BBC报道中的这句话应该怎么看

■倪肖丁

2017年5月19日，英国BBC以China claims breakthrough in mining ‘flammable ice ’为题，对我国可燃冰试采获得成功进行了报道。其中有个句子如下：

It’s thought that there is as much as 10 times the amount of gas in methane hydrates than in shale for instance.

有老师在微信公众号发文，呼吁BBC把这个句子改一改。因为，than前面应该出现比较级形式（比如bigger，more等），但上面的句中than前面并没有比较级。因此BBC的这个句子需要修改为It’s thought that there is as much as 10 times more gas in methane hydrates than in shale, for instance或It is thought that there is up to ten times as much gas in methane hydrates as (there is) in shale, for instance。

以上分析以及解决方案看上去似乎颇有道理，且符合读者的预期。但问题是：BBC报道中的上述句子真的需要改吗？

我的回答是：不需要！

英文中倍数的表达有多种不同的手段。比如说“Tom挣的钱是比尔的三倍”，我们较为熟悉的有“N times as…as…”，“N times more…than…”或“N times+the名词（+定语）”这三种比较句式可用。例如：

句式1：N times as…as…

Tom earns three times as much (money) as Bill.

句式2：N times more…than…

Tom earns three times more (money) than Bill.

句式3：N times+限定性名词（+定语）

Tom earns three times the amount Bill does.

但除此以外，我们也可以把句式1和句式2分别与句式3结合起来进行重组。于是有了我们并不太熟悉的新句式。即：

句式4：N times+限定性名词+as/than…

Tom earns three times the amount (of money) as/than Bill does.

显而易见，这一句与BBC报道中的句子结构特征是相同的：主句没有as，但分句却用as引导；主句没有more（或其它比较级形式），但分句却用than引导。

这种一般语法教程未见介绍的句式看上去似乎并不靠谱，但其实不然。就其本质而言，这也是一种被习惯认可的句法混搭现象。是否采用这种句式与文体风格和作者的不同写作特色有关。但无论在普通出版物、新闻媒体还是学术类书刊中，这种句式都是存在。而且句子越长、文体越正式，使用可能性越大，其中分句引导词用as的更为常见。例如：

The average newspaper office receives many times the amount of foreign news than it has space to print. （1100 Words You Need to Know）

When attending a trade show or convention, be sure to bring along three times the number of business cards than you normally would take. （Business Etiquette For Dummies）

 Harvard scientists found that women who had beef, lamb or pork as a daily main dish ran 2 1/2 times the risk of developing colon cancer as did those who ate the meats less than once a month. （TIME 1990/12/24 ）

 A study out of the Boston University School of Public Health shows that men with bald spots can have more than three times the risk of heart attack as guys with a full head of hair. （TIME 1993/03/08）

Still other documents show that GM used three and four times the amount of solvents in Mexico as it did at a comparable plant in Dayton, Ohio. " Not allowed in Dayton, " noted a handwritten GM memo.（TIME 1997/10/26)）

Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, found that those who had previously taken birth control pills for three years or more had twice the risk of developing the disease as women who took them for less time or who had never taken them.(Reader’s digest April 2014)

下面是《大英百科全书》（Encyclopædia Britannica中看到的例句：

The Soviet Union had twice or perhaps three times the number of both tanks and aircraft as the Germans had, but their aircraft were mostly obsolete. (World War II)

For instance, the Hyades, which compose one of the nearest clusters, have almost twice the abundance of heavy elements as the Sun. (Milky Way Galaxy)

The greater virulence of P. falciparum is associated with its tendency to infect a large proportion of the red blood cells; patients infected with that species will exhibit ten times the number of parasites per cubic millimetre of blood than patients infected with the other three malaria species. ( malaria)

Since the mid-1960s there has been a marked shift in employment from manufacturing to services, including tourism, with the service sector accounting for nearly four times the number of jobs as the manufacturing sector.（Scotland）

Encyclopædia Britannica由各学科4000多名专家撰稿，经100多名全职编辑审校并由百科全书专业出版社出品，250多年来不断再版、推陈出新。我不认为上述句子中N times+限定性名词+as/than…的相关用法是撰稿人和编辑粗心导致的错误。BBC报道中的句子也同样如此。

当然，如果我们的中学生写出这样的句子，纠正一下也属自然，毕竟他们还在打基础的阶段。但对于BBC新闻的编辑或记者来说，他们知道自己在写什么。中国的英语学习者或爱好者也并非其新闻报道的主要目标受众，他们不会把自己的写作限制在我们对英语的认知范围之内。有些用法可能看着别扭，我们尽可以不去模仿。但批评和否定是需要谨慎的，毕竟我们对英语的用法知之尚浅。