pockets of wind

Ringに出てきた空や風の表現が気になりました。
The skies had been clear down in Odawara, but the higher he climbed, the moister the air, and as he neared the pass he'd encountered several pockets of wind and rain.
空は一つしかないと思っていましたが、複数形の "skies" が使われています。辞書で "sky" を見るとこんな説明がありました。
・Macmillan Dictionary: [usually plural] used for talking about the weather: clear/cloudy skies: Tomorrow we expect clear skies in the morning, with rain in the afternoon.
気象に関する空は複数形が普通なのですか、今まで気が付きませんでした。
さて、後半に出てきた "pockets of wind" の "pockets" は何でしょうか？
・Cambridge English Dictionary: a group, area, or mass of something that is separate and different from what surrounds it: Among the staff there are some pockets of resistance to the planned changes (= some small groups of them are opposed).: The pilot said that we were going to encounter a pocket of turbulence (= an area of violently moving air).
・Macmillan Dictionary: a small area which has a particular quality that makes it different from the areas around it: pocket of: There are still pockets of resistance to the government forces.
"pocket" にこう言う使い方があるのですね。

久し振りに旅行に出かけるので１０日ほどブログをお休みします。
皆様も良いお年をお迎えください。

Trivia Quiz

Reader's Digestに載っていたTrivia Quizです。
Blanket, cross and running are all types of what domestic essential?
私は駅伝とかマラソンを思い浮かべたのですが、屋外の活動とは関係はありません。
Ans. stitches
答えを見ても、何の事やらサッパリという方の為に、"blanket stitch" の写真を付けて置きます。 "cross stitch" と　"running stitch" は写真がなくても見当が付くでしょう。

kicking away the ladder

The "dominant theory" is that of the rich and powerful, who have regularly advocated liberalization for others, and sometimes for themselves as well, once they have achieved a dominant position and hence are willing to face competition on a "level playing field"--that is, one sharply tilted in their favor. The stand is sometimes called "kicking away the ladder" by economic historians: first we violate the rules to climb to the top, then we kick away the ladder so that you cannot follow us, and we righteously proclaim: "Let's play fair, on a level playing field."
(Excerpts from "Hopes and Prospects" by Noam Chomsky)
"kicking away the ladder"、日本語でも梯子を外すという表現がありますね。
眼から鱗の説明でした。

war chest

Ringの最初の事件で亡くなった少女は記者、Asakawaの妻と親戚だったので、少女が家に残していた会員カードの情報を元に、Asakawaは事件の背景を探り始めました。
"Just for future reference, where are your other facilities located?"
"We have the same sort of full-service resorts at Lake Hmana and at Hamajima in Mie Prefecture."
Much too far! Students wouldn't have that kind of war chest.
上の引用個所は、Asakawaが会員にリゾート施設を提供している会社に電話をしている状況です。
最後に出てきた "war chest" が分からないので辞書を見ます。
　・Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary: an amount of money intended for a specific purpose, action, or campaign: The candidate held fund-raising dinners to build up his war chest.
・Wiktionary: .(by extension) A fund for some special purpose, such as a political campaign
そう言えば "chest" に資金とか金庫の意味があるし、日本語でも大げさに「軍資金」が要るなどと使うことがありますね。

