一 words and expressions
1. I said that professional writers are solitary drudges who seldom see other writers.
drudge: 苦工;做乏味工作的人 If you describe someone as a drudge, you mean they have to work hard at a job which is not very important or interesting.
2. “Not if I can help it,” I replied.
not if I can help it: spoken used to say that you are not going to do something 不会做某事
3. and he described with gusto the joys of weaving them through his work.
with gusto: if you do something with gusto, you do it with a lot of eagerness and energy 充满激情地
4. As for the students, anyone might think we left them bewildered.
bewildered：困惑的 动词是bewilder
造句：My father's reaction bewildered me.
5. Some people write their first draft in one long burst and then revise
burst: 一阵 A burst of something is a sudden short period of it
6. others can’t write the second paragraph until they have fiddled endlessly with the first.
fiddle的意思是不停的拨弄，摆弄，它还可以做名词小提琴。
还有一个引申的意思：informal to give false information about something, in order to avoid paying money or to get extra money篡改，伪造〔信息，目的在于不付钱或多拿钱
7. What emotional baggage did he bring along?
baggage：the beliefs and feelings that you have which influence how you think and behave思想包袱
•We all carry a lot of emotional baggage around with us.我们每个人都有许多感情的负担。
8. We are a society strangling in unnecessary words，circular constructions, pompous frills and meaningless jargon.
strangle：to stop something from developing抑制，压制；扼杀
•For years, the organization was strangled by excessive bureaucracy.该机构多年来因官僚作风严重，发展受到阻滞。
pompous：形容事物浮夸的，形容人自命不凡的。
9. The second one is clotted with long words.
is clotted with：cot的意思是if a liquid such as blood or milk clots, or if something clots it, it becomes thicker and more solid（使）〔血液、牛奶等〕凝结成块。
10. What member of an insurance or medical plan can decipher the brochure explaining his costs and benefits?
decipher：to discover the meaning of something written badly or in a difficult or hidden way辨认；破解，破译
11. —these are the thousand and one adulterants that weaken the strength of a sentence.
adulterant的动词是adulterate：to make food or drink weaker or to lower its quality, by adding something else（在饮食中）掺杂，掺假
•There were complaints that the beer had been adulterated with water.有多人投诉说这啤酒里面混了水。
12. During the 1960s the president of my university wrote a letter to mollify the alumni after a spell of campus unrest.
mollify：to make someone feel less angry and upset about something抚慰，使平静，使平息怒气
13. He meant that the students had been hassling them about different things.
hassle：to annoy someone, especially by repeatedly asking them something烦扰（尤指透过反覆提问）
14. Roosevelt when he tried to convert into English his own government’s memos, such as this blackout order of 1942
blackout：a time when all lights must be hidden by law, or when there is no light or power because of an electricity failure灯火管制时期；断电时期；断电，停电
15. Such preparations shall be made as will completely obscure all Federal buildings
obscure：to prevent something from being seen or heard遮掩；遮蔽；使不分明
16. Who is this elusive creature, the reader?
elusive：difficult to describe, find, achieve or remember 难以描述（或找到、达到、记起）的；困难的；难懂的
17. The reader is someone with an attention span of about 30 seconds—a person assailed by many forces competing for attention.
assail：to cause someone to experience a lot of unpleasant things困扰；使苦恼
18. Perhaps a sentence is so excessively cluttered that the reader, hacking through the verbiage, simply doesn’t know what it means.
verbiage：赘余啰嗦
19. Perhaps a sentence has been so shoddily constructed that the reader could read it in several ways.
shoddy：made or done cheaply or carelessly劣质的，粗制滥造的
shoddy goods / service /workmanship etc
二 thought
今天读的是这本书的前两章。第一章的标题是transaction。作者首先从一个具体的场景引出整本书所探讨的话题——写作究竟是怎样的呢？在这章的结尾，作者写道Can such principles be taught? Maybe not. But most of them can be learned. 可见作者接下来要讲怎样learn这些principles。（显然learn与be taught是一个更加主动过程）
第二章就紧接着谈到了simplicity。
But the secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components. Every word that serves no function, every long word that could be a short word, every adverb that carries the same meaning that’s already in the verb, every passive construction that leaves the reader unsure of who is doing what—these are the thousand and one adulterants that weaken the strength of a sentence. And they usually occur in proportion to education and rank.
这段作者列举了很多将句子和文章简化的方法。
最后，作者重申写作之难
Writing is hard work. A clear sentence is no accident. Very few sentences come out right the first time, or even the third time. Remember this in moments of despair. If you find that writing is hard, it’s because it is hard.
三 summary
I finished the first two chapters of this book. It provides an overview of this book. Chapter 1 cites an example at first to illustrate that writing is a personal transaction. People's ideas on writing varies. However, it is very important to build a transaction between readers and information which is needed to convey. Chapter 2 tells us the fundamental principle of writing : simplicity. Clarity with no verbiage can make writing effective and informative.
