Audiobook Dictation: “Why should one halt on the…”

Why should one halt on the way?

為何要半途止步呢？

Nothing is more lugubrious than the contemplation thus in its nudity, in the broad light of thought, of the horrible swarming of slang.

沒有什麼比這樣赤裸裸地、在思想的光天化日之下，凝視黑話那可怕的蠕動更為陰鬱的了。

It seems, in fact, to be a sort of horrible beast made for the night which has just been torn from its cesspool.

事實上，它彷彿是一種為黑夜而生的可怖野獸，剛剛被人從它的污水坑裡拖了出來。

One thinks one beholds a frightful, living, and bristling thicket which quivers, rustles, wavers, returns to shadow, threatens and glares.

人們彷彿看見一片駭人的、活生生的、毛髮倒豎的灌木叢，在顫抖、沙沙作響、搖晃、退回陰影、威脅並怒目而視。

One word resembles a claw, another an extinguished and bleeding eye, such and such a phrase seems to move like the claw of a crab.

有的詞像一隻爪子，有的像一隻熄滅而流血的眼睛，這句那句彷彿像蟹鉗一樣在蠕動。

Now, when has horror ever excluded study?

可是，恐怖何曾排斥過研究？

Since when has malady banished medicine?

從何時起疾病把醫學驅逐了？

He would be like a philologist refusing to examine a fact in language, a philosopher hesitating to scrutinize a fact in humanity.

他就會像一個拒絕考察語言事實的語文學家，一個遲疑著不敢審視人性事實的哲學家。

For, it must be stated to those who are ignorant of the case, that argot is both a literary phenomenon and a social result.

因為必須向不了解情況的人說明：黑話既是一種文學現象，也是一種社會產物。

What is slang, properly speaking?

確切地說，黑話是什麼？