Latin is hugely helpful in giving a motto some oomph. This is partly because it lends an air of sophistication, learning and tradition. But it is also because most people don’t have the first idea what it actually means and so have to go to the effort of finding out. Once they have done this, any banality in the actual meaning is camouflaged.

But the biggest advantage is that it is quite impossible to be naff, vague or moronic in Latin. Consider one of the most naff management exhortations: Walk the Talk. Translate it into Latin and you get Res non Verba, which is elegant and profound and is the motto of a private school in Yorkshire.

Companies should learn from these school mottos. It is no coincidence that the best company slogan of all time – Avis’s We Try Harder – is almost exactly the same as Gordon Brown’s school motto.

The motto of Eton College – Floreat Etona, or May Eton Flourish – might be sickeningly self-serving for a school in which boys still mince about in tail coats, but would do nicely in the corporate world, where making a company flourish is what the game is all about. Floreat FT has rather a good ring to it.

This leads me to suggest that all mission statements should be translated into Latin, and any that proved impossible to translate should be scrapped. “We aim to add value to our external stakeholders” would have left a man in a toga scratching his head and, therefore, has no place in the modern world either.

I have decided that I need a motto for the top of this column and the bottom of my e-mails. I’ve been toying with Vox Clamantis in Deserto, which means a voice crying in the desert and is the motto of Dartmouth College in the US. But I think it’s a bit self-important and not right anyway as I’m neither crying nor in a desert.

So instead I have created my own. In English it is To Call a Spade a Spade, but I have just got someone to translate it into Latin for me, and am quite delighted by the result: Nomina Rutrum Rutrum.

几周前，我写了份关于电子邮件末尾应如何签名的终极指南。我很是自信，认为自己已经搞定这个问题了。但我刚收到的一封电子邮件又让我犹豫起来。邮件结束语中写道：“Audere est facere”——这是托特纳姆热刺足球俱乐部(Tottenham Hotspur FC)的队训，意思是“敢作敢为”。

我不喜欢足球，不喜欢男人喋喋不休地谈论他们喜欢的球队，不喜欢蹩脚的训诫，也不懂拉丁语。但这个队训中有一种吸引我的特质。

事实上，我发现其它球队的队训对我也有着奇怪的吸引力。我喜欢伯里圣埃德蒙兹(Bury FC)的队训“Vincit Omnia Industria”（只要努力，就能成功），更喜欢布莱克本(Blackburn Rovers)的“Arte et Labore”（技术加苦练）。

有些学校的校训也振奋人心。几年前，戈登?布朗(Gordon Brown)因援引母校校训“Usque Conabor”（我会加倍努力）而饱受嘲笑。但在我看来，这是对每个学生的最好建议——对每位首相来说也同样如此。

还有一个更妙的校训，坦诚得让人吃惊：“Nous Maintiendrons”——这是法语，意思是“我们将持之以恒”。

这些训诫，尽管本身只是些妙言妙语，但其影响却很深远。维多利亚时代的人们在想出这些训诫的同时，不知不觉地为一些最成问题的管理行为奠定了基石。“公司宗旨”这种东西就是由它们而来，它们还是自助产业的起源。

我的母校——卡姆登女子学校(Camden School for Girls)的校训是“Onwards and Upwards”（天天向上、不断进取）。作为一群14岁大的女孩子，我们觉得这条校训太不可思议了。但正是因为这种感受，才催生出数以千计的自助书籍，用5万多字来阐述校训三个词就说明白的事情。

传统训诫不仅好在简洁，还因为它们诞生的那个时代尚不流行煽情和胡扯。

新时代训诫的水平惊人下降。北伦敦一所小学最近想出的校训懦弱得让人讨厌：Together Everyone Achieves More（众人抬柴火焰高），首字母缩写是TEAM（团队）。

传统训诫则强劲有力，即便遭到挖苦也毫不减色。

我在男校William Ellis街对面的一幢房子里长大。该校的校训“Rather Use than Fame”（实重于名）在我眼里非常出色。酷劲十足的男孩子对此进行了篡改，用墨水盖掉几个字母后，校训变成了“Rather U than me”（先人后己）。

在给训诫增添魅力方面，拉丁文的帮助非常大。一部分原因是，拉丁文有着文雅、博学和传统的气质。但另一部分原因是，大多数人一开始都不知道其确切含义，不得不下番功夫去查找。一旦他们这样做了，其确切含义中任何平庸的成分就都被掩盖了。

但拉丁文最大的优点是，它不太可能显得俗套、含糊或愚蠢。例如，管理学中最俗套的一句训诫“Walk the Talk”（说到做到）翻译成拉丁文就成了“Res non Verba”，听上去既优雅又深奥，约克郡的一所私立学校就用它当校训。

公司应该向这些校训取经。史上最佳公司口号——安飞士(Avis)的“We Try Harder”（我们加倍努力）——与戈登?布朗母校的校训几乎一致，这并不是偶然。

伊顿公学(Eton College)的校训是“Floreat Etona”，翻成英文是“May Eton Flourish”（愿伊顿欣欣向荣）。对于一所男孩子们依然身穿燕尾服、故作文雅的学校来说，这条校训或许有点自私地让人作呕。但它非常适合公司界，因为让公司兴旺发达正是业界人士的终极目标。“Floreat FT”听起来就相当悦耳。

因此我提议，所有的公司宗旨都应该翻译成拉丁文，无法翻译的宗旨就应该废弃。“我们致力于为外部股东增添价值”这类话会让古罗马人感到困惑，因此在现代世界也不应有立足之地。

我拿定主意了：我需要一条座右铭，放在本专栏的顶部，并作为电子邮件的签名档。我一直在考虑“Vox Clamantis in Deserto”，它的意思是“沙漠中的呐喊”，是美国达特茅斯大学(Dartmouth College)的校训。但又觉得这有点自视过高，而且并不准确——因为我既没有呐喊，也没有身处沙漠。

所以我自己创造了一个座右铭。英文是“To Call a Spade a Spade”（有一说一），但我刚找人帮我翻成了拉丁文：“Nomina Rutrum Rutrum”。我对翻译后的结果相当满意。

译者/管婧