第一封信 

　　My Dear Shu-Wu,　

　　May 14 

　　Your letter gives me a joyful surprise. Your English is astonishingly good. This is not "flannel" nor "butter" but my sincere opinion (my hand upon my heart!). The idea found from your version of Chairman's statement is, to say the least, quite unjust. Perhaps your hand is recovering some of its old cunning momentarily lost through long lack of practice. At any rate, it would be a pity-nay, a sin, a crime -to let your English get rusty & become finally unserviceable. 

　　Yours in haste 

　　By a slip of pen, you wrote "allocation" instead of "Collocation" This is a mere peccadillo. Don't let meticulousness about such trifles cramp your style. 

　　第二封信 

　　My Dear Lin,

　　May 

　　Excuse this belated reply to your very kind May Day greetings. Its almost literally "a day after the fair". What with fixing the mosquito net, queuing for sweets at the co-op store, fetching & distributing letters, & the thousand and one odds and ends which eat away ones time, the red letter day was over before I know where I was. Well, here go my best wishes in which my wife joins. Your letter makes me ashamed. I feel guilty like a swindler who has won your "gratitude" without doing anything to earn it. Your characteristic generosity has led you to overestimate the aids to study I gave. Yes, vocabulary is important. Pedagogues used to distinguish a pupils active or writing & speaking vocabulary. As you know, the latter is far more extensive than the former. How to turn the supinely passive into the nimbly active—that's the big problem. However, enough of shop talk. Tomorrow to the battle & more power to your elbow!

　　Yours Sincerely

　　第三封信

　　My Dear Lin, 

　　I am deeply grateful, but I have smiting of conscience. As you know, I have my own ration of sugar, & I must not deprive you of yours. As to the dim sum, a healthy young man has more need of them to stay his hunger between the meals--much more that and old man does. So I am returning them with heartfelt thanks--accompanied with a little token of esteem. The latest No. of Broadsheet is worth glancing at.

　　Your thankfully

作者：Hypatia来源：知乎

　　我找了五位美国大学人文方面的老教授，搜集了一下他们的意见。

　　先说明一下：我们只评价三封信。不谈钱老的翻译和其他的英文写作。其实信是比较好的材料，能够看出作者真实的口水文写作水平到底是什么样的，发表后的作品一般都是有人改过的。（很多人提到，这三封信写于特殊时期1971-1972。对比了一下钱老其他的英文写作，这三封信确实是非同寻常地绕，有点故意让人看不懂的意味。大家自己辨别吧。)

　　把三封钱先生的信发给了五位教授（均任职于美国排名靠前的一所文理学院，年龄都很大了，在各领域声望都很高，也都是极好的英文写手，另外都是我最爱的教授们╮(╯▽╰)╭），告诉他们这是钱钟书的写作，请他们客观地评价一下，得到了一些回馈。我下面会挨个详细说，可以看出来，他们的性格特点和背景，影响了他们对钱老文字的感受和评价：

　　第一位，不喜欢钱的文字，认为不太地道：英文系教授，男，美国人英文母语，专长是Old and Middle English, 以及中古时期北欧语言研究，平时改作文对语言使用规范的要求度非常高，平日里对我们的etiquette要求也挺高的。他不喜欢钱先生的文字，觉得只能说是可以理解，但挺蹩脚的，虽然用了很多地道的用法，但还是能看出来是外国人在写，有一点炫弄的色彩。不是非常差，但只能说是比较“可爱吧cute”，但作者应该是个挺有魅力的外国人。原评价如下：

Well, his letters are understandable in English, but a little unidiomatic. One can tell that a non-native speaker is writing, even though many native expressions are used--like "my hand upon my heart," more power to your elbow," "heartfelt thanks," etc.--almost showing off a bit perhaps.

