美國習慣用語 第847:damn with faint praise

我很尊重我奶奶，不過坦白說，她有時候真讓我沒辦法。上星期她來我家之前，我特地把家裏打掃得乾乾淨淨，還去買了幾個沙發坐墊，把客廳裝飾的更加溫馨。可他對我煞費苦心地裝飾只說了句：還湊合吧! 真氣死我了! 這也讓我想到一個習慣用語，那就是: damn with faint praise.

Damn, 作爲動詞，是批評的意思，而faint praise, 在這裏是指無力的讚揚。 Damn with faint praise, 作爲一個詞組，意思是名褒實貶，用輕微的讚揚進行貶低。

我奶奶就是這樣，對於我全部的努力，她就說了一句湊合， she damned me with faint praise even though I've tried my best to impress her. 雖然我盡了全力，可她還是名褒實貶地忽略了我的努力。下面的例子裏談的是父子關係，我們來聽聽看:

例句-1：Is it any wonder that my dad and I aren't that close? No matter what I achieve, it always seems it isn't good enough. He doesn't actually say so directly. But the way he damns me with faint praise, I always feel like I'm not meeting his expectations. Why can't he compliment me once in a while?

這段話是說：我跟我爸爸的關係不是很好，這也沒什麼好奇怪的。不管我取得了什麼成就，對他來說好像始終不夠。他並不會直接這麼說。但是他從來都只是蜻蜓點水地讚揚，讓我覺得我永遠達不到他的期望。爲什麼他就不能誇獎我一次呢?

對啊! 有這樣的家長真的很讓人難受。有些家長認爲如果表揚孩子就是對他們的溺愛，其實不是這樣。誰都需要表揚和肯定，不是嗎?

在工作中也一樣，如果有個不愛表揚人的領導，底下人的士氣肯定也不高。Instead of damning the employees with faint praise, supervisors should encourage the staff when they do a good job.

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Damn with faint praise, 名褒實貶，用輕微的讚揚進行貶低。對於電影評論這個職業，或許這是一個有用的性格特徵? 我們來聽聽看下面這個例子:

例句-2：The movie director had received many positive reviews for her latest work. One critic, however, didn't seem to care for it much. It's not that he gave it an openly bad review. Instead, he wrote that he was pleasantly surprised that the film was shorter than the other films. It was easy to see that he was damning the director with faint praise.

這段話是說: 這名電影導演的最新作品獲得了很多正面評價。不過有一名影評人似乎並不怎麼看好他的新片子。他倒也沒有公開說這部電影不好，不過他說，他很高興地發現，這部電影比這個導演的其他電影要短。很顯然，他對這部電影是名褒實貶。

與其收到這種評論，倒還不如別人直接批評我! 我記得我聽過一句話: If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. 如果你沒有好話要說，那就閉嘴。我覺得這句話說的特別對。每個人都希望得到別人的肯定，誰願意得到這種蒼白的表揚呢?