right on the nose

Pinball, 1973: 主人公の友人（？）であるRatは中古のタイプライターをある女性から買いますが、それが縁でその後何回か彼女と会います。
After seeing her several times, the Rat had guessed her to be twenty seven. And he was right on the nose.
"right on the nose" の表現は初めて見ますが、文脈からして、「的中」した意味だと容易に推測できます。　一応辞書で確認します。
辞書には "on the nose" だけで慣用句として載っていました。
・Cambridge English Dictionary: exactly right, often an exact amount of money or time: Her description of the play was really on the nose.
・Vocabulary.com: being precise with regard to a prescribed or specified criterion: “his guess was on the nose”
・American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms: Exactly, precisely; especially, at the appointed time or estimated amount. For example, The busload of students arrived at the museum at ten o'clock right on the nose , or He guessed the final score on the nose . This term, like on the button, may come from boxing, where the opponent's nose is a highly desired target.
ボクシングが由来なのですか。

floor

村上春樹のPinball, 1973を読んでいます。土星や金星から来た人間の話が出て来るのでＳＦかと思いきや、話は主に語り手の "Ｉ" と友人（？今は余り付き合っていない様子）の "Rat"の話が交互に出てくるのですが、語り手は何と双子の姉妹と同棲しているなど私の想像の域を超えているので、話についていけません。
電話会社の作業員が古いスイッチパネルを交換しに来る話の個所に、先週取り上げたリーダーズダイジェストのオバマ米国大統領の生い立ちの記事に出てきた "floor" が出て来ました。
"Well, now, to find that old switch-panel..."
"No need to make a search," said the right.
"It's in the back of the bedding closet. Just pry up a board."
I was floored. "Hey, how is it you know stuff like that?　
作業員もベッドに二人の若い女いたので驚いていた様ですが、スイッチパネルの話に何の意味があるのかさっぱり見当が付きません。

polymath

10月のASJ例会は出席できませんでしたが、講演録によると早稲田大学のDr. Pinnington教授による "Kuwabara Takeo's 'A Secondary Art - Reflictons on Contemporay Haiku'" と題された講演でした。
次に引用するのはその中からです。
In this, Kuwabara was influenced by I.A. Richards, who, in a book Practical Criticism (1930), gave the results of a similar experiment he had conducted among his students, together with his detailed analysis of their responses, and this book is often seen as the chief source of the New Criticism. Richards himself was an amateur polymath, and one can well see how he would have appealed to Kuwabara, who had been introduced to Richards by a professor of English at Tohoku, Doi Kochi, with whom he shared a house after the war.　
日本の文学、特に詩や俳句には日本人としても非常に疎い私としては何で外国人がこんなに詳しいのか不思議でしょうがありません。出席していたら多分こっくりこっくりした事でしょう。それはともかく、私としては "polymath" が気になります。幾何学との関係を連想しますが、少なくともここでは数学とは関係はないはずです。辞書を見ます。
・Collins Dictionary: a person of great and varied learning: As a persistent logic chopper he reminds me of Otto Lang, a polymath once busy in Pierre Trudeau cabinets.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: a person who knows a lot about many different subjects
・Vocabulary.com: a person of great and varied learning:
最後に引用した辞書には例によって丁寧な説明があります。
A polymath is a person who knows a lot about a lot of subjects. If your friend is not only a brilliant physics student but has also published a poetry collection and won prizes at political debates, you can describe her as a polymath.
You can think of a polymath as a classic "Renaissance man." Imagine Leonardo da Vinci, for example, who was not only an amazing artist, but also an engineer, inventor, mathematician, and much more. When a person's knowledge covers many different areas, he or she is a polymath. The Greek word for it is polymathes, "having learned much," with poly meaning "much," and manthanein meaning "learn."
"math" が来ると直ぐに数学を思い浮かべますが、元々 "learn" の意味が共通しているのですね。

