《华盛顿邮报》报道，最近两个枪击案又引发了“Stand your ground”的争论：Do laws that allow private citizens to protect their property also let them set a trap and wait for someone to kill? 读Heidegger 的Poetry, Language, Thought，恰好有句话也说ground：The ground isthe soil in which to strike root and to stand.（Chp.3, what are poets for?）两个ground没有“转义”，都是基础或立场。那个枪的争论，是要人选边站；Heidegger是说基础丢了，只剩深渊——好像是跟着尼采的话说的：上帝死了，缺失了；因为神的缺失，世界的基础没了——

Because of this default, there fails to appear for the world the ground that grounds it. The word for abyss—Abgrund—originally means the soil and ground toward which, because it is undermost, a thing tends downward. But in what follows we shall think of the Ab- as the complete absence of the ground. The ground is the soil in which to strike root and to stand. The age for which the ground fails to come, hangs in the abyss. Assuming that a turn still remains open for this destitute time at all, it can come some day only if the world turns about fundamentally—and that now means, unequivocally: if it turns away from the abyss. In the age of the world's night, the abyss of the world must be experienced and endured. But for this it is necessary that there be those who reach into the abyss.

诗学评论者好像喜欢引用这段话里的句子——此书有中译本（就是根据以上的Albert Hofstadter的英译本翻译的），上段文字如下：

由于这种缺席，世界缺乏那支撑它的基础。作为深渊之词（Abgund）最初意味着大地和基础，作为最低处，某物顺坡而下滑向此地。但是下面我们将把Ab-看作基础的全部消失，基础乃是为了在其中扎根和挺立的大地。没有基础出现的时代，它悬挂在一深渊之上。设定一转折仍然为此贫乏的时代敞开着，那么，它只有能在某天到来，这时世界的转折是根本性地——而这现在明确地意指：如果它走出深渊。在世界之夜的时代，人们必须忍受和体验此世界的深渊。但是为此，那进入此深渊的人便是必然的。

海老师也许觉得译文传达了他的哲学精髓，老百姓看不懂；小学生可能觉得，它的句子乱七八糟，像用一堆垃圾玩儿积木；中学生可能觉得，它连英文的主句从句都没分清楚；我的程度在中小学之间，感觉它既不懂英文也不懂中文，尽管也许它懂海老师的哲学。

随便再找一页来看，还有更奇妙的句子：

远古文化的久远场所，在电影中所显示的，仿佛它将这特殊的时期置于当今的街道交通之中。另外，电影还通过在这种活动中同时展示摄影机及其操纵者来证明它所显示之物。这种遥远可能性取消的最高点，由电视达到了，它能马上掠过和支配所有的交往机构。

   它的英文是

Distant sites of the most ancient cultures are shown on film as if they stood this very moment amidst today's street traffic. Moreover, the film attests to what it shows by presenting also the camera and its operators at work. The peak of this abolition of every possibility of remoteness is reached by television, which will soon pervade and dominate the whole machinery of communication.

对比看，那几句翻译倒是一点儿都没错——借泡利老师的名言说：它连错都算不上。