It's been a jolly bad week for that most traditional of office pastimes — gossiping. First came a survey saying that Americans are exchanging 21 per cent less gossip around the watercooler than they were four years ago.

办公室里最传统的消遣莫过于八卦。不过，这周对于八卦而言，可真是糟糕透顶。先是有一项调查显示，美国人在饮水机旁八卦闲谈的时间比四年前少了21%。

Then, a couple of days later, one of the world's most rabid enemies of gossip, Ray Dalio, emerged as king of the hedgies, taking the crown from George Soros. Mr Dalio is famous for forbidding staff of his Bridgewater fund from gossiping and has warned them: "If you talk behind people's backs . . . you are called a slimy weasel."

随之，几天后，世上对八卦最为深恶痛绝的一位人士——雷?戴利奥(Ray Dalio)——从乔治?索罗斯(George Soros)手中抢走了桂冠，一举成为对冲基金界的王者。戴利奥很有名的一个段子是禁止其桥水(Bridgewater)基金公司的员工讲八卦。他警告员工：“如果你在别人背后说闲话……你就是只令人嫌恶的臭黄鼠狼(slimy weasel)。”

Even without these (dodgy) surveys and doctrinaire hedge fund bosses, I had already noticed something big was happening. There is simply a lot less gossip than there used to be. At least at my place, whole weeks can pass without me hearing anything juicy at all.

即使没有这些（居心不良的）调查或者死板的基金老板，我也已经注意到现今形势出现了重大变化。现在的八卦比以前少了很多。至少在我所处的办公室，往往好几周都听不到一点小道消息。

You could say that this is a great thing, as it makes work more decent, more professional and more straightforward. But I think it's a catastrophe. Being an experienced, even distinguished, slimy weasel myself, I'd put Mr Dalio's diktat differently: if you don't talk behind people's backs, you are a prig and a bore and not sufficiently interested in the human condition to have any chance of success in a people business. Gossip is the thing that unites us and, even in hard times, makes coming into the office a constant pleasure.

你可能会说，没有八卦了多好，这样工作变得更体面、更专业也更加直接。可是我却觉得这不啻一场灾难。作为一名经验老道、甚至可谓出类拔萃的“臭黄鼠狼”，我对戴利奥的命令不敢苟同：如果你不在别人背后讲讲闲话，那简直就是个乏味的道学先生，对于“何为人者”毫无兴致，压根没有机会在人际交往中胜出。正是有了八卦才把大家联系在一起，即使在艰难时刻，走进办公室也立刻充满了乐趣。

The reason that the art of tittle-tattle is dying out has nothing to do with us becoming nicer, as we are surely just as horrible as they always were. Nor is it to do with autocratic bosses forbidding it (which tends to have the opposite effect, anyway). It is simply because the way we work is changing and there are far fewer gossip opportunities in an average working day than there once were.

闲话的艺术正在消亡，其原因不是人们变得更加高尚了——人们当然还是一如既往地可憎。也不是因为独断专行的老板禁止人们说闲话（其实往往带来相反的效果）。原因很简单，人们的工作方式变了，在普通工作日里八卦的时间比以前大大减少了。

First, there has been the tragic decline of the lunch hour and the eclipse of the office canteen. When I joined the workforce 30 years ago, the canteen was a temple to gossip, which was exchanged in a leisurely, convivial way over a plate of toad in the hole. Today for lunch I did what I tend to do when I don't have a date, and slipped out alone for an egg sandwich, which I ate at my desk.

首先，午餐时间可悲地减少了，企业食堂消亡了。30年前我参加工作时，食堂是八卦的圣殿。端上一碟子烤香肠，从容不迫、愉快随意地交流着闲言碎语。现在，如果没有约会，我的午餐时间就是用来吃午餐，而且是一个人溜出去，买个鸡蛋三明治，回到办公桌前独自吃掉。

Virtual working is also a disaster for gossip. So is excessive working. The more people have to do, the less time they have for idle chatter. But far more than any of this, the thing that is killing the finest sort of gossip is the internet: email, Facebook and Twitter.