square away

"Pinball, 1973" の主人公である語り手は翻訳会社を友人と共同で作りました。
The income wasn't bad. Once the office rent, incidental expenses, the girl's salary, the part-time help's pay, and tax percentage were squared away, we'd divvy up the remaining earnings into ten shares, one share going to the company savings, five shares to my friend, and four to me.
"squared away" の意味を調べます。
・Macmillan Dictionary: to do the things necessary to complete something: The project should be squared away in the spring
.・Wiktionary: (idiomatic) To finish, complete, tidy or put in order.: I have almost squared away the last of the paperwork from that job.
・Dictionary.com: to organize or complete satisfactorily; put in order: I want to square away the work before going on vacation.

protean

"Pinball, 1973" を読んでいますが、題名のピンボールの話がやっと出て来ました。
With devastating speed people kept providing the singularly undistinguished protean machine with ever-newer capabilities. Someone proclaimed, "Let there be lights!" Someone else shouted, "Let there be electricity!" Still another shouted, "Let there be flippers!" And so there came to be lights illuminating the field, electricity to deflect balls magnetically, two flipper arms to whip them back into play.
ピンボールが "protean machine" とはどう言う意味でしょうか？ "protean" を辞書で調べます。
・Collins Dictionary: readily taking on various shapes or forms; variable: Eros is protean and adopts many shapes, and not all take the forms of amorous attachment.
・Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary:
1: of or resembling Proteus in having a varied nature or ability to assume different forms
2: displaying great diversity or variety : versatile: a protean actor who is equally comfortable with light comedy and serious drama
・Vocabulary.com: taking on different forms: “eyes...of that baffling protean grey which is never twice the same”
When Picasso is described as a protean genius, it means that not only was he brilliant, but he changed the way he worked many times. Protean means able to change shape.
Proteus was a Greek god who could tell the future, but when he was asked a question he didn't want to answer, he would change shapes. With someone or something protean, you get all the power of shape-shifting, plus some of the menace of a god you cannot control.
ギリシャ神話から来た言葉ですか、そう言えば大昔（高校生の頃）習った様な気がしました。

Universal remote

Reader's Digest 11月号のLife's like that にあった投稿です。へたなジョークより面白い話です。
While babysitting my 18-month-old grandson on a recent rainy day, I got out the ukulele. I was singing away happily when my grandson reached for the remote, pointed it at me and tried to turn me off.
"remote control" を日本語ではリモコンと言いますが、英語では "remote" と略すのですね。

That's about the size of it

村上春樹の "Pinball, 1973" を読んでいますが、私は想像力に欠けるので、どうも状況がピンときません。しかし我慢して読み続けます。
I had no idea what to do with the thing now that I'd caught it. Hind leg still pinned under the spring wire, the mouse died on the fourth morning. Seeing it lying there taught me a lesson. Everything needs an entrance and exit. That's about the size of it.
上の文は、入り口のある物は出口がある、もちろん例外もあって、その例の一つとして出てきたネズミ捕りの話の一部です。どうも話の内容にはまだついて行けませんが、私の関心はもっぱら英語の表現なので、この逸話に何の意味があるかは無視して、"That's about the size of it" の言い回しが気になりました。 似た様な表現が会話文にはありそうですが、思い出したのは５年前に取り上げた "That's the way to do it." だけです。この手の表現は英会話のテキストにはありそうですが、辞書で調べるのはやっかいな場合が多いのでどうかなと思いつつ辞書を見ると意外と簡単に説明が見つかりました。
・Macmillan Dictionary: spoken used for saying that you agree with someone's description or opinion of something: "So everyone's on strike?" "Yeah, that's about the size of it."
・Cambridge English Dictionary: used to show your agreement with someone who has said something correct: "So you mean you won't come to the party with me?" "Yes, that's about the size of it."
・Oxford English Dictionary: informal said to confirm someone’s assessment of a situation, especially of one regarded as bad:: "So if I drop my opposition to the road you’ll fix it so I don’t lose my job?’ ‘That’s about the size of it.’
・McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs: Inf. That is the way it is. (Often a response to someone who has acknowledged bad news.) Bob: We only have a few hundred dollars left in the bank. Sally: That means that there isn't enough money for us to go on vacation? Bob: That's about the size of it. Bob: I'm supposed to take this bill to the county clerk's office and pay them four hundred dollars? Sally: That's about the size of it.

