〈談文論譯〉女貞與分贓政治 Privet & Pork Barrel 蘇正隆
讀過《哈利·波特》的人對 4 Privet Drive 大概都不陌生，那是主角哈利童年住處，
the street address of the home owned by Vernon and Petunia Dursley，他阿姨佩妮
和姨丈威農·德思禮的家。Privet (Ligustrum vulgare)「歐洲女貞」是英國常見的綠籬
植物，4 Privet Drive 台灣版翻成「水蠟樹街4號」，中國簡體版譯為「女貞路4號」，
以譯為「女貞」為宜，女貞這一屬植物包括歐洲女貞、日本女貞、水蠟樹等，但英國並没
有「水蠟樹」。「日本女貞」又名「琉球女貞」，其實是台灣原生植物。
前天下午經過台大新生南路三段，看到行道上的「日本女貞」(Ligustrum liukiuense,
Japanese Privet) 長得好好的，卻給鏟除，又重種另一批「日本女貞」。奇怪吧？不！
因為選舉到了。
許多掌握政府資源者往往會利用選舉前大方撥款，給自己的地方樁腳一些好處，讓他們包
些工程。這種政客籠絡支持者的政治手腕，中文叫「分贓政治」，英文叫pork barrel，
直譯就是「豬肉桶」。底下是 Merriam-Webster 對pork barrel 的解釋： government
projects or appropriations yielding rich patronage benefits … used
figuratively to mean "a supply of money" or "one's livelihood" (a farmer,
after all, could readily turn pork into cash). When 20th-century legislators
doled out appropriations that benefited their home districts, someone
apparently made an association between the profit a farmer got from a barrel
of pork and the benefits derived from certain state and federal projects. By
1909, pork barrel was being used as a noun naming such government
appropriations, and today the term is usually used attributively in
constructions such as "pork barrel spending" or "a pork barrel project."
(Jerome Su, Revised Oct 14, 2018)