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1、Whatswrongwithcopying翻译Whats wrong with copying?-Charges of plagiarism are flying in the world of books。 Where does borrowing end and theft begin? Though disputed， there is a difference.Every one knows the feeling. In a timely flash， the perfect quip forms in the mind and rolls onto the tongue. You
2、deliver it to the table, and wait for the gasps or guffaws。 In the silence that follows a dry violence says instead,” Yes I read it too。”Authors have to wait longer to find out that their words are not theirs alone. But” unconscious borrowing”, as critics call such silent plunder, is common among wr
3、iters, even the best of them。 Perhaps because nightforaging by the imagination is so vital to literature， good writers react warily when, as now, chargers of plagiarism fly. Though naturally eager to protect their own published words， and not above a malicious smile or two when others get caught, mo
4、st authors recognize that this is boggy ground。 Between imitation and theft， between borrowing and plagiarism, lies a wide， murky borderland。Since proving plagiarism is hard, legal redress is normally an expensive dream. The most that aggrieved authors can catch on is to shame the wrongdoer。 But sha
5、m means attention， and attention brings sales. Recently， Ben Okri， a Nigerianborn novelist, claimed that Calixthe Beyala， a French one， lifted whole chunks of his 1991 Bookerwinning novel, for her bestsellers。 Plagiarism means copying delicately the exact words. His were English, hers French. Showin
6、g that a plundered book is not the only source is also a defense。 On the advice of lawyers， he has dropped his case against her, and in effect the affair has died。The personal vendetta carries different risks， as Neal Bowers， a wronged poet and teacher at Iowa State University, recounts in words for
7、 the taking: The Hunt for the plagiarist. One day， Mr。 Bowers got a fax from California of a page from a poetry magazine containing， under the name of David Jones， a slightly altered version of a poem he had written for his dead father. Worse， he learned， had plagiarized other poets。 Some editors sy
8、mpathized； others did not bother even to respond。 Mr。 Bowers became， on his own admission, obsessed. He lost friends。 But in the end he found the plagiarist, through a lawyer， only to be offered $100 in compensation, and a whining apology。Copyright and self-defense are not the only protection for au
9、thors. Humble readers are among their best police. The border between theft and borrowing is also vigilantly patrolled by scholars。 John Frow， a university professor in Australia， has charged Graham Swift with pillaging William Faulkner。 According to Mr. Frow , Last Orders， which won Mr. Swift last
10、years Booker prize ， takes liberally from the theme and the fictional devices of As I Lay Dying .Its topichow people dispose of the deadis the same 。 Faulkners book has a one-sentence chapter， a chapter with itemized points and different speaking voices in different chapters。 So dose Last Orders. Th
11、at is not plagiarism, Mr。 Frow argues， but “imitation。 Mr。 Swifts fault， he suggests， is not to have made an explicit nod to the grand old man from Oxford， Mississippi。 But there speaks a professor。 Novelists are not bound by rules of doctoral quotation. The charge by Richard pipes that Orlando Fige
12、s pinched finding of his without due mention has provoked a quarrel between these two wellknown historians of Russia. But theirs is not a row-over literary plagiarism 。The allusion of novelists and poets are different from academic citations。 When T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound freighted their verse with
13、 learned listings from across the planet， they called it “collage”. Eliot did at times give sources but was laughed at for pretentiousness. In his Cantos, Pound seldom bothered to mention whose fusty trunk he was happily ransacking。Where， then， dose honest allusion, which authors want readers to cat
14、ch， stop and sly thievery begin？ Samuel Fuller, an American film director, put it well when he said of admiring French newwave film makers， “They steal from us and call it homage。” Questions of imitation, unflagged quotation and borrowing, unconscious or not， lead straight to the middle of the middl
15、e of the boy. Between mortal pedantry and wet indulgence， is there safe ground?Intention has a lot to with it。 Poets, especially， are prone to unwitting copying since verse has mnemonic properties that prose does not possess. Thom Gunn， reading poems of his in London two years ago： “my greatest fear
16、 is that I will discover or， worse, that someone else will point out to me-that I have stolen another mans words, thinking them my own。Plagiarists, like forgers, have guilty intent， but of interestingly different kinds. An infamous early 20century faker such as Hans van Meegeren wanted his paintings taken for Vermeers。 A plagiarist, by contrast, tries to pass off another writers words as his own。 Forgers sin against authenticity， plagiarists against