sorry two-car local train

"sorry" と言うと、"I'm sorry." や "I'm." を省略した "Sorry" などの様に人が主語の用法しか知らなかったのですが、物を形容する例が村上春樹の "Pinball, 1973" に出て来ました。 　
Stepping down from the sorry two-car local train that seemed ready to rust up any minute, the very first thing to hit me was the familiar smell of open grassy spaces.
辞書でこの用法を確認します。
・Macmillan Dictionary: used for emphasizing how bad, stupid, or embarrassing something is: That's the sorriest excuse I've ever heard.: a sorry business/mess/state (=an unpleasant or difficult situation): If it weren't for you, I wouldn't be in this sorry mess.
・Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary: pitiful, wretched, or deplorable ⇒ a sorry sight
・Vocabulary.com: bad; unfortunate: “a sorry state of affairs”: The word sorry can also be used as an adjective to mean shoddy or crappy, as in "That is one sorry excuse!"
一つ利口になった気がします。

latch onto

先月の朝日新聞のあるコラムに、筆者（朝日の派遣員？）が、村上春樹の小説を日本語で読んだ時は気に入らなかったのだが、海外に暮らしたくせに下手な英語を少しは向上させようと英語で小説を読むのを習慣にし、彼の小説を英語の翻訳で読んでとても気に入ったとあり、日本語で読むと直ぐに読み終えるが、英語だとゆっくり考えて読むので表面の洒脱や軽妙が落ち、物語の骨格が分かるとありました。
日本語でも村上春樹の小説を読んでいない私ですが、海外に暮らしたくせに私も英語が大してものになっていないので英語で小説を読むようになったところが共通しているので、村上春樹の小説を英語で読むことにしました。早速図書館で借りてきたのはPinball, 1973と題された小説です。
今日引用するのは物語の冒頭の第２段落の最初の文です。
There was a time, a good ten years ago now, when I went around latching onto one person after another, asking them to tell me about the places where they were born and grew up.
"latch" と言うとかんぬきとか歯止めの様なメカニカルな装置とその動詞の意味を思い起こし、上の文での意味も何となく分かる様な気がしますが、すっきりするために辞書で確認します。
・Macmillan Dictionary: latch onto someone to go with someone who does not want to be with you: Two boys tried to latch onto us as we were leaving.
・Cambridge Dictionary of American Idioms: to become closely connected to someone or something I knew she would be perfect in the film, so I latched onto her like a magnet. More and more countries latched onto computer technology as an important tool for development.
・Dictionary.com: to attach oneself to; join in with: The stray dog latched onto the children and wouldn't go home.
・Wiktionary: To obtain, acquire or get and keep hold of something.: They latched onto the idea and gave it up only reluctantly.
ニュアンスが面白い表現ですね。

watered silk

Reader's Digest 10月号の "toponym" についての問題１６問中で意味を知っていたのはたった五つでした。 "tabby" も全く知らない知らない単語ですが、この単語の意味の説明に興味を覚える単語が使われていました。
"tabby": type of watered silk. "Helen's tabby scarf well-suited to her elegant outfit." From Al'-Attabiya, Baghdad, where it was made.
この "watered silk" の "watered" は "watermark" を思い起こさせますがどんな意味なのでしょうか？
・Webster's New World College Dictionary: having a wavy, lustrous pattern: said of cloth, metal surfaces, etc.
・Infoplease Dictionary: having a wavy, lustrous pattern or marking: watered silk.
前者の辞書からすると日本刀の波紋についてもこの形容詞 "watered" が使えそうです。