demonize

The Glass Menagerieを読むところですが、まだその前の解説の個所を読んでいます。
Audiences and readers may choose either to demonize Amanda or regard her as a misguided saint, but the complexity of her character (suggested initially by Williams's description in the dramatis persona) precludes any facile assessment of her motherhood.
"demonize" は見たことがある単語ですが、意味が思い出せないので辞書を見ます。
・Cambridge English Dictionary: to try to make someone or a group of people seem as if they are completely evil: The Nazis used racist propaganda in an attempt to demonize the Jews.
・Vocabulary.com: make into a demon: “Power had demonized him”: But instead of lining up behind their own idea, Republican lawmakers set about demonizing it as a government attack on consumer freedom.
良く考えれば意味は分かった単語でした。

leitmotif

今度読み始めたのはThe Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williamsです。例によって作家の名前を聞いた事があるだけで中身は何も知らない話ですが、The Glass Menagerieは戯曲であり、話の前に解説（Introduction by Robert Bray)があるので、登場人物やら物語の状況も大体分かりました。残念なのはこれも私の好みではない悲劇の様です。
今日覚えたい単語として選んだのはそのIntroductionの次ぎの個所にありました。
In fact, patterns of escape form a leitmotif that help structure the play, as every character seeks flight; if not literally, then through the imagination.
"motif" は日本語にもなっている主題とか動機を表す単語で、純粋な（？）英語だと "motive" だと思いますが、上に出てきた "leitmotif" は "motif" に置き換えても通じる文面です。　いずれにせよ、外来語の気がしますが辞書で確認します。
・Cambridge English Dictionary: a phrase or other feature that is repeated often in a work of art, literature or especially music and that tells you something important about it: Death and renewal are leitmotivs running through the whole novel.（この辞書は "leitmotif" ではなく "leitmotiv" のスペルを使っていました。）
・Wiktionary: 1. (music) A melodic theme associated with a particular character, place, thing or idea in an opera. 2. A recurring theme.: From German Leitmotiv (“leading motive”), from leiten (“to lead”) + Motiv (“motive”), originally used to describe Wagnerian opera.
ドイツ語由来でした。繰り返される事がミソですね。

ruckus

東京電力の株主総会関連の記事がThe Japan Times Online, June 28にありました。
Utilities defy shareholders' antinuke calls Nine power companies hold annual shareholders' meetings, with antinuclear investors causing a ruckus by pushing them to shut down atomic plants and explore renewable energies.
ＴＶのニュースでも見ましたが、かなりの大騒ぎだった様なので、"ruckus" はその様な意味だと思います。
一応辞書で確認します。
・Collins English Dictionary: an uproar; ruction: Each side has a different story about how the bullpen ruckus started.
・Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary: row, disturbance: raise a ruckus; Quit creating such a ruckus?I'm trying to sleep!
東京電力での "ruckus" は無理からぬ話と思いますが、東北の震災瓦礫の受け入れを反対する "ruckus" が各地で起きているとの話は情けないと思います。これも一種のNIMBYでしょう。

