The Red Notebookに書かれているのは実話だと何度も著者が強調するので、話しの内容が嘘だとは思いませんが、かなり誇張があるように私には感じられます。著者のフランス人の友人で詩人のＣ氏の話からの文を引用します。
No one is more universally admired than C., no one has more talent, no one so readily commands the center of operation, and yet he has always done everything in his power to marginalize himself.
上の文に出てきた "marginalize" ですが、"margin" の意味から推測しようとしたのですが、諦めて辞書を見ます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: Treat (a person, group, or concept) as insignificant or peripheral: 'attempting to marginalize those who disagree’: (as adjective marginalized) ‘members of marginalized cultural groups’
・Collins Dictionary: (transitive) to relegate to the fringes, out of the mainstream; make seem unimportant ⇒ various economic assumptions marginalize women
そうか、中心ではなく端に置くのでこう言う意味になるのですね。例によって Vocabulary.comを見ると次ぎの様な詳しい説明がありました。
When you push people to the edge of society by not allowing them a place within it, you marginalize them. For example, some companies marginalize disabled people by refusing to hire them.
A society that labels certain people as outside the norm - weird, scary, hateful, or useless - marginalizes those people, edging them out. Native or aboriginal groups often end up in this position, and so do people who are poor, disabled, elderly, or who in other ways are seen as not quite fitting in. The Latin root is margo, "edge, brink, or border." Since the late 1920's marginalize has referred not to a literal edge, but to a powerless position just outside society.
日本語の窓際族も同じ発想から出た言葉ですね。
No one is more universally admired than C., no one has more talent, no one so readily commands the center of operation, and yet he has always done everything in his power to marginalize himself.
上の文に出てきた "marginalize" ですが、"margin" の意味から推測しようとしたのですが、諦めて辞書を見ます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: Treat (a person, group, or concept) as insignificant or peripheral: 'attempting to marginalize those who disagree’: (as adjective marginalized) ‘members of marginalized cultural groups’
・Collins Dictionary: (transitive) to relegate to the fringes, out of the mainstream; make seem unimportant ⇒ various economic assumptions marginalize women
そうか、中心ではなく端に置くのでこう言う意味になるのですね。例によって Vocabulary.comを見ると次ぎの様な詳しい説明がありました。
When you push people to the edge of society by not allowing them a place within it, you marginalize them. For example, some companies marginalize disabled people by refusing to hire them.
A society that labels certain people as outside the norm - weird, scary, hateful, or useless - marginalizes those people, edging them out. Native or aboriginal groups often end up in this position, and so do people who are poor, disabled, elderly, or who in other ways are seen as not quite fitting in. The Latin root is margo, "edge, brink, or border." Since the late 1920's marginalize has referred not to a literal edge, but to a powerless position just outside society.
日本語の窓際族も同じ発想から出た言葉ですね。
トータル
