Language is, and should be, a living thing, constantly enriched with new words and forms of expression. But there is a vital distinction between good developments, which add to the language, enabling us to say things we could not say before, and bad developments, which subtract from the language by rendering it less precise. A vivacious, colorful use of words is not to be confused with mere slovenliness. The kind of slovenliness in which some professionals deliberately indulge is perhaps akin to the cult (迷信.of the unfinished work, which has eroded most of the arts in our time. And the true answer to it is the same that art is enhanced, not hindered, by discipline. You cannot carve satisfactorily in butter.
style=color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: "Microsoft YaHei"; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);/ The corruption of written English has been accompanied by an even sharper decline in the standard of spoken English. We speak very much less well than was common among educated Englishmen a generation or two ago.
style=color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: "Microsoft YaHei"; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);/ The modem theatre has played a baneful (有害的.part in dimming our appreciation of language. Instead of the immensely articulate dialogue of, for example, Shaw (who was also very insistent on good pronunciation ),audiences are now subjected to streams of barely literate trivia, often designed, only too well, to exhibit' lack of communication', and larded (夹杂.with the obscenities (下流的话.and grammatical errors of the intellectually impoverished. Emily Post once advised her readers: "The theatre is the best possible place to hear correctly-enunciated speech. " Alas, no more. One young actress was recently reported to be taking lessons in how to speak badly, so that she should fit in better.
style=color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: "Microsoft YaHei"; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);/ But the BBC is the worst traitor. After years of very successfully helping to raise the general standard of spoken English, it suddenly went into reverse. As the head of the Pronunciation Unit coyly (含蓄的.put it, "In the 1960s the BBC opened the field to a much wider range of speakers." To hear a BBC disc jockey talking to the latest ape-like pop idol is a truly shocking experience of verbal squalor. And the prospect seems to be of even worse to come. School teachers are actively encouraged to ignore little Johnny's incoherent grammar, atrocious spelling and haphazard punctuation, because worrying about such things might inhibit his creative genius.
1.[单选题]"Art is enhanced, not hindered, by discipline" (Lines 6-7, Paragraph 1.means __
A.an artist's work will be finer if he observes certain aesthetic standards
B.an unfinished work is bound to be comparatively inferior
C.the skill of certain artists conceals their slovenliness
D.artistic expression is inhibited by too many rules
2.[单选题]The writer relates linguistic slovenliness to tendencies in the arts today in that they both _____
A.occasionally aim at a certain fluidity
B.appear to shun perfection
C.from time to time show regard for the finishing touch
D.make use of economical short cuts
3.[单选题]The author says that the standard of the spoken English of BBC
A.is the worst among all broadcasting networks
B.has raised English-speaking up to a new level
C.has taken a turn for the worse since the 1960s
D.is terrible because of a few popular disc jockeys
4.[单选题]Teachers are likely to overlook the linguistic lapses in their pupils since __
A.they find that children no longer respond to this kind of discipline nowadays
B.they fear the children may become less coherent
C.more importance is now attached to oral expression
D.the children may be discouraged from expressing their ideas
5.[单选题]Many modern plays, the author finds, frequently contain speech which __
A.is incoherent and linguistically objectionable
B.is far too ungrammatical for most people to follow.
C.unintentionally shocks the audience
D.tries to hide the author's intellectual inadequacies