Vocabulary
serve
You’ll find a surprising number that don’t serve any purpose.
有用，有助于实现
don't serve any purpose 没有任何用途
The judge said the fine would serve as a warning to other drivers. 法官说此次罚款对其他疏忽驾驶的司机会是一种警告
How can we serve the needs of future generations? 我们怎么才能满足子孙后代的需求？
physician & physicist
personal physician 私人医生
physicist 物理学家
blunt
By using a more pompous phrase in his professional role he not only sounds more important; he blunts the painful edge of truth.
使变钝 to make sth less sharp
e.g. blunt the knives
也可表示削弱感情，to make the feeling less strong
My recent bad experience had blunted my enthusiasm for travel. 最近的倒霉经历已经使我对旅游的热情减弱了不少。
hang on
Are you hanging on to something useless just because you think it’s beautiful?
hang on 抓住 to keep hold
hang on (informal) 可表示稍等一会
Hang on - I'll just see if he's there.
Hang on a minute - I'll be with you in a moment!
Summary
Clutter是很常见的，比如委婉的说辞，官方的说法，写作文强行拓展短语凑字数等等，但是站在写作的角度，clutter完全是多余的。Zinsser的方法是用括号标注不必要的和无意义的语句，对文章就进行删减，但是对于新手来说，这样有可能会删掉大半内容，失去作者本来的意思。
But soon the students learned to put mental brackets around their own clutter, and by the end of the term their papers were almost clean.
在不断的练习中，学生们会逐渐在思考的时候就“标注”括号，think clearly and write clearly，文章也会逐渐变得清晰。
Look for the clutter in your writing and prune it ruthlessly.
Be grateful for everything you can throw away
Reexamine each sentence you put on paper.
Ch.4 Style 讲到写文章的要表现一个真实的自己，be yourself，向读者展示一个放松的并且自信的自己，不要刻意的写作。
Writing is an intimate transaction between two people, conducted on paper, and it will go well to the extent that it retains its humanity.
写作中的“我”是真实的也是虚拟的，虚拟的人物来自真实的作者，会体现作者的人文关怀/人性。Zinsser提倡使用第一人称写作，但也讲了很多不能使用第一人称的情况，比如新闻、学术等一些需要客观态度的文章。
另外，这本书是在教给我们如何写文章，但并不完全适用于academic writing，就好语文考试中的写作文和写文章并不一样。
句子摘抄
Fighting clutter is like fighting weeds—the writer is always slightly behind.
He blunts the painful edge of truth.
You can develop the same eye.
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