英剧 Yes Minister《是，大臣》里的Humphrey爵士，堪称“废话文学”天花板！想听懂高级废话，甚至必要时“优雅糊弄”？
今天，我们就来拆解这位顶级官僚的语言迷魂阵，学两招职场必备神技：“注水大法”帮你优雅拖延思考时间，“免责大法”让你说话不被甩锅！🎯
Sir Humphrey Appleby的两段“废话”
1. Straight Answer
Well, Minister, if you ask me for a straight answer, then I shall say that, as far as we can see, looking at it by and large, taking one time with another in terms of the average of departments, then in the final analysis it is probably true to say, that at the end of the day, in general terms, you would probably find that, not to put too fine a point on it, there probably wasn't very much in it one way or the other. As far as one can see, at this stage.
2. Happy Christmas
I wonder if I might crave your momentary indulgence in order to discharge a by no means disagreeable obligation which has, over the years, become more or less established practice in government service as we approach the terminal period of the year — calendar, of course, not financial — in fact, not to put too fine a point on it, Week Fifty-One — and submit to you, with all appropriate deference, for your consideration at a convenient juncture, a sincere and sanguine expectation — indeed confidence — indeed one might go so far as to say hope — that the aforementioned period may be, at the end of the day, when all relevant factors have been taken into consideration, susceptible to being deemed to be such as to merit a final verdict of having been by no means unsatisfactory in its overall outcome and, in the final analysis, to give grounds for being judged, on mature reflection, to have been conducive to generating a degree of gratification which will be seen in retrospect to have been significantly higher than the general average.
这些短语的作用是拉长时间，堆砌篇幅，营造出深思熟虑的假象，但信息量几乎为零 。
这些短语和词汇为表达增添了不确定性，是为日后改变说法预留后路的“安全阀” 。
这段话被誉为“注水大法的完美教学”，通过极其迂回、过度礼貌和不必要的精确来拉长句子 。
这段话中同样穿插着用于规避责任和柔化语气的表达。
欢迎大家留言分享你的感想，或者加艾薇同学的微信加入我们的听友群参与讨论～