zygote

The Case against Perfectionに出てきた覚えたい医学用語のもう一つは次ぎの文に出てくる "zygote" です。
In fact, some participants in the stem cell debate have argued that cloned blastocyst are not, strictly speaking, embryos but biologic artifacts ("clonotes" rather than zygotes that lack the moral status of naturally conceived human embryos.
昨日紹介した英絵辞典のページにもこの "zygote" が次ぎの様に使われていました。
Cleavage of zygote: cell resulting from fertilization. In dividing, the egg becomes a new being.
辞書での "zygote" の説明を見てみます。
・Macmillan Dictionary: a fertilized egg that has only just started developing and is not yet an embryo
・Vocabulary.com: A zygote is a fertilized egg.
The sperm cell (spermatozoon) and the egg (ovum) each have only half the genes of the parent cell ? they're haploid cells. When the spermatozoon fertilizes the ovum, the resulting cell has the full complement of genes, so it's a diploid cell. The diploid cell then divides rapidly, becoming first an embryo, then a fetus. The word zygote comes from the Greek word for yoke ? joining two things together, like hitching two oxen together to pull a plow.
英語の本を読む時間は会社の昼休みと通勤のために地下鉄に乗っている片道15分の間だけなので、一冊の本を読むのに通常は最低2週間かかるのですが、今回は腹痛で医者に行った時に1時間半も待たされたのでその間に一気に読むことができ、一週間経たずに読み終えてしまいました。サンデル教授は問題に対する色々な角度からの考察を提示してくれるのでそれは自分で考える点で非常に参考になるのですが、個々の問題に関し、結局サンデル教授はどう思っているのか見失う事があります。　しかし、最後の章にある次の個所は、The Case against Perfectionの全体を通した総括的なサンデル教授の意見である事は間違いありません。
Rather than ban embryonic stem cell research and research cloning, we should allow them to proceed subject to regulations that embody the moral restraint appropriate to the mystery of the first stirrings of human life. Such regulations should include a ban on human reproductive cloning, reasonable limits on the length of time an embryo can be grown in the lab, licensing requirements for fertility clinics, restrictions on the commodification of eggs and sperm, and a stem cell bank to prevent proprietry interests from monopolozing access to stem cell line.

blastocyst

幹細胞に関係する話には医学用語がつきものですが、The Case against Perfectionに出てきた二つの医学用語は覚えたいと思います。　次ぎの文にその内の一つがあります。
Hoping to promote cures for diabetes, Parkinson's, and other degenerative diseases, Congress had voted to fund new embryonic stem cell research, in which scientists isolate cells capable of becoming any tissue in the body. The President refused to go along. He argued that the research is unethical because deriving these cells destroys the blastocyst, an unimplanted embryo at the sixth to eighth day of development.
この話は２００６年の事で、この大統領はGeorge W. Bushを指しています。　気になる単語 "blastocyst" の意味を辞書で見ます。
.・Collins English Dictionary: Also called: blastosphere. the blastula of mammals: a sphere of cells (trophoblast) enclosing: an inner mass of cells and a fluid-filled cavity (blastocoel)
・Vocabulary.com: early stage of an embryo produced by cleavage of an ovum; a liquid-filled sphere whose wall is composed of a single layer of cells; during this stage (about eight days after fertilization) implantation in the wall of the uterus occurs
いまひとつイメージが湧きません。更に調べると英絵辞典The Visual Dictionaryに "Blastocyst: part of the development of the egg where the dividing cells form a sac.
図が載っているページは次ぎのＵＲＬにあります。
http://www.infovisual.info/03/067_en.html

Judeo-Chiristian

今日とりあげるThe Case against Perfectionからの言葉も昨日と同様に大文字で始まる固有名詞ですが、昨日の "Gattaca" より一般的だと思います。
For example, some hold with the ancients that nature is sacred in the sense of being enchanted, or inscribed with inherent meaning, or animated by divine purpose; others, in the Judeo-Chiristian tradition, view the sanctity of nature as deriving from God's creation of the universe; and still others believe that nature is sacred simply in the sense that it is not a mere object at our disposal, open to any use we may desire.
"Judeo-Chiristian" はキリスト教の一派かなと思いましたが、特定のキリスト教派の事ではないので何か別の意味がある様なので辞書を見ます。
・Wiktionary: Judaeo-Christian: Of or pertaining to Judaism and Christianity
"Judeo-Christian" を項目にしているのは上の辞書だけでしたが、"Judeo-" はほとんどの辞書にも次ぎの様な説明が載っていました。
・Infoplease Dictionary:a combining form representing Judaic or Judaism in compound words: Judeo-Christian. Also, Judaeo-.
なるほど、"Judaic"、"Judaism" なら分かったのですが、接頭辞の場合は "Judeo-"、"Judaeo-" と綴られるのですね。

obesity runs in our family

オリンピックの選手は親も選手だったという場合が多いようです。運動に適した体格、運動神経は遺伝するのでしょう。
病気も遺伝するので、先週の入院時に病院で親や家族の病歴を質問されました。

Patient: The problem is obesity runs in our family.

