The novel of Yes Minister. Including metaphors, grammar issues and funny paragraphs.
Editor’s Note
Years of political training and experience had taught Hacker to use twenty words where one would do, to dictate millions of words where mere thousands would suffice, and to use language to blur and fudge issues and events so that they became incomprehensible to others. Incomprehensibility can be a haven for some politicians, for therein lies temporary safety.
But his natural gift for the misuse of language, though invaluable to an active politician, was not an asset to a would-be author.
OPEN GOVERMENT
电视剧中增加了一段误接 BBC 采访电话的剧情，我觉得挺棒的。
‘Then why don’t you marry him?’ she asked. ‘I now pronounce you man and political adviser. Whom politics has joined let no wife put asunder.’
THE OFFICIAL VISIT
‘Shall we scramble?’ he said.
‘Where to?’ I said, then felt rather foolosh as I realised what he was talking about. Then I relised it was another of Bernards’s draft suggestions: what’s the point of scrambling a phonw conversation about something that’s just been on the television news?
scramble 既有匍匐前进、攀登的意思，也有干扰无线电，使得只有特殊的人才能够听到通话的意思。
And if the new president is Marxist-backed, who better to win him over to our side than Her Majesty?
如果新总统背后有马克思主义支持，还有谁比陛下更能说服他站到我们这边呢？
there was one 747 that belonged to nine different African airlines in one month. They called it the mumbo-jumbo.
THE ECONOMY DRIVE
I was forced to move on to the next two white elephants.
我被迫继续处理接下来的那两个烫手山芋。
‘Government buildings do not need fire fafety clearance’
‘Why?’
‘Perhaps,’ Humphrey offered, ‘because Her Majesty’s Civil Servants are not easily inflamed.’
Frank chimed in eagerly, ‘Yes, that would get rid of ninety civil servants at a stroke.’
‘Or indeed,’ said Sir Humphrey, ‘at a strike.’
后面还有经典的 smile at 和 smile on。
BIG BROTHER
The local party, the constituency, my family, all of them are proud of me for getting into the Cabinet – yet they are all resentful that I have less time to spend on them and are keen to remind me that I’m nothing special, just their local MP, and that I mustn’t get ‘too big for my boots’. They manage both to grovel and patronise me simultaneously. It’s hard to know how to handle it.
And he assumes, rightly, that the Minister has too much else to do. [The whole process is called Creative Inertia – Ed.]
He also warned me of the ‘Three Varieties of Civil Service Silence’, which would be Humphrey’s last resort if completely cornered:
The silence when they do not want to tell you the facts: Discreet Silence.
The silence when they do not intend to take any action: Stubborn Silence.
The silence when you catch them out and they haven’t a leg to stand on. They imply that they could vindicate themselves completely if only they were free to tell all, but they are too honourable to do so: Courageous Silence.
I explained to her that the Opposition aren’t really the opposition. They’re just called the Opposition. But, in fact, they are the opposition in exile. The Civil Service are the opposition in residence.
In the second place, if there had been investigations, which there haven’t or not necessarily, or I am not at liberty to say if there have, there would have been a project team which, had it existed, on which I cannot comment, would now be disbanded if it had existed and the members returned to their original departments, had there indeed been any such members.
经典虚拟语气。
But they’ve convinced me that they can. Indeed my Permanant Secretary is staking his reputation on it. And, if not, heads will roll.
Hacker 对媒体的了解，经典的媒体逼宫战术。在后面的交通总管一事中，也被 PM 用来赶鸭子上架。
THE WRITING ON THE WALL
Woe betide any Minister who lifts the phone to try to sort out a foreign trade deal, for instance.
Woe betide 在一起表示 XXX 样就会倒霉。Betide 的意思是降临。
‘With respect, Minister,’ countered Sir Humphrey (untruthfully), ‘how do you know it says the opposite if it is totally unintelligible?’
这次是 Humphrey 而不是 Bernard 来挑逻辑问题。
Hacker was beginning to understand Civil Service code language. Other examples are:
‘I think we have to be very careful.’ Translation: We are not going to do this.
‘Have you thought through all the implications?’ Translation: You are not going to do this.
‘It is a slightly puzzling decision.’ Translation: Idiotic!
‘Not entirely straightforward.’ Translation: Criminal.
‘With the greatest possible respect, Minister . . .’ Translation: Minister, that is the silliest idea I’ve ever heard
这是 Editor 的总结，我觉得很有趣。
If a purely hypothetical Minister were to be unhappy with a departmental draft of evidence to a committee, and if the hypothetical Minister were to be planning to replace it with his own hypothetical draft worked out with his own political advisers at his party HQ, and if this Minister was planning to bring in his own draft so close to the final date for evidence that there would be no time to redraft it, and if the hypothetical Private Secretary were to be aware of this hypothetical draft – in confidence – should the hypothetical Private Secretary pass on the information to the Perm. Sec. of the hypothetical Department?
经典虚拟语气片段。
‘We shall always support you as your standard-bearer, Minister but not as your pall-bearer.’
‘If you must do this damn silly thing,’ he said, ‘don’t do it in this damn silly way.’