　　The first strange sentence is the second one in the letter to Shu-Wu: "This is not 'flannel' nor 'butter' but my sincere opinion (my hand upon my heart!)." I've never seen "flannel" used to mean "soft-stroking," nor "butter" used as a synonym for "flattery," though I know where the writer got the idea--from the expression "to butter someone up," that is, "to flatter," as a verb rather than a noun.

The writing is not terribly awkward, just rather cute--as by a charming foreigner. I'm not sure I would recognize the author as Chinese, except for the reference to dim sum in the third letter.

　　Nov 18 补充：钱老太厉害了，虽然这位老师说他从来没见过“flannel”这么用，但是 用户 本人已死 提到，字典里面对这个词有这么一条解释，“British informal indirect or evasive talk; deceiving flattery”，即“英式口语中，用于隐晦地表达奉承”的意思，用户 本人已死 也找到了flannel作为“奉承”讲的例句。也就是说，钱老并没有用错，而我的老师从来没听说过这个用法。。

　　第二位：持保留意见，认为语言风格非常优雅、正式，但对他来说有点浮夸：英文系教授，男，英文母语，应该是美国人，本科毕业于牛津，后就读于耶鲁，专长就是英语文学，改作文对语言规范要求也极其高，但个人比较low key。

I don't know the context of the letters. The style is elegantly formal, perhaps a bit pompous but not unidiomatic, with perhaps the exception of "the idea found from" where one might say "your interpretation of" and "a smiting of conscience" where one might say "an uneasy conscience."   And there need to be apostrophes before the possessives in "one's" and "pupil's."（这点很有可能不是钱先生的错，而是typo）  Otherwise it's perfectly good, if not (from my point of view) a little over-elaborate.

　　第三位：喜欢喜欢我就是喜欢这个写信的人：比较文学系教授，女，早年是东欧难民（精通多门语言，尤其是俄语和英语），大学和硕士在法国完成，后于哈佛攻读博士学位。改作文时对语言规范不是很严苛，至少不会像前两位教授那样，在语言不那么规范的地方，很重地扣分。她非常喜欢钱这个人，觉得他很诙谐，很逗乐，有一点语言不通的地方，但稍微改一改就好了嘛。（好吧，我承认我自己的反应是和这位老师一毛一样的。）

The writing samples show a writer with a lively and playful mind, willing to experiment with colloquial expressions. Sometimes, the syntax can be a bit awkward but that can be corrected easily. I like the light humor that comes through.

　　第四位：中立，能看出来有英国腔：历史系教授，男，英联邦国家出生和接受教育，后来美国任教，英语母语，坚守英式英语书写风格。他改学生作文，对语言书写规范非常严格，连标点符号、用词、冠词、大错小错等等，所有的都会改，但是不会拿这些扣分。他说钱的文字非常sophisticated，然后指出了三处错，最后说的这一句我服了，他说这个人看起来就像是一个熟悉 telegraphic style、上世纪二三十年代大英帝国的人。telegraphic style 就是为了文法的精巧，故意删除一些语法上必要的词，但是总体上句义是清晰的。不愧是历史系教授，连时间地点都能说出来。。难不成钱先生对英文的使用习惯，是在牛津那两年固定下来的？这个老师后来找到我，给我指出了几个其他的小错误，我看了一下，都比较像是typo，前面也有教授说到过。但他没有提冠词的问题，也没有提其他的一些用词。

My first reaction is mixed. Some of the writing is quite sophisticated and solid familiar communication, but three phrases ("The idea found from," "here go my wishes," and "smiting of conscience") ring false. Others sound like a Briton of the 1920s or 1930s writing familiar notes in telegraphic style.

