子供の読み物 "Stuart Little" からです。
"he got out some boards, a saw, a hammer, a screw driver, a brad-awl, and some nails, and started to make a terrific fuss in the bathroom, building what he said was going to be a brace for Stuart."
"brad-awl" ですが、文の前後からして大工道具の一種であることは分かりますが全く知らない言葉なので早速辞書を引きます。
OneLook Quick Definitions: A straight awl with chisel edge, used to make holes for brads, etc.
Dictionary.comも全く同じ説明でしたがいずれも " brad awl " でハイフンは使っていませんでした。 今度は "brad" と "awl " を別々に引いてみます。
"brad":
OneLook Quick Definitions: a small nail
Dictionary.com: a slender wire nail having either a small, deep head or a projection to one side of the head end.
"awl ":
OneLook Quick Definitions: a pointed tool for marking surfaces or for punching small holes
Dictionary.com: a pointed instrument for piercing small holes in leather, wood, etc.
"awl "は千枚通しの様なものでしょうか。
Wikipediaで調べると "brad-awl" ではなく "bradawl" の項で "A bradawl is an awl with a beveled point. The normal use of a bradawl is to make small indentations in wood in preparation for insertion of brads or screws, although it may be used for a variety of tasks requiring a sharp point. Its handle is made either of wood or plastic. Sometimes it is used to start a hole before it is drilled." とありました。 "a beveled point" と言うのは先だけが尖っているのではなく先端から柄のところまで斜めになっている、やはり千枚通しの様に、尖っている道具のようです。
幸いインターネット上で写真を見つけたので参考にして下さい。
明日からエジプト旅行に行きますのでしばらくこのブログはお休みします。
ArcaMaxは単語のメルマガで、私が知っている、あるいは意味は覚えていないが見たこと、聞いたことのある単語は１～２週間に一度あるかないかの難しい単語ばかりとりあげていますが、土曜日の配信は平日のように一単語を取り上げるのではなく、英語の表現に関する興味のある記事なのでためになります。 Nov.8の話題を紹介します。
Many words from sports and games have run off the playing field and leaped into the stands of everyday language. And some of these terms have plunked themselves down permanently among the spectators.
This conjures up a ludicrous image, I know. In fact, the word "ludicrous" itself derives from the Latin "ludus" (game, play). A situation that was laughable or hilarious because of an obvious absurdity or incongruity reminded people of the amusement derived from sports, so they described such an odd event as "ludicrous."
One popular "game" during the Middle Ages was to sic several snarling dogs on a bull and watch what happened. Some fun.
If the dogs succeeded in seriously wounding the bull, the bull's owner would often use a barrel stave to drive off the dogs. By the 1500s, "stave off" had become a general term for warding off or forestalling a disaster.
この引用文中の "sic" はEnglish Collectionで今年の６月１７日に話題にした意味(chase, attack usually used as a command especially to a dog )ですね。
When he was a week old he could climb lamps by shinnying up the cord.
"shinnying" は知らない単語ですが、前に "climb" があるのでコードをよじ登るの様な意味であることが推測できますが、辞書で "shinny" を引いてみます。
OneLook Quick Definitions: climb awkwardly, as if by scrambling
Dictionary.com: "to climb a rope, pole, etc.," 1888, from use of shins and ankles to do so; see shin
scramble: to climb or move quickly using one's hands and feet, as down a rough incline.
shin: to climb by holding fast with the hands or arms and legs and drawing oneself up.
なるほど "shin" がもとのようですね。 それに "scramble" にもこの様な意味もあるのも知りませんでした。 辞書は最低二つは引くようにしていますが、複数の辞書を引く価値はやはりありますね。
The Nikkei Weekly, Nov.17 の記事からです。
Villagers guide water buffalloes through a rice field in Thailand's Sisaket Province on the Cambodian border. Commodity prices are falling now that bumper crops are flooding market.
"bumper crops" が何だか知らないので辞書を見ます。
OneLook Quick Definitions: extraordinarily abundant ("A bumper crop")
豊作と言うことですね。 "bumper" には a glass filled to the brim (especially as a toast) ("We quaffed a bumper of ale") の用法もあるのが分かりました。 "A bumper of beer". これは直ぐ覚えられそうです。
Certainly nothing in Keillor's armamentarium of bons mots equals Curly from the Three Stooges's enchantingly lyrical "nyuk nyuk nyuk."
私が興味を持ったのは難しい単語 "armamentarium" でも、外国語のような "bons mots" ではなく "nyuk nyuk nyuk." です。 擬声語、"onomatopia" の匂いがし、ユーモアを話題にしているので笑い声の一つのような気がしますが、「ニュック、ニュック、ニュック」では到底笑い声のようには聞こえません。 OneLookで "nyuk." を掲載している辞書検索をしましたがWiktionaryしかリストされませんでした。
Wiktionary: An exaggerated laugh.
やはり大げさな笑い声を意味しているようですね。 Ask.comで検索すると次ぎの説明もありました。
Urban Dictionary: Onomatopoeia of laughter. As stated specifically by Curly of the Three Stooges. Usually written and spoken sucessively. "Oh, a wise guy, eh? nyuk, nyuk, nyuk."
