compromise

Reader's Digest 6月号に Amazing Medical Mysteries... Solvedと題された、難病の診断と治療についての記事から引用します。
The mystery was finally solved with an old-fashioned microscope. When we looked at his blood, we saw some sickled red blood cells. That's how we were able to diagnose sickle cell trait. If you have sickle cell trait - which means you got the sickle cell gene from just one parent instead of two - you have no symptoms at low altitude, but high altitude can sometimes cause the red blood cells to warp into sickle shapes and dprive vital organs of oxygen. This teenager didn't know he had it, but the effect of the altitude on his blood cells was so extreme that after just a short time in the mountain, his spleen had ruptured when its blood supply had been compromised.
最後に出てきた "compromise" は一年程前に取り上げた "compromise" と似ています。前回は「情報が危険にさらされた」意味でした。今回は対象が "blood supply" なので、危険にさらされた点では同じですが、もう一度辞書で確認します。
・Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary: to cause the impairment of: a compromised immune system: a seriously compromised patient
・Vocabulary.com: Compromise can also mean to erode or diminish. If you never repair your brakes, you will compromise the safety of the car. If you cheat, you compromise your integrity.
意味に共通点はありますが、異なる用例として覚えた方が良さそうです。

sans licence

今日はReader's Digest 6月号のMy Storyの記事にあった言葉を覚えたい。
When I was 16, I desperately wanted to learn to drive; to be 17 and sans licence was unthinkable. I'd done a couple of hours around the local streets where we lived, but I was still pretty nervous. I was the first to admit that I felt more comfortable stuck in a book than behind the wheel of a car.
"sans licence" あるいはこの "sans" なる単語は初めて見るものです。　辞書で "sans" の項を見ます。
・Collins Dictionary: an archaic word for without: Five years ago, in a major rehearsal for the Queen Mother's death, Peter Sissons turned up at the White City studios sans black tie.
・Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary: without: my love to thee is sound, sans crack or flaw ? Shakespeare: anyone sans shirt will not be allowed in the restaurant
由来については次ぎの注がありました。
C13: from Old French sanz, from Latin sine without
古いフランス語から来ているのですか。ところで、ラテン語の "sine" で以前に覚えた "sinecure" （閑職）を思い出しました。すると "sinecure" の中の "sine" にも withoutの意味があったのかなと気になったので、 "sinecure" をVocabulary.comで見直すと次ぎの説明がありました。
If you have a cushy job ? one that pays, but involves minimal work ? then you have a sinecure. "Because he was the brother of the CEO, he was offered a sinecure in the company: he showed up each day and collected a pay check, but others actually did his work."
The noun sinecure comes from the Latin root words sine cura meaning "without care." It originally was used to describe a church position that did not include caring for the souls of parishioners, but that meaning is considered archaic now. The word is now usually associated with political appointments.

shoestring

Japan Times Online, June 3の記事（Europe salutes hardy Martian scout）の冒頭にあった表現が気になりました。
Europe's Mars Express was built on a relative shoestring, completed in just five years and designed to survive for just 687 days. Ten years on, ...
"shoestring" が何でこんなところに出てくるの？　靴紐以外の意味があるに違いありませんが、記事にヒントがあるか読み続けます。
多くの収穫があったEurope's Mars Express、しかし費用は余りかからなかった事を強調しています。
Conceived as a streamlined, low-cost project, Mars Express was a gamble for ESA. It broke with conventional thinking that planetary exploration required individually tailored probes that took a decade to make and inevitably cost a billion bucks apiece.
To save costs, ESA’s contractors essentially resorted to mass production. The basic boxlike design for Mars Express, and for a sister spacecraft called Venus Express ? launched in 2005 and also doing fine ? is the same platform as for Rosetta, a comet-chasing probe whose mission is due to climax next year.
"shoestring" はお金を使っていない事と関係があるに違いありません。辞書で確認します。
・Macmillan Dictionary: having or using a very small amount of money: a shoestring budget
・Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary: a small sum of money : capital inadequate or barely adequate to the needs of a transaction: started the business on a shoestring
・Vocabulary.com: a small amount of money: “he managed it on a shoestring”
記事での使われ方も辞書での例文も "shoestring" の前に "on a" が付く事が多いようです。
少ない予算とはいえ、私にとっては天文学的な金額です。
So far, exploration of Mars has cost ESA ?300 million ($390 million), which is minute for a mission that has returned such wonders.

hammer and tongs

昨日は久し振りに卓球の試合があり朝早くから出かけたのでブログを休みました。畑にも、といっても猫の額 (No room to swing a cat)の区民農園ですが、行かなかったのでこれからキュウリとトマトを取りに行きます。　さて本題の英語の話題です。
My sister, a teacher, was telling us about two children at her school who had been fighting.
"They were really going at it hammer and tongs," she said.
Her young daughter, who had been listening intently, asked, "Did the one with the hammer win?"
その娘さんの質問がもっともに聞こえるのはネイティブではない証拠ですねｌ。

