in cold blood

伊坂幸太郎氏の小説 "Remote Control" を読んでいます。パート4，The Imcidentから引用します。

"There's more," said Nobuyuki. "The police are planning to use these new dart guns they've just brought on line." The new information was more than Haruko's brain could take in. "The cops must have realized they couldn't shoot him in cold blood on live TV, so they came up with an alternative that lets them 'shoot' him--with an asterisk. He shows up and at the least sign of suspicious behavior they bring him down with a tranquilizer dart and hog-tie him.

"in cold blood" これは直訳すると冷血にとなりますが辞書での説明を見ます。

・Collins Dictionary: If something violent and cruel is done in cold blood, it is done deliberately and in an unemotional way.: The crime had been committed in cold blood.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: If someone kills in cold blood, they kill in a way that seems especially cruel because it seems to show no emotion.: killed in cold blood
・Wiktionary: In a ruthless and unfeeling manner, particularly as applied to first-degree murder committed without provocation and with malice aforethought.: It was not a suicide! He was murdered in cold blood.

戦争で敵を殺すのも冷血かなと思いましたが、戦場の兵士は必ずしも冷血ではないでしょう。冷血なのは戦場に兵士を送り出した戦場にいない人たちですね。これは間違いない。

tattletale

伊坂幸太郎氏の小説 "Remote Control" を読んでいます。パート4，The Imcidentから引用します。

On days off, I make deliveries for especially for good customers on my own, charge them a lower rate, and everyone makes out--except the company, The guy on the phone said they knew all about it, and they would tell the company if i didn't cooperate. Feels like a fucking grade school tattletale, except they'll get me fired right when my daughter's starting all those expensive girlie lessons.

"telltale" と似ていますが "tattletale" の意味を辞書で確認します。

・Oxford English Dictionary: a child who tells an adult what another child has done wrong
・Collins Dictionary: a talebearer or informer, esp. among children
・Cambridge English Dictionary: a person, especially a child, who secretly tells someone in authority, especially a teacher, that someone else has done something bad, often in order to cause trouble: She has good manners, yet tends to be a bit of a tattletale at times.
・Vocabulary.com: A tattletale is a person who tries to get someone in trouble by revealing secret information about them. Your tattletale brother will probably tell your parents that you were actually at the movies, not the library.
The word tattletale is mostly used in the U.S. (in Britain it's more common to use telltale). It comes from the verb tattle, "report someone's wrongdoing." In the 16th century, you'd have called a tattletale a pickthank. These days, you can also use words like snitch or whistle-blower.

"tattletale" は普通は子供について使うのですね。

phalanx

伊坂幸太郎氏の小説 "Remote Control" を読んでいます。前回引用した個所の直後の文から引用します。

He was prepared for a phalanx of policemen silhouetted in the door, but it was just Iwasaki who jumped in with him. The worried look on his face made it clear that something had happened.

"phalanx" はエジプトのPharaohを連想させるような古い言葉の様な気がしますが、辞書で意味を調べます。

・Oxford English Dictionary: a group of people or things standing very close together; The protesters ran into a solid phalanx of riot police.
・Collins Dictionary: A phalanx is a group of soldiers or police who are standing or marching close together ready to fight.: the police formed a phalanx to protect the embassy
・Cambridge English Dictionary: a large group of people standing very close to each other, usually for the purposes of defence or attack: Bodyguards formed a solid phalanx around the singer so that photographers couldn't get close.
・Vocabulary.com: A phalanx is a tightly knit group of people or things, like an army troop or a bunch of fans of the same band.
Phalanx refers to any tightly formed group of soldiers or officers, and historically defines a body of Macedonian infantry whose shields overlapped. From that sense, it came to mean any close-knit group. Another definition of phalanx — any bone in a finger or toe — also came out of the military sense: these bones work together closely, just like a military phalanx. The plural for these bones is phalanges, while the plural for the other senses is phalanxes.
ギリシャ時代からの単語ですね。

stomach lurched

伊坂幸太郎氏の小説 "Remote Control" を読んでいます。パート4，The Imcidentから引用します。

But maybe this stop meant no more than the earlier ones. Maybe Iwasaki would appear any second now and apologize for the delay. Maybe he had one package he absolutely had to deliver. The door rattled again and then flew open. Aoyagi's stomach lurched.
Light poured in from outside, and he strained to keep his eyes from squinting shut.

"stomach lurched" の意味を調べます。

・Oxford English Dictionary: if your heart or stomach lurches, you have a sudden feeling of fear or excitement
・Vocabulary.com: To lurch is to suddenly move — usually forward. If you are on a ship that lurches a lot during a storm, you may find your body lurching in one direction and your stomach going in the opposite one.
The verb lurch can refer to any abrupt movement, but it often has the sense of a sharp turn up, down, or sideways. If you invest in the stock market, you have to be prepared for sudden losses and gains as the stock market can lurch up or down on a whim. The verb also means to make sudden jerking movements when walking, as if you cannot control your movements.

ちなみに、"lurch" を含んだ慣用句 "leave someone in the lurch" を小説 "Convenience Store Woman"(1/9/2024) からとKazuo Ishiguroの短編 "MALVERN HILLS" (3/5/2012)から取り上げました。

mind-boggling

伊坂幸太郎氏の小説 "Remote Control" を読んでいます。パート4，The Imcidentから引用します。

He had never been to the model shop. Koume Inohara had bought the helicopter and even put it together for him, so the scene on the tape had never happened. Still, there he was-in a still extracted from the footage now filling the screen--or someone who looked exactly like him. It was mind-boggling.

"mind-boggling" の意味を調べます。

・Oxford English Dictionary: very difficult to imagine or to understand; extremely surprising: a problem of mind-boggling complexity
・Collins Dictionary: If you say that something is mind-boggling, you mean that it is so large, complicated, or extreme that it is very hard to imagine.: The amount of paperwork involved is mind-boggling.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: extremely surprising and difficult to understand or imagine: She was paid the mind-boggling sum of ten million dollars for that film.
・Vocabulary.com: intellectually or emotionally overwhelming: “a mind-boggling display”

正月の初セリのマグロの価格は私にとって "mind-boggling" です。