Reader's Digestでも引用している三人のコメディアングループThree Stoogesが言い始めた文句のようなので一種の流行語だったと思いますがThree Stoogesの結成は1925年とWikipediaにありますので、辞書には載っていなくても米国人なら分かる表現なのでしょう。
ジュニア小説の "A Wrinkle in Time" の一節です。
For everywhere she looked, everywhere she turned, was the rhythm, and as it continued to control the systole and diastole of her heart, the intake and outlet of her breath, the red miasma began to creep before her eyes again, and she was afraid that she was going to lose consciousness, and if she did that she would be completely in the power of IT.
"A Wrinkle in Time" は一種のＳＦで引用文の "IT" は或る星にいて世界をコントロールしている謎の存在で "Information Technology" の事ではありません。 私が覚えたい単語は "miasma": unhealthy vapors rising from the ground or other sources ("The miasma of the marshes") ではなく、対のような単語 "systole and diastole" です。 早速辞書を引きます。
OneLook Quick Definitions: "systole" the contraction of the chambers of the heart specially the ventricles) to drive blood into the aorta and pulmonary artery
となれば "diastole" はその反対心臓の膨張のはずで、確かに "diastole": the widening of the chambers of the heart between two contractions when the chambers fill with blood
とOneLook Quick Definitionsの説明がありました。
これはやはり対で覚える単語ですね。
これで "A Wrinkle in Time" は読み終えたのでまた何か別の小説（まだ大人の小説は無理）を読もうと思います。
The Japan Times Weekend scene, Nov. 14-20 にあった記事からです。
There was no escaping the feeling, though, that these kids - all raised on a diet of reality TV - were playing themselves, that however real their experiences, they were amping them up for the camera.
"amp" というと "amplify/amplifier" とか電流の単位としての "amp" しか思い浮かびません。
辞書を引いても引用文の意味に該当する例はなかなか見つかりませんでしたがMerriam-Websterにあった次ぎの説明の意味で使われていると確信しています。
excite , energize, often used with up amp up ; also: heighten , intensify, often used with up amp up
他の辞書では何故かこの意味・用法は見つかりませんでした。
さて、Reader's Digest, Oct. 2008の記事からです。
During an electric guitar solo, who hears the "real" sound? The audience, the guitarist or a tape recorder located inside the guitar? The question is moot. There are three different sounds being made by the guitarist, and the principle is the same for the human voice.
"moot" は知らない単語なので辞書を引きます。
OneLook Quick Definitions: open to argument or debate ("That is a moot question.")
Dictionary.com: open to discussion or debate; debatable; doubtful: a moot point.
この単語を覚えるべきかどうかは "That is not a moot question." ですね。 もちろん飲酒運転は絶対禁止も "It is not a moot question." ですね。
ジュニア小説の "A Wrinkle in Time" に、
"You are like Ariel in the cloven pine, Charles. And I can let you out. Look at me Charles. Come back to us."
という一節がありました。 またしばらくすると、
"Your cloven pine thing. Isn't Father imprisoned in a cloven pine even more than Charles? Look at him, in that column there. Get him out, Calvin."
とまた "coloven pine" と言う言葉が出てきます。
辞書を見ると "cloven" は "cleave" の過去分詞、あるいは形容詞として
Dictionary.com: cleft; split; divided: Goats have cloven hoofs
のような例がでていますがそれでは引用文の "coloven pine" が何なのかやはり分かりません。
色々と調べるとシェークスピアの作品に同じ言葉が使われていることが分かりました。 まずはWikipediaの説明を詠んで見ましょう。
Ariel is a fictional sprite who appears in William Shakespeare's play The Tempest. Ariel is bound to serve the magician Prospero, who rescued him from the tree in which he was imprisoned by Sycorax, the witch who previously inhabited the island.
中略
Ariel had been trapped by the witch Sycorax in a "cloven pine" as a punishment for resisting her commands. After 12 years of pain (and the death of Sycorax) Ariel was released from his prison by Prospero. Prospero in return placed him under his service.
"A Wrinkle in Time" での使われ方もこのシェークスピア作品と同じですね。 でも何故 "cloven pine" と言う表現なのか今一つ分かりません。
http://shakespeareslove.com/tempest.htmにそれを説明する個所がありました。
The 'cloven pine' has never been explained before. All wood was rough cut during the 1500's except for wood for ship building which had to be totally flat so water would not get in between the boards of the hull. That wood had to be cleaved or 'planed' into flat boards. Also the wood used to make the hulls (or box) of the ships was pine. The cleaved pine box that Ariel was in for a dozen years was an abandoned 'cloven pine' ships the The Drake family had to live in for a dozen years in old ships since they.were protestant and had to hide in a ship junk yard to avoid the persecution of the Catholic Bloody Queen Mary Tudors (Sycorax).
うーん、なるほど。 英米の子供は（ "A Wrinkle in Time"は恐らく中学生程度の読み物）シェークスピアを読まされているのでこんな事（ "cloven pine"）は常識なのでしょうね。
"But they're Mrs. Who's, they aren't mine," she explained, not realizing that her words would sound like gibberish to him.
"gibberish" が分かりませんので辞書を引きます。
Dictionary.com:
1. meaningless or unintelligible talk or writing.
2. talk or writing containing many obscure, pretentious, or technical words.
昔 "It's all Greek to me." と言う表現を覚えましたがそれを思い出しました。
Dictionary.comで "Greek" を引くと：
Informal. anything unintelligible, as speech, writing, etc.: This contract is Greek to me.
の説明があり、これは上の "gibberish" の１．と同じですね。
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