Humphrey 难得的两次很直的话。
Bernard assured me that I didn’t really need to know much about the proposal because his information on the grapevine, through the Private Office network, was that the proposal would go through on the nod.
为啥 grapevine 还有小道消息的意思？
Donald Hughes, rubbing salt in the wound, apparently described it as ‘approbation, elevation and castration, all in one stroke’. It seems he suggested that I should take the title Lord Hacker of Kamikaze.
I told Humphrey I was appalled.
‘You’re appalled?’ he said. ‘I’m appalled.’
Bernard said he was appalled, too. And, there’s no doubt about it, the situation is appalling.
Industrial Harmony. That means strikes.
这里 Editor 有个注解，挺有趣的。
You’ll probably spend the rest of your career in the Vehicle Licensing Centre in Swansea.
对 Swansea 很有敌意啊。
Then Humphrey proposed that we work together on this. This was a novel suggestion, to say the least.
‘I’m awfully sorry to quibble again, Minister, but you can’t actually stop things before they start,’ intervened Bernard, the wet-hen-in-chief. He’s really useless in a crisis.
‘Same reason,’ came the reply. ‘It’s just like the United Nations. The more members it has, the more arguments you can stir up, and the more futile and impotent it becomes.’
感觉很有洞见。
Then I had an idea. I suddenly realised that Martin will be on my side. I can’t imagine why I didn’t think of it before. He’s Foreign Secretary – and, to my certain knowledge, Martin is genuinely pro Europe. (Humphrey calls him ‘naïf’). Also I ran his campaign against the PM, and he only stands to lose if I’m squeezed out.
I agreed, and remarked that this Europass thing is the worst disaster to befall the government since I was made a member of the Cabinet. [We don’t think that Hacker actually meant what he seems to be saying here Ed.]
It’s awarded to the statesman who has made the biggest contribution to European unity since Napoleon. [That’s if you don’t count Hitler – Ed.]
这几段 Editor 的注解都很有趣。
when you’ve got them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.
THE RIGHT TO KNOW
Sir Humphrey replied that I need not look far – Private Secretaries who could not occupy their Ministers were a threatened species.
‘Almost anything can be attacked as a loss of amenity and almost anything can be defended as not a significant loss of amenity. One must appreciate the significance of significant.’
Humphrey suggested I look inside them. I did, and to my utter astonishment I saw that there were a handful of signatures in each book, about a hundred altogether at the most. A very cunning ploy – a press photo of a petition of six fat books is so much more impressive than a list of names on a sheet of Basildon Bond.
Those civil servants are always kowtowing to Daddy, but they never take any real notice of him.
Kowtow 就是中文的磕头。
She told me she’d been out with the trots. I was momentarily sympathetic and suggested she saw the doctor. Then I realised she meant the Trotskyites. I’d been slow on the uptake because I didn’t know she was a Trotskyite. Last time we talked she’d been a Maoist.
I noted that Lucy was giving out the press release at five p.m. Very professional. Misses the evening papers, which not too many people read, and therefore makes all the dailies. She’s learned something from being a politician’s daughter.
JOBS FOR THE BOYS
you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.
THE COMPASSIONATE SOCIETY
比较好奇为什么 DAA 会为医院的铺张浪费负责？
I informed Bernard that most of our journalists are so amateur that they would have grave difficulty in finding out that today is Thursday.
‘It’s actually Wednesday, Minister,’ he said.
Sir Humphrey preferred to write in margins where possible, but, if not possible, simulated margins made him feel perfectly comfortable.
We can infer from this note that Mr Bernard Woolley – as he then was – mentioned the matter of St Edward’s Hospital to Sir Humphrey, although when we challenged Sir Bernard – as he now is – on this point he had no recollection of doing so – Ed.
THE DEATH LIST
DOING THE HONOURS
比较好奇为什么 DAA 会管到教育的事情？
Chat over the port and walnuts
通常用来描述一种轻松的社交场合，人们在享用波特酒（port）和核桃（walnuts）时进行闲聊。
He explained that home students were to be avoided at all costs! Anything but home students.
Sir William Guthrie, OM, FRS, FBA, Ph.D, MC, MA (Oxon)
Group Captain Christopher Venables, DSC, MA
Sir Humphrey Appleby, KCB, MVO, MA (Oxon)
Bernard Woolley, MA (Cantab)
The Rt Hon. James Hacker, PC, MP, BSc. (Econ)
Sir Arnold Robinson, GCMG, CVO, MA (Oxon)
Cantab 指的是剑桥。
In fact, the only time a civil servant is known to have refused a knighthood was in 1496. This was because he already had one.
Just as incomes policies have always been manipulated by those that control them: for instance, the 1975 Pay Policy provided exemptions for Civil Service increments and lawyers’ fees. Needless to say, the policy was drafted by civil servants and parliamentary draftsmen, i.e. lawyers.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
And how did the civil servants get away with creating these remarkably favourable terms of service for themselves? Simply by keeping a low profile. They have somehow managed to make people feel that discussing the matter at all is in rather poor taste.
