“多即是少”里有大文章

2008年07月03日 16:09

市场上商品种类繁多未必是件好事

　　Would you go to the supermarket, darling," my wife asks, "and get some butter? Nothing special; just for baking." A short time later, I'm standing at the butter section and am reminded of the story of the hungry donkey standing in front of two piles of hay. It looks from one to the other, but cannot decide which pile to eat first. The donkey finds it so hard to choose that it drops dead from hunger before touching the food.

　　“你能去趟超市吗，亲爱的？”妻子说，“买些黄油。一般的就行，只是烤点东西用。”片刻过后，我站在了超市的黄油区，想起了一头饿驴站在两堆干草前的故事。故事中的饿驴看看这堆草，又看看那堆草，却不知道先吃哪堆好。这头驴在拿不定主意，最后一口草也没碰，倒在地上饿死了。

　　So here I am, like the donkey, trying to choose between low-fat butter, sweet butter, mildly sour butter, easy-to-spread butter, original Irish butter and butter with herbs.

　　我站在这儿，就像那头驴一样，试图从低脂黄油、甜黄油、微酸黄油、易涂黄油、原产于爱尔兰的黄油和香草黄油中选出一种。

　　Time is money, and I'm spending my valuable time deciding between the cheap, low-fat kind and the best quality, fresh organic butter for three times the price. I finally decide to get the low-price, low-fat butter--which, my wife later explains, is not the best for baking a cake.

　　时间就是金钱，而我却把自己宝贵的时间用来决定是买便宜的低脂黄油还是买质量最好但价格却高出两倍的新鲜有机黄油。我最后决定买便宜的低脂黄油，而这种黄油，据我妻子后来说，并不太适合用来烤蛋糕。

　　The last time I bought butter was sometime in the early 1980s. Shopping was certainly simpler back then. You could buy what you wanted from a small selection. Today, consumers are faced with dozens of products that look more or less the same.

　　我上一次买黄油是在20世纪80年代初。那时候购物要简单得多。商品种类有限，但你想要什么，就能买到什么。今天，消费者们却要面对数十种看起来大同小异的商品。

　　In his provocative book The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less, Barry Schwartz describes some of the offerings in a mid-sized American supermarket. He counts 95 different kinds of snacks; 61 varieties of suntan oil and sun block; and 80 different painkillers. There are 40 kinds of toothpaste, 150 lipsticks and 90 colors of nail polish, as well as 116 kinds of skin cream, and 360 types of shampoo and other hair-care products.

　　巴里•斯瓦茨在他颇具煽动性的著作《选择的悖论：多即是少》中描述了一家美国中型超市提供的部分商品。据他计算，这家店有95种不同的小吃，61种防晒油和防晒霜以及80种不同的止痛药。另外还有40种牙膏、150种唇膏、90种颜色的指甲油以及116种

护肤霜、360种洗发水极其护发产品。

市场上商品种类繁多未必是件好事

2008年07月03日 16:09

　　At the electronics store, the situation is no different. Dozens of TVs, DVDs, laptops and phones fill the shelves. Want to buy an iPod? Apple offers nearly 30 models, from 512MB to 60GB, before you've even decided on a colour. Then, of coure, there's the cost-benefit analysis. For more confusion, ask a shop assistant.

　　电子用品商店里的情形也差不多。数十种电视机、DVD机、笔记本电脑和电话机把货柜塞得满满的。想买个iPod播放器吗？苹果电脑公司为你提供了近30种型号，容量从512MB到60GB，就这样你还没挑颜色呢。当然，接下去还有性价比分析。如果想把自己弄得更糊涂的话，就再找个售货员咨询咨询。

　　"Spoilt for choice" is the English expression that describes the dilemma facing today's consumers. Shopping has become an activity in which it is no longer possible to make intelligent informed decisions. This problem is not limited to fast-moving consumer products. It touches every aspect of our lives. Which university degree? Which job? Which holiday? Which investment or insurance? Which partner? Which name for the kids? Cosmetic surgery even offers: which face? And the internet: which identity?

　　"Spoilt for choice"(可供选择的好东西太多以至于无从下手)就是英语中对当今消费者所面临的窘境的描述。购物不再是一种能够在全面了解信息后作出明智决定的行为了。这一问题不只局限于那些迅速消耗的消费品。它触动了我们生活的方方面面。选择哪种大学学位？选哪份工作？选哪个假日？选哪项投资或保险？选哪个合作伙伴？给孩子取哪个名字？外科整形手术甚至可以让你选择做成哪张脸？因特网上你则需要决定：选择用哪个身份？

　　Choice is a key aspect of modern society, but too much choice is not necessarily a good thing. Take a study carried out several years ago in the United States. Shoppers in a mall were offered 24 different kinds of jam to try for free. Many people stopped to taste them, but hardly anyone bought any jam. Later, the number of products was reduced to six. This time, fewer people stopped, but ten times as much jam was sold. This result seems hard to believe: surely we are more likely to find something we like from a range four times as large. But practice shows that people are more comfortable if the number of choices is limited.

　　选择是现代社会的重要方面，但是选择太多未必是件好事。就拿美国数年前的一项研究来说吧。一个购物商场提供24种不同的果酱请顾客免费品尝。许多人停下来品尝，但是几乎没人购买。后来，果酱的总数被减为六种，这一次，停下来品尝的人要少些，但是卖出的果酱却是先前的十倍。这一结果看起来令人难以置信：可供挑选的商品种类多了三倍，按道理我们应该更有可能找到自己喜欢的东西。但实践证明，面对有限的选择，人们会感到更舒服些。

　　Remember that for many of the situations we face, the simplest and quickest choice if often the best. Life is too short for anything else.

　　请记住，在我们所面临的许多情况中，最简单最迅速的选择通常也是最好的选择。生命太短暂，我们没有时间去反复地斟酌比对。

• 6小时掌握学英语的秘诀！——点击看答案
• 专治男女记不住单词的秘密