In this section there are four passages followed by
questions or unfinished statements, each with four suggested answers marked [A],
[B], [C], and [D]. Choose the one that you think is the best answer.
Mark your answers on your ANSWER SHEET. TEXT A The English language
exists in a condition of everlasting danger, its American branch most
particularly, assaulted as it is from all sides by those who would reduce it to
puzzling and obscure jargon, pop-psychological nonsense and vague beautified
words, but it is not without its defenders①. Ken Smith, author of
Junk English, is the leading figure. He begins with a brief and clear
declaration: "Junk English is much more than loose and casual
grammar. It is a signal of human weaknesses and cultural license: abandoning the
language of the educated yet giving birth to its own self-glorifying words and
phrases, favoring appearance over substance, broadness over precision, and
loudness above all. It is some times innocent, sometimes lazy, sometimes well
intended, but most often it is a trick we play on ourselves to make the
unremarkable seem important. Its scope has been widened by politicians, business
executives, and the PR and advertising industries in their employ, who use it to
spread fog before facts they would rather keep hidden. The result is...a world
of humbug in which the more we read and hear, the less
we know." Smith is, of course, saying something not true—it is
difficult to imagine that Junk English will be noticed, much less read, by those
who most could profit from it—but it is an instructive and entertaining
instructions and explanation all the same. He tries his hands at all the right
places—jargon, clichés, euphemisms, and exaggeration—but he doesn’t swing
blindly. "Although jargon often sounds ugly to outsiders, it speeds
communication within the community that uses it"—and that "clichés, though
popular objects of scorn, are useful when they most compactly express an idea;
deliberate avoidance of an appropriate cliché sometimes produces even worse
writing." In other words, Smith may be passionate but he’s also
sensible. In a section about "free-for-all verbs," for example, he
acknowledges that "There is no law against inventing one’s own verbs" before
citing a few funny instances of what happens when "Things get a little out of
hand," i.e. "We’re efforting to work this out" or "She tried to guilt him into
returning the money." In the end, though, being sensible about language is in
essence trying to insist that words mean what they properly mean and are used
accordingly. Thus, for example, Smith insists that "dialogue" and "discussion"
are not synonyms and should not be used interchangeably; that "complimentary"
does not mean "free"; that "experience" does not mean "feel"; that "facilitate"
does not mean "ease’; that "generate" does not mean "produce"; that "lifestyle’’
does not mean "life". Smith obviously has spent a lot of time
making notes about the ways in which we ruin and abuse our language, with
results that are impressive in their thoroughness and depressing in their going
to far②. Occasionally he overlooks the obvious—among euphemisms he
mentions "customer care representative" but not "courtesy call," and among the
previously mentioned palsy-walsy language he inexplicably overlooks "Your call
is important to us"—but then, as he says at the outset, he intended to write a
short book and as a result had to leave out many misdeeds. The ones he includes
more than do the job. What would the author do with Ken Smith’s Junk English
A.He would highly recommend it. B.He would recommend it with strong reservation. C.He is indifferent to it. D.He would hold it up as trash.