昨日採り上げた "Chinese burn" が出ていた記事で、"A fish out of water" の遊び（授業？）が合った時の事です。
Hours passed, days passed. My dreamy attention had long since wandered elsewhere, anywhere, when Miss Smith enquired, sweetly, "Is anyone bored with our little game?"
I immediately stuck up my hand, and gave a straightforward answer to a straightforward question from an adult.
"Me, MIss."
"And what was your name again?"
"Peter Goldsworthy, Miss."
"Is that so? Well, Peter Goldsworthy, you can stand in the corner with your face in your hands for the rest of the afternoon, your ungrateful little boy!"
I had plenty of time to ponder her words, while the angling continued behind my back. Try as I might, I couldn't come up with even the glimmer of an explanation. What exactly had I done wrong? Something very wicked, cleary - but what?
Being too clever by half, as my mother was told later, when she demanded an explanation from Miss Smith. Mum, trained as a primary school teacher herself, was indignant at my treatment.
"too clever by half" とはどんな意味でしょう。単純な褒め言葉ではないようですね。
・Cambridge Idioms Dictionary: (British) to be too confident of your own intelligence in a way that annoys other people At school he had a reputation for arrogance.: 'Too clever by half' was how one former teacher described him.
・Wiktionary: (idiomatic, of a person, plan, theory, etc.) Shrewd but flawed by overthinking or excessive complexity, with a resulting tendency to be unreliable or unsuccessful.
・Urban Dictionary: To be "too smart by half" (also common is "too clever by half") is to be too smart for one's own good, meant either literally or ironically. As an idiom, it is usually sarcastic. The phrase has a wide range of potential uses; for instance, it can mean:
1.) Something so complex that it's self-obfuscating.
2.) A seemingly clever action that is in fact foolish.
3.) Logically accepting something as necessary that isn't.
4.) Overanalysis.
5.) Elitism (see ivory tower).
かなり皮肉がこめられた表現ですね。
Hours passed, days passed. My dreamy attention had long since wandered elsewhere, anywhere, when Miss Smith enquired, sweetly, "Is anyone bored with our little game?"
I immediately stuck up my hand, and gave a straightforward answer to a straightforward question from an adult.
"Me, MIss."
"And what was your name again?"
"Peter Goldsworthy, Miss."
"Is that so? Well, Peter Goldsworthy, you can stand in the corner with your face in your hands for the rest of the afternoon, your ungrateful little boy!"
I had plenty of time to ponder her words, while the angling continued behind my back. Try as I might, I couldn't come up with even the glimmer of an explanation. What exactly had I done wrong? Something very wicked, cleary - but what?
Being too clever by half, as my mother was told later, when she demanded an explanation from Miss Smith. Mum, trained as a primary school teacher herself, was indignant at my treatment.
"too clever by half" とはどんな意味でしょう。単純な褒め言葉ではないようですね。
・Cambridge Idioms Dictionary: (British) to be too confident of your own intelligence in a way that annoys other people At school he had a reputation for arrogance.: 'Too clever by half' was how one former teacher described him.
・Wiktionary: (idiomatic, of a person, plan, theory, etc.) Shrewd but flawed by overthinking or excessive complexity, with a resulting tendency to be unreliable or unsuccessful.
・Urban Dictionary: To be "too smart by half" (also common is "too clever by half") is to be too smart for one's own good, meant either literally or ironically. As an idiom, it is usually sarcastic. The phrase has a wide range of potential uses; for instance, it can mean:
1.) Something so complex that it's self-obfuscating.
2.) A seemingly clever action that is in fact foolish.
3.) Logically accepting something as necessary that isn't.
4.) Overanalysis.
5.) Elitism (see ivory tower).
かなり皮肉がこめられた表現ですね。
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