family's black sheep

TODAY MATTERSのToday's FAMILY Gives Me Stabilityの章から抜粋します。
The great American novelist Mark Twain said that he spent a large sum of money to trace his family tree and then spent twice as much trying to keep his ancestry secret! He was like the family that reportedly wanted its history written up so they hired a professional biographer to do it, but they were worried about how the document would handle the family's black sheep. Uncle George had been executed in the electric chair for murder.
と言うわけで、Mark Twain の家系に困った "black sheep"（Wordnik: A member of a family or other group who is considered undesirable or disreputable.） がいる事が分かったのです。 今日取り上げたいのは "black sheep" でもその他の単語・慣用句ではなく、上記の "black sheep" であるUncle Georgeを次ぎの様に言い換える、巧妙な、物は言い様の典型例です。
"No problem," said the biographer. "I'll say that Uncle George occupied a chair of applied electronics at an important government institution. He was attached to his position by the strongest of ties, and his death came as a real shock."
見事としか言い様のない言い換えです。　政治家、弁護士の多くにこの才能を持った人がいるようです。
先日取り上げた単語 "prevaricate/prevarication"（http://blog.alc.co.jp/blog/3302827/185384） の典型例とも言えそうです。

Honour Trial

Trial Lawyer to Witness: Is it true that you accepted $25,000 as bribe money?
(A moment of silence)
Judge: Witness, please answer the question.
Witness: I'm sorry, Your Honour, I thought he was asking you.

curd

Reader's Digest、6月号に英国の the National Physical Laboratoryの活動を紹介する記事、The Ministry of Wonderがあり、次の文はその記事からの抜粋です。
KMS Projects create a robot cauliflower-picker. It's very difficult, it seems, for humans to tell whether a cauliflower is ripe just from the outer leaves - so thousands are picked too early or late. The robot uses infrared radiation to look through the leaves and assess the size of the central white curd, then picks where required with a mechanical arm.
カリフラワーの食用部分の白い塊を "curd" と言うのですね。 "curd" と言うと、豆腐の事を英語で "bean curd" と説明すると昔聞きましたが、今は "tofu" で通じる様です。
OneLook Quick Definitionsで "curd" は次ぎのように説明されています。
・coagulated milk; used to made cheese ("Little Miss Muffet sat on a tuffet eating some curds and whey")
・a coagulated liquid resembling milk curd ("Bean curd")
そして "tofu" の同じ辞書の説明は： cheeselike food made of curdled soybean milkとあります。
"curd" がカリフラワーの玉の部分の意味で使われることはDictionary.com: the edible flower heads of cauliflower, broccoli, and similar plants. でも確認できました。

It's called a windo.

Reader's Digestには毎月Quotesのコーナーがあります。 これまで私はここから引用した事はありませんが 8月号にあったJay Leno（誰だか知りませんが）による次ぎの文は珍しく気に入りました。
There's a new type of alarm clock on the market. It makes no noise. It uses lights and gets brighter and brighter until you wake up. I already have one of these.
自然はいいですね。でもこれから冬に向かうと起きるのが遅くなってしまいます。何事も使用法に注意が肝心。

digitalis

ＮＨＫの月刊誌趣味の園芸をパラパラとめくり写真だけを見ていましたが、よく見かけるので馴染みのあるジギタリスの英名に目がとまりました。英語名は "Digitalis" とありました。カタカナでのジギタリスしか知らなかったので意外でした。英語のスペルはアナログに対応するデジタルにSを付けた "Digitalis" なので、実際の発音はどうかなと、辞書で調べると（Online Merriam-Webster http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/digitalis) 発音はジギタリスではなく、デジタリスと聞こえ、 "ta" にアクセントがあります。語源も "digital" と関係がありそうだと睨み、調べると：
Merriam-Webster: from Latin, of a finger, from digitus; from its finger-shaped corolla
Online Etymology Dictionary: translation of Ger. fingerhut, the German name of "foxglove," lit. "thimble."
と若干ブレがありますが、花の形から言うとたしかに "thimble" に似ていて、スペルからすると明らかに "digit" の fingerと共通点があります。

prevaricate

菅さんが小沢さんを破って民主党統裁に選ばれましたが、"dog that caught the car"(http://blog.alc.co.jp/blog/3302827/177784)にならない事を祈ります。
さて、今日の単語 "prevaricate" もReader's Digest 6月号の Word Powerからです。
意味は次のどれでしょうか？
A: scream
B: emphasize
C: tell a half-truth
答えはCで例文は When asked if he'd broken the window, the Little Leaguer prevaricated, claiming that as a southpaw, his aim couldn't have been that good.
意味を辞書でも確認します。
・OneLook Quick Definitions: be deliberately ambiguous or unclear in order to mislead or withhold information
・V2 Vocabulary Building Dictionary: to avoid telling the truth by being deliberately ambiguous or misleading
Tips: Because the words sound similar, many people confuse prevaricate with procrastinate. Procrastinate means "to put off doing something," while prevaricate means "to deliberately avoid the truth or try to mislead someone." Prevaricate comes from the Latin phrase praevaricari, which means "to walk crookedly." Think, "avoiding being straight in order to confuse and mislead." Prevaricate is synonymous with equivocate. To prevaricate is to avoid telling the truth by being ambiguous and misleading. Equivocate is the act of being unclear and misleading. For example: "The journalist accused the politician of prevaricating when the politician began to equivocate instead of providing a straightforward and honest answer to the question." Prevarication is the act of prevaricating.
Usage Examples:
*Even under oath, he continued to prevaricate about what exactly had happened. (lie, deceive, mislead)
*I knew that when I confronted her she would prevaricate about who started the rumor. (be ambiguous, be evasive, equivocate)
うーん、RDの解答 "tell a half-truth" もどうやら "half-truth" の気がします。

