南方朔曾在其文〈頹廢，以及髒話〉引用Herbert Marcuse之言：「髒話是弱者對自己的憤怒。」其實這句話不是Marcuse說的，而是麻省理工學院語言學教授Avram Noam Chomsky發表於〈Of US involvement in the war in Vietnam〉的談話，原文意思是：髒話是「包括我們所有人在內」的不幸弱者，因無窮憤怒而不斷渲洩的慣行。
看一下 Noam Chomsky 在"Of US involvement in the war in Vietnam"中的原文：
"The war is simply an obscenity, a depraved act by weak and miserable men, including all of us who have allowed it to go on and on with endless fury and destruction - all of us who would have remained silent had stability and order been secured."很想知道這段話如何能被翻譯成：
髒話是「包括我們所有人在內」的不幸弱者，因無窮憤怒而不斷渲洩的慣行。
後來看了 西區老二的部落格 就恍然大悟，原來在引用摘要中就直接少摘了頭三個字，變成：
"An obscenity, a depraved act by weak and miserable men, including all of us, who have allowed it to go on and on with endless fury."引用時少摘幾個字，一段本來在討論越戰的話語變成在替髒話辯護，只能真心讚嘆語言的奧妙以及作者的強大了！
自由時報：認真說髒話（投書版）
謝謝"審稿人"指正...:)
回覆刪除很抱歉受到某些節錄版本的誤導，重新閱讀原文後，發現一個有趣的事實，在與William F. Buckley Jr.的對談中，Noam Chomsky本人對這段話下的註解是：
These people would not be able to operate were it not for this apathy and equanimity, and therefore I think that it’s in some sense the sane and reasonable and tolerant people who should—who share a very serious burden of guilt that they very easily throw on the shoulders of others who seem more extreme and more violent.
倘若如此，當我們把髒話視為一種guilt，或將原文翻成：戰爭只不過是一句髒話，甚至可以倒過來說：An obscenity is simply the war...而足以造成人人喊打推卸責任的局面，不也可作如是觀嗎？
語言的多義性的確很傷腦筋，但也讓髒話不僅是髒話這麼有趣。
原始節錄版本可參見：
http://quotes.yourdictionary.com/obscenity
未重新查照原著是我的疏忽，但根據「真實惡意原則」，應該還戴不下「斷句取義」這頂帽子。