远程虚拟工作和加班也成了八卦的杀手。人们干活越多，可以唠叨闲话的时间就越少。不过，相比之下，在消灭一流八卦方面“居功至伟”的当属互联网：电子邮件、Facebook和Twitter。

As every slimy weasel will tell you, there is an art to being a good gossip. The most important thing is for it to happen face-to-face. You need to be able to see the other person and watch their pupils dilating as juicy scraps of news are given and received. You must be able to laugh, whisper and speculate together.

每位臭黄鼠狼都会告诉你，成为一流的八卦散布者是门艺术。其中最重要的一点是，讲八卦要面对面地讲。你得看得到其他人，随着一条条刺激的消息传来传去，看着人们的瞳孔兴奋地放大。你得会和别人一起哈哈大笑、窃窃私语以及臆度揣测。

All gifted gossipers possess three special skills. First, they have built up superb sources; second, they know how to tell a good story; and third, they have the self-restraint and judgment to stop before becoming too nasty. After all, the aim of the exercise is to leave the person you are talking to feeling titillated, not soiled.

任何有天赋的三姑六婆都得具备三种技能。首先，信息来源广泛；第二，知道怎么讲好故事；第三，有自制力和判断力，能在造成伤害之前戛然而止。毕竟，八卦的目的只是调侃一下谈论对象，而不能让他们觉得受了侮辱。

The internet ruins all of this. It is mechanical and brutal and faceless and unsatisfyingly random. And much of what passes for gossip online is about people you have never even heard of, so where's the fun in that?

而互联网则毁掉了这一切。互联网呆板、无情、冰冷，随机性很大。网上流传的八卦大都是关于毫不相干的人，这有什么乐趣可言？

A perfect example of this was an email forwarded to me — and to every other worker in the western world — written by four spoilt ex-public school boys working at various City firms. They were organising a trip to watch the rugby in Dubai and bragging about how rich their parents were and how they were going to cheat on their girlfriends.

最典型的一个例子是转发给我的一封邮件——也转发给了所有西方国家的上班族。这封邮件的作者是四个被宠坏的男孩，以前在私立学校念书，后来在伦敦金融城(the City)的企业里工作。在邮件里，他们谈到正在组织一次旅行，前往迪拜观看英式橄榄球比赛，还吹嘘自己的父母如何富有，打算如何背着女朋友乱搞。

As gossip, this fails every test. I don't know any of the subjects, I don't even really know the person who forwarded the email to me. As I sat alone by my computer reading their stupid messages, I felt half-bored and half-lowered — less by the vulgarity of the emails but by the whole exercise. The scale of the damage done to this feckless foursome by the mass forwarding of their emails seems out of proportion to the stupidity of their messages.

从八卦的角度看，这封邮件从哪个角度看都不合格。我对其中谈论的主题一无所知，甚至不知道是谁转发给我的。我坐在电脑前读着他们的愚蠢邮件，心中感到烦躁又阴郁——倒不是因为邮件内容的粗俗，而是整件事情的荒唐。这四个人虽然不负责任，但是群体转发他们的邮件对这四个人也造成了无法弥补的伤害，邮件内容的愚蠢之处反倒相形见绌了。

The saddest thing of all is how little it takes to be a top modern gossiper. You don't need contacts, you don't need judgment and you certainly don't need to know how to tell a good story. All you need is an index finger (or any firm object) so that you can press the forward button — or to click retweet on Twitter.

最让人沮丧的是，在现代社会成为一流的八卦人士不必费吹灰之力。不需要联系别人，不需要判断力，当然也不用知道讲好故事的技巧。只要动动食指（或者任何坚硬物体）按下转发键就行了——或者在Twitter上点一下“转贴”按钮即可。