a skeleton in the closet

いつもは読んだ英文の中から見つけた覚えたい単語・表現を取り上げていますが今日は最近のニュースを聞いていてふと思い出した英語の表現についての復習です。
家族の白骨遺体が見つかる事件が次々と報道されていて、日本人のモラルはどうなっているのかと驚き、嘆いていましたが、昔覚えた英語の慣用句に "a skeleton in the cupboard "/ "a skeleton in the closet" があるのを思い出しました。　辞書の説明を幾つか次に紹介します。
・McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs:
a hidden and shocking secret. You can ask anyone about how reliable I am. I don't mind. I don't have any skeletons in the closet. My uncle was in jail for a day once. That's our family's skeleton in the closet.
・UsingEnglish.com
If someone has a skeleton in the closet, they have a dark, shameful secret in their past that they want to remain secret.
・GoEnglish.com:
"Skeletons in the closet" are things about your past which you would prefer not to tell to other people. Example: "He's a very popular senator but he will never be elected president; he has too many skeletons in the closet." Years after a person has died, only the skeleton remains, and a skeleton of bones can be a frightening thing to look at. "Skeletons in the closet" are embarrassing things which we would like to put away so other people cannot see them. Example: "I don't want anything to do with that guy; he has too many skeletons in the closet." Example: "I had only known her for one week. How could I know what skeletons she had in her closet?"
・Englishclub.com:
a skeleton in the cupboard/closet
Meaning: If you have a skeleton in the cupboard, or in the closet, you have a secret in your past which could damage you if it became known.
For example: Before we give you the job, we need to know if you have any skeletons in the cupboard which the press could find out about. Things like a criminal record or drug or alcohol problems in the past.
Politicians can't afford to have any skeletons in the closet these days. Their enemies are sure to find them.
Note: "A skeleton in the cupboard" is used in British and Australian English while "a skeleton in the closet" is used in American English. The meaning is the same for both.
"a skeleton in the closet"は普通は比喩で使われているようですが、西洋でも実際にこの様な事件があったからできた表現なのでしょう。
追記：　同じ様な説明をくどくどといくつも羅列していますが、この表現を忘れないための手段なのでご容赦願います。

wag

Reader's Digest6月号のWord Powerはお喋りに関係する単語が問題で例によって難しいものばかりでしたがその内の二つを覚えたい。　最初の単語は "Wag" ですが、次ぎのどの意味か分かりますか？
A: unfair debater
B: joker
C: short digression
答えはBのjokerで例文は Ever the wag, Mike stood in the receiving line clutching a joy buzzer.
これだけでは覚えられそうもないので辞書でもっと例文を探します。
・OneLook Quick Definitions: a witty amusing person who makes jokes
・OnLine Etymology Dictionary: "person fond of making jokes," 1550s, perhaps a shortening of waghalter "gallows bird," person destined to swing in a noose or halter, applied humorously to mischievous children, from wag (v.) + halter. Or possibly directly from wag (v.).
例文は見つかりませんでしたが、犬が尾を振ることを思い出せば良いのですね。

cold

Pupil (on phone) : My son has a bad cold and won't be able to come to school today.
Teacher (on phone) : Who is this?
Pupil (on phone) : This is my father speaking!

"This is his father speaking!" と言えばばれなかったかな？

The Importance of Understanding the Test Procedure

In a recent issue of Meat & Poultry magazine, editors quoted from Feathers, the publication of the California Poultry Industry Federation, telling the following story....

The US Federal Aviation Administration has a unique device for testing the strength of airplane cockpit windscreens. The device is a gun that launches a dead chicken at the windscreen at approximately the speed the aircraft flies. The theory is that if the windshield doesn't crack from the carcass impact, it will survive a real collision with a bird during flight.

It seems a British company were very interested in this and wanted to test the windscreen on a brand new, high speed train they were developing. They borrowed the FAA's chicken launcher, loaded the chicken and fired. The ballistic chicken shattered the windscreen, broke the driver's chair and embedded itself in the back wall of the cab. The British were stunned and asked the FAA to recheck the test to see if everything was done correctly.

The FAA reviewed the test thoroughly and had one recommendation:
First, thaw the chicken....
問題を対処する正しい解答が肝心と言う事ですか。