Doctor: No, the problem is no-one runs in your family.

もちろん、優秀な選手になる要因は遺伝だけではないのも確かですね。

A Gattaca-like world

サンデル教授のThe Case against Perfectionを読んでいます。次に引用する一文には昨日取り上げた "unbidden" と一年前に取り上げた "writ large" を含んでいますが、大文字で始まる固有名詞の "Gattaca" が気になります。
A Gattaca-like world, in which parents became accustomed to specifying the sex and genetic traits of their children, would be a world inhospitable to the unbidden, a gated community writ large.
"Gattaca-like world" の意味はその後に説明があるので分かります。 "Gattaca" はＳＦに違いありません。 Wikipediaに説明がありました。やはりＳＦ映画でアカデミー賞にもノミネートされたそうです。Wikipediaから説明の一部を引用します。
The movie draws on concerns over reproductive technologies which facilitate eugenics, and the possible consequences of such technological developments for society. It also explores the idea of destiny and the ways in which it can and does govern lives. Characters in Gattaca continually battle both with the society and with themselves to find their place in the world and who they are destined to be according to their genes. The title is based on the initial letters of the four DNA nitrogenous bases (adenine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine). During the opening and closing credits, the letters G, A, T, and C are all highlighted. The name Gattaca itself is the name of the fictional space agency shown in the film.

unbidden

今日取り上げる単語 "unbidden" もThe Case against Perfectionに何度も出てきます。
We choose our friends and spouses at least partly on the basis of qualities we find attractive. But we do not choose our children. Their qualities are unpredictable, and even the most conscientious parents cannot be held wholly responsible for the kind of child they have. That is why parenthood, more than other human relationships, teaches what the theologian William F. May calls an "openness to the unbidden."
友人や配偶者と違って子供を選ぶ事はできないと言っているので "unbidden" は望んでいなかった子供の様に思えますがどうでしょう。 "unbidden" が出てくる個所をもう一つ引用します。　
The problem lies in the hubris of the designing parents, in their drive to master the mystery of birth. Even if this disposition does not make parents tyrants to their children, it disfigures the relation between parent and child, and deprives the parent of the humility and enlarge human sympathies that an openness to the unbidden can cultivate.
推測は当たっているようですが、辞書で "unbidden" の意味を確認します。
・American Heritage Dictionary: Not invited, asked, or requested; unasked: unbidden guests; comments unbid and unwelcome.
・Cambridge Idioms Dictionary: not invited or wanted: At night images would come unbidden into her mind.
望んでいなかった子供と言うのは、ここでは、子供の知能、体力などの能力が望んでいるレベルではなかったと言う意味で使っているようです。

telos

The Case against Perfectionには何度も出てくる単語が幾つかあります。
Arguments about the ethics of enhancement are always, at least in part, arguments about the telos, or point, of the sport in question.
この "telos" はこの後にも次ぎのように出てきます。
Consider the alternative. Some people deny that sports have a point. They reject the idea that the rules of a game should fit the telos of the sports, and honor the talents displayed by those who play it well.
...
Medicine, like sports, is a practice with a purpose, a telos, that orients and constraints it.
これらの "telos" の意味は何でしょう。
・Oxford English Dictionary: chiefly Philosophy or literary, an ultimate object or aim: in the hedonistic life, people lose some moral purpose, a telos which provides the moral justification for the society
・Random House Unabridged Dictionary: the end term of a goal-directed process; esp., the Aristotelian final cause.
・Free On Line Dictionary Of Philosophy: Greek term for the end, completion, purpose, or goal of any thing or activity. According to Aristotle, this is the final cause which accounts for the existence and nature of a thing. Following Wolff, modern philosophers (often pejoratively) designate as teleological any explanation, theory, or argument that emphasizes purpose.
哲学用語ですね。