　　补充：对“the idea found from” 的一点讨论：无论是老师的回复，还是其他知友的讨论，都很多次提到了这个表达，我最初的评价是这样的，【别再浪费时间争“the idea found from”这个表达的用法了！！重点不在于idea可以怎么用，可以表达哪些词义，而在于这个说法是不是符合语言习惯。举个例子，有个外国人这么说中文，“听到了这个消息，我树在原地，动弹不得”。“树”用在这里不是完全错的，只不过母语者可能不那么讲的啦。。the idea found from根本就是不地道的！！】 但永远都有讨论的空间，米花 在评论里提了一个我觉得比较符合逻辑的说法：【关于“the idea found from”，我有一个猜测，林书武当时可能因为翻译毛的文章，用词发生歧义或者误读，被理解成抹黑领袖之类，而受到了批评。钱钟书在此的意思是，你的翻译读是不出那层意思的，他们硬要读出那层意思，是不对的。】按照这个逻辑的话，钱老在这里的遣词造句，又没有什么问题了。有人或许会说，从语言层面上来讲，没表达清楚意思就是语言不好，但在书信写作的时候，双方认为彼此on the same page，是完全合情合理的。

　　补充：第五位：非常厉害的英文。终于等到这位教授的评价了，这位教授是五位中对语言鉴赏最权威的，也最客观的，他终于给出回复了！！他的专长就是英语语言研究，是学校writing center里面最权威的advisor，也是最负盛名的英文写作老师。他给出的评价很全面，说这些文字看起来有点太正式了，而且现代人可能听不习惯（即便是英语母语者也会有相同的感觉）。但写信人对英文的掌握让人印象深刻。有些不影响理解的小错，写信人能非常娴熟地使用英语习语，行文的节奏声韵很自然，能够运用比喻，而且对词汇的掌握水平很高。这个老师说他个人认为，写信的人应该是一位很有才华的人。

A very interesting question you pose and it is difficult to evaluate texts such as these with out some sense of the context, but although the writing may seem a bit formal and perhaps stilted to our modern ears (as much English, even of native speakers would I think), I think the control of English language itself is very impressive here. There are, of course, a few spelling errors and a couple missing articles （答主注: 前面几位老师也有提及这点，这些是因为我直接copy了网站的原文，很难考证这些是钱先生犯的错还是typo，但我倾向于相信是typo）, but those are merely surface level errors that do not interfere with meaning in any significant way.  What is impressive is how well the writer grasps English idiom and is able to reproduce a natural sounding cadence of the English sentence and use figurative language (metaphors and similes e.g. "I feel like a swindler . . ").  Also the writing demonstrates a very high level of vocabulary.

　　So I personally would judge this writing to be of a very caliber, and well, you know my reputation.

　　所以综合来看，五位教授对钱先生书信中的英文，评价不太一致（第一位教授感觉非常一般，后几位评价较高）。就从钱先生这三封信来看，钱老的英文写作流畅度偶有不足，但行文优雅，辞藻华丽，文学修养深厚。（至于读者喜不喜欢辞藻华丽的文字，仁者见仁智者见智。但用得出用不出，是水平问题。）不能与英文权威相媲美，不太可能不经过外文编辑，出版英文作品。不过，有些人行文规矩不犯错，或许可以成为学术作文的范本，美国校园这些人不是一抓一大把嘛，但是，没有深厚的经典熏陶和长年的书写积累，却难以做到语出惊人。

　　以上是基于钱老的三封信，对钱老英文写作的评价，如果有人称赞钱老的英文口语表达，说

錢鍾書在美國講學，僅憑其操英語的口才，即令四座吃驚，一位在哈佛大學研究院工作多年的美國學者說，他在美國長這麼大，生平從未聽過像這樣漂亮的英語，算來算去只有哈佛的一位語言學教授的英語水平差堪同錢相媲婉美。

　　应该是可信的。毕竟写作对语言规范度的要求更高，但口语就没有那么严苛。以他这几封信表现出来的英文储备之深，以他对西学的稔熟，以他一贯喜欢多少有点pompous的风格来看，讲学中有人这样评价钱老的口语，或许有夸张成分，但应该是有可能的。//Nov 18 补充：经后续考证，有人这么夸钱老，一点不夸张，而且是完全可信的。提个醒，英语学习者，还是要追求语言简洁正确，逻辑清晰条理。