Reader's Digest 5月号に家が山火事に囲まれたがなんとか助かった家族の記事がありました。記事の題と副題は次ぎのようになっていました。
"WE'RE DEAD" Stay and fight, or abondon your home? As one family struggles to decide, the flames sweep in.
日本は降雨量が多いので大きな山火事はありませんが、米国やオーストラリアでは何ヶ月も燃え続ける山火事が度々発生します。１９８８年にイエローストーン公園に遊びに行った時に公園の山火事を見ました。帰国後の何ヶ月もその山火事が続いているのをニュースで見て山火事の規模の大きさに驚いた覚えがあります。ＲＤの記事の中に気になる表現がありました。記事の一部を抜粋します。
In many a location across the ranges - particularly around the top of the escarpment, where the vegetation was thick and the incline vertiginous - you're dead anyway. The dice are loaded, there's a horseshoe in the glove: the moment never comes. Inside and out coalesce into an infinity of heat and light, darkness and smoke. This family is fortunate to have that gravity-fed hose, something few in the region have; it gives them precious minutes. So many others are relying on electric pumps that give out when the power goes, or petrol pumps that cease operating when the fuel evaporates.
難しい単語も三つありましたが、その意味は辞書で容易に分かるので簡単に済ませます。
"escarpment": a steep slope that forms the edge of a long area of high land
"vertiginous": having or causing a whirling sensation; liable to falling; changeable; unstable
"coalesce": to come together and form a group or a single unit
気になったのは "The dice are loaded, there's a horseshoe in the glove" の表現です。
まず "The dice are loaded" の方を調べると、"load the dice" と言う慣用句があることが分かりました。 "load the dice" を辞書は次ぎの様に説明しています。
・Collins Dictionary: to arrange to have a favourable or unfavourable position: Capping costs serves only to load the dice even further against the injury victim.
・Dictionary.com: to put someone or something in a advantageous or disadvantageous position; affect or influence the result: Lack of sufficient education loaded the dice against him as a candidate for the job.
・GNU Webster's 1913: dice with one side made heavier than the others, so that the number on the opposite side will come up oftenest (これは語源ですね）
記事の表現は慣用句 "load the dice" を受身形にしたものと思います。
"horseshoe in the glove" については次回とりあげます。
"WE'RE DEAD" Stay and fight, or abondon your home? As one family struggles to decide, the flames sweep in.
日本は降雨量が多いので大きな山火事はありませんが、米国やオーストラリアでは何ヶ月も燃え続ける山火事が度々発生します。１９８８年にイエローストーン公園に遊びに行った時に公園の山火事を見ました。帰国後の何ヶ月もその山火事が続いているのをニュースで見て山火事の規模の大きさに驚いた覚えがあります。ＲＤの記事の中に気になる表現がありました。記事の一部を抜粋します。
In many a location across the ranges - particularly around the top of the escarpment, where the vegetation was thick and the incline vertiginous - you're dead anyway. The dice are loaded, there's a horseshoe in the glove: the moment never comes. Inside and out coalesce into an infinity of heat and light, darkness and smoke. This family is fortunate to have that gravity-fed hose, something few in the region have; it gives them precious minutes. So many others are relying on electric pumps that give out when the power goes, or petrol pumps that cease operating when the fuel evaporates.
難しい単語も三つありましたが、その意味は辞書で容易に分かるので簡単に済ませます。
"escarpment": a steep slope that forms the edge of a long area of high land
"vertiginous": having or causing a whirling sensation; liable to falling; changeable; unstable
"coalesce": to come together and form a group or a single unit
気になったのは "The dice are loaded, there's a horseshoe in the glove" の表現です。
まず "The dice are loaded" の方を調べると、"load the dice" と言う慣用句があることが分かりました。 "load the dice" を辞書は次ぎの様に説明しています。
・Collins Dictionary: to arrange to have a favourable or unfavourable position: Capping costs serves only to load the dice even further against the injury victim.
・Dictionary.com: to put someone or something in a advantageous or disadvantageous position; affect or influence the result: Lack of sufficient education loaded the dice against him as a candidate for the job.
・GNU Webster's 1913: dice with one side made heavier than the others, so that the number on the opposite side will come up oftenest (これは語源ですね）
記事の表現は慣用句 "load the dice" を受身形にしたものと思います。
"horseshoe in the glove" については次回とりあげます。
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