"hammer and tongs": with great force, vigor, or violence: went at it hammer and tongs (Merriam-Webster)

hog

馬と犬の表現を昨日と一昨日に取り上げましたが、今日はJapan Times Online、June 17付の記事の中に豚の表現がありました。
New Delhi rebalancing defense relationships
While America's "pivot" to the Asia-Pacific continues to hog the limelight, other players also are renegotiating their engagement in the region, including India.
"hog" は過去に二度取り上げたので、そこを読み直すことにします。
"hog": http://blog.alc.co.jp/blog/3302827/archive/2010/9/1
"hog": http://blog.alc.co.jp/blog/3302827/archive/2008/10/9

dog

英語の "dog" には、多くの人に愛されている割に、悪い意味が付きまといます。
Japan Times Online、June 13のタイトルに使われている次ぎの "dog" も良い意味ではないでしょう。
Engine, de-icer glitches dog 787s
An All Nippon Airways Boeing 787 flight is scrubbed when one of its two engines fails to start, marking the third straight day of problems ...
"dog" の動詞の意味としては「尾行する」があるのを知っていますが、上記の "dog" の意味は何でしょう？
・Macmillan Dictionary: to cause trouble for someone over a long period of time: He has been dogged by persistent back problems.: These rumors had dogged the president for years.
・Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary: to bother or pester persistently: dogged him about his grades
・Cambridge English Dictionary: to cause difficulties: Technical problems dogged our trip from the outset.
最近東京では猫の様な小さい飼い猫ばかり見掛けますが、野良犬がうろちょろしたいた時代に生まれた表現なのでしょう。

horse sense

今日取り上げるのは "How To Win Friends and Influence People" に書かれていた逸話に使われていた表現です。
For example: one day Ralph Waldo Emerson and his son tried to get a calf into the barn But they made the common mistake of thinking only on what they wanted: Emerson pushed and his son pulled. But the calf was doing just what they were doing; he was thinking only of what he wanted; so he stiffened his legs and stubbornly refused to leave the pasture. The Irish housemaid saw their predicament. She couldn't write essays and books; but, on this occasion at least, she had more horse sense, or calf sense, than Emerson had. She thought of what the calf wanted; so she put her maternal finger in the calf's mouth and let the calf suck her finger as she gently let him into the barn.
上記に出てきた "horse sense" を辞書で調べます。
・Collins Dictionary: another term for common sense: The ailing widow still has the horse sense not to part with everything.
・Vocabulary.com: sound practical judgment: If your teacher tells you that you have horse sense, consider it a compliment. People with horse sense are smart and practical and can be counted on to make good decisions.
Word experts aren't certain if the expression horse sense comes from the typical personality of horses themselves, calm and prudent, or from the idea that people who are very skilled in working with horses have a kind of horse sense. Either way, it's a colloquial phrase from the late 1800's that's still used fairly often today.
ちょっと前に読んだ "Japan's Cultural Code Words" に日本語の表現で「馬が合う」を取り上げていましたが、日本とは比較にならない程欧米は牧畜が盛んなので、horse にまつわる表現も多いのでしょうね。

pace

Marx for Beginnersは読み終えたので、図書館から借りる本の予約待ちの期間に読む本を "How To Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegieにします。この本は、４０年以上前に私が初めて読んだ英語の原書です。９月頃だったと記憶していますが、大学卒業前の会社の内定式で会社の顧問の方が、入社前に読むと良い本だと推薦されたので読んだものです。
この本は非常に説得力のある本で、その理由は多くの逸話で著者の主張を裏付けているからです。
この本から取り上げる最初の表現は、南北戦争時のリンカーンの逸話からです。
Time after time, during the Civil War, Lincoln put a new general at the head of the Army of the Potomac, and each one in turn--McClellan, Pope, Burnside, Hooker, Meade--blundered tragically and drove Lincoln to pacing the floor in despair. Half the nation savagely condemned these incompetent generals, but Lincoln, "with malice toward none, with charity for all," held his peace. One of his favorite quotations was "Judge not, that ye be not judged."
"pacing the floor in despair" の表現の "pace" は日本語にもなっていて、一定の速度で歩く（走る、その他の動作）意味で使われますが、上の文での意味は一定の速度（だけ）ではないでしょう。辞書で確認します。
・Macmillan Dictionary: to walk with regular steps around a small area, because you are worried, nervous, or impatient: pace up and down: He paced up and down between the kitchen and the living room.: pace around: She was pacing restlessly around the room as she talked.
・Oxford English Dictionary: walk at a steady speed, especially without a particular destination and as an expression of anxiety or annoyance: we paced up and down in exasperation
・Cambridge English Dictionary: to walk in one direction and then in the opposite direction, often because you are worried or waiting for something to happen: She paced back and forth outside the courtroom.
なるほど、心配事、悩み事がある時にそわそわと歩き回る感じですね。

touched in the head

今日は、Japan's Cultural Code Words, 「湯舟」の項、英語タイトルは "The Japanese and Hot Water"にあった表現を取り上げます。
Traditional bathing practices in Japan differed significantly from those that developed in Europe. When the first Europeans arrived in Japan in the mid-1500s, they were shocked by thses differences. To begin with, the Japanese bathed daily, while the Europeans thought that regular bathing was harmful to the health and avoided it most of the time. Anybody who bathed as often as once a month was considered touched in the head.
最後に出てきた "touched in the head" が「頭がおかしい」という様な意味であることは文脈から容易に想像できます。一応辞書で意味を確認します。
・McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs: touched (in the head): Rur. crazy. Sometimes Bob acts like he's touched in the head. In fact, I thought he was touched.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: behaving in an unusual and strange way: You must think I'm a bit touched, hanging around in graveyards.
・Wiktionary: (slightly mentally deficient): retarded (offensive), touched in the head
風呂好きの私としては、たまになら別ですが、毎日シャワーだけで済ます人は "touched in the head" と思わずにはいられません。私の家族にもいますが。
Japan's Cultural Code Wordsをやっと読み終えました。

Father and his son

先週で子供達の１学期は終わり夏休みに入ったようです。　
Father to son after exam: "Let me see your report card."
Son: "My friend just borrowed it.
He wants to scare his parents."