很有趣的观察，“保持低调”，“讨论这些并不得体”。
Cut no ice with me
俗语，表示 XX 对我没用。
The penny dropped
俗语，表示某人终于明白了某件事情或某人突然明白了之前不明白的事情。
‘There is no reason,’ he said, stabbing the air with his finger, ‘to change a system which has worked well in the past.’
‘But it hasn’t,’ I said.
‘We have to give the present system a fair trial,’ he stated. This seemed quite reasonable on the face of it. But I reminded him that the Most Noble Order of the Garter was founded in 1348 by King Edward III. ‘Surely it must be getting towards the end of its trial period?’ I said.
So Humphrey tried a new tack. He said that to block honours pending economies might create a dangerous precedent. What he means by ‘dangerous precedent’ is that if we do the right thing now, then we might be forced to do the right thing again next time. And on that reasoning nothing should ever be done at all.
‘As you know,’ he said, ‘the letters JB are the highest honour in the Commonwealth.’
I didn’t know.
Humphrey eagerly explained. ‘Jailed by the British. Gandhi, Nkrumah, Makarios, Ben-Gurion, Kenyatta, Nehru, Mugabe – the list of world leaders is endless and contains several of our students.’
although the Cabinet Secretary is theoretically primus inter pares he is in reality very much primus. It seems that all Permanent Secretaries are equal but some are more equal than others.
thin end of the wedge
Perhaps Appleby is not an absolutely first-rank candidate to succeed one as Cabinet Secretary. Not really able in every department. Might do better in a less arduous job, such as chairman of a clearing bank or as an EEC official.
‘Of course,’ said Bernard, ‘but it’s years and years since the Department of Transport had a Permanent Secretary from Cambridge.’
好像只有 Bernard 是剑桥的。
THE GREASY POLE
“The Greasy Pole” is an idiomatic expression used to describe the difficult and often slippery route to advancement in one’s career or profession. It is particularly used in contexts where success is hard to achieve and the path to the top is fraught with challenges and obstacles
‘Simple, Minister,’ he explained. ‘It means “with” or “after”, or sometimes “beyond” – it’s from the Greek, you know.’
[Like all Permanent Secretaries, Sir Humphrey Appleby was a generalist. Most of them studied classics, history, PPE or modern languages. Of course you might expect the Permanent Secretary at the Department of Administrative Affairs to have a degree in business administration, but of course you would be wrong – Ed.]
Then he went on to explain that metadioxin means ‘with’ or ‘after’ dioxin, depending on whether it’s with the accusative or the genitive: with the accusative it’s ‘beyond’ or ‘after’, with the genitive it’s ‘with’ as in Latin, where the ablative is used for words needing a sense of with to precede them.
Bernard added – speaking for the first time in the whole meeting – that of course there is no ablative in Greek, as I would doubtless recall.
I told him I recalled no such thing, and later today he wrote me a little memo, explaining all the above Greek and Latin grammar.
‘Well,’ he said eventually, ‘inert means that . . . it’s not . . . ert.’
I searched desperately for an analogy, ‘It’s like Littler and Hitler,’ I explained. ‘We’re not saying that you’re like Hitler because your name sounds similar.’
THE BED OF NAILS
如坐针毡还有的表述是：On Tenterhooks
常见单词
repercussion 坏的影响，恶果
mirthless 沉闷的，忧郁的
scrupulous 小心谨慎的
quid pro quo 等价交换
dither 发抖，踌躇，犹豫
procrastinate 拖延，耽搁
indictment 控告
ingratiate 讨好，谄媚
scathing 严厉的
pompous 浮夸的
precipitate 仓促行事，沉淀物（化学）
devolve 被移交，转让
hotchpotch 杂烩
unison 一致行动（做事或者说话）
fortuitous 幸运的
complacent 得意自满的
reiterate 重申
approbate 许可
subsume 将 XX 包括之内，归入
brittle 易碎的，脆弱的，容易生气的
conscientious 勤奋的
impasse 绝境
brusquely 唐突地
groveling 卑躬屈膝的
chip away at 一点点地削弱，从 XX 中抽去实质性的东西，架空
patronise
dossier 卷宗
sensationalism 耸人听闻，哗众取宠，通常形容报道或者文章
overwrought 神经紧张的
blithe 愉快的
cinder 炉渣，灰烬。可以参考下 Cinderella
anarchy 无政府状态
barter 物物交换，讨价还价
ludicrous 荒唐可笑的
jumbo 庞然大物
berserk
rhetorical 修辞的
prose 单调乏味的
sycophancy 溜须拍马
condescendingly 居高临下地
bickering 争吵
calibre 才干，能力
tautology 重言（逻辑学）
lachrymose 爱哭的，容易悲伤的
flummoxed 困惑的、不知所措的、被难住的
rave 热烈地谈论或书写某事，通常是因为非常喜欢或赞赏；也可以指因愤怒、疯狂或生病而语无伦次地说话。
guffawed 大声笑或狂笑
emanate 散发，发出
feign 假装
analogy 类比，比喻
Tore him off a strip 严厉地斥责他
stem the flow