beat the hell out of me

車の中で死んでいた二人の位置が変でした。
"...After all, they were lovers. But instead, their backs were pressed up against the doors, as if they were trying to get as far away from each other as they could."
Yoshino threw up his hands in a gesture of surrender. "Beats the hell out of me."
最後に出てきた表現 "Beats the hell out of me." は慣用句、多分スラング的な表現でしょう？
"beat the hell out of." をONELOOK検索で出てきたのは次ぎの辞書の説明だけでした。
・McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs: beat the hell out of someone and beat the living daylights out of someone; beat the pants off (of) someone; beat the shit out of someone; beat the socks off (of) someone; beat the stuffing out of someone; beat the tar out of someone:
1. Fig. to defeat someone very badly. (Caution: the use of the word shit is considered vulgar and is offensive to many people. Of is usually retained before pronouns.) Our team beat the hell out of the other side. We beat the stuffing out of the other side.
2. Fig. Inf. to batter someone severely. (Alludes to physical violence, not the removal of someone's pants. Of is usually retained before pronouns.) The thugs beat the living daylights out of their victim. If you do that again, I'll beat the pants off of you. Before the boxing match Max said he would beat the socks off Lefty.
これはRingで使われている状況には合いません。　そこで俗語専門のUrban Dictionaryを見ると、
Back in the day, before psychology really developed, when someone was considered "crazy" they would thing ( "sic" 多分 thinkのtypo) the devil was in them. Instead of treating them wiht ("sic" 多分 withのtypo) medication, therapy, ect... They would do horrible things to them like drill holes in their heads to let the evil spirits out, or beat them to death out of fear of what is inside.: "I would beat the hell out of him."
この説明なら納得できます。

catch my drift

若い二人が車の中で死んでいたのがホラー小説Ringに出てくる二番目の事件です。
This car was a two-door, one of those where you can't lock the doors with the key still inside. And the key was in the ignition, but the doors...well, you can catch my drift. The car was completely sealed. It's hard to imagine that any force from the outside could have affected them.
"catch my drift" の個所が分かりません。　測定機器を取り扱っている会社で仕事をしているので "drift" の単語は日常良く眼にし、抵抗値その他の値がほんの少し変動することを意味してていますが、この "drift" は何でしょう？
・Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary: the underlying meaning, import, or purport of what is spoken or written: the drift of a conversation
・Macmillan Dictionary: the meaning that someone is trying to express: the general drift: Well, anyway, I'm sure you get the general drift.: get/catch someone's drift (=understand the basic meaning): Do you get my drift?
・Cambridge English Dictionary: the general meaning without the details: The general drift of the article was that society doesn't value older people.
・Vocabulary.com: If you get my drift, you get the basic meaning of what I'm saying. Or, if you move around without a seeming fixed destination, you are said to drift -- whether you're a snowflake or a homeless person.
Interestingly, the verb to drift can be used either approvingly or disapprovingly. We rather admire the freedom of certain objects that drift, such as snow drifts or drift wood, but applied to people we're a bit more critical: we tend to harbor suspicions of the carefree Gypsy or nomad, hence the moral criticism (and danger) inherent in the term drifters.
なるほど。 "Now I can say that I caught your drift."

crawl out of the woodwork

簡単そうに見える単語でも意味が分からないのが英語です。おそらくこんな状態は一生続きそうです。今日採り上げる単語もRing by Koji Suzukiの小説からです。
Every publisher in the country had been deluged with accounts and photographs of supernatural experiences, every one of them a hoax. Oguri had wondered what the world was coming to. He had figured that he had a pretty good handle on the way the world worked, but he just couldn't think of a convincing explanation for that kind of thing. It was utterly preposterous, the number of "contributors" that had crawled out of the woodwork.
"woodwork" は木工製品の意味があると思えますが、ここではそれでは通じません。"woodwork" を辞書で見てもそのような意味しか見あたりませんでしたが、"come/crawl out of the woodwork" の項で次ぎの説明がありました。
・Cambridge English Dictionary: to appear after having been hidden or not active for a long time: After you've been in a relationship for a while all sorts of little secrets start to come out of the woodwork.
・Wiktionary:(idiomatic) to appear or emerge as though out of nowhere, frequently in large numbers or quantity: He won the lottery last year and he has had old "friends" and distant relatives coming out of the woodwork ever since.
・Macmillan Dictionary: to suddenly appear after a long time, especially for unpleasant reasons: After he had won the lottery, several old friends came crawling out of the woodwork.
なるほど、白蟻が木材からぞろぞろ出てくる感じでしょうか。

Waiter . . . there’s a bug in my soup

Edible insects could provide humans with an adequate supply of food

The crickets chirp before they are thrown into a pan, sauteed in vegetable oil and turned into crispy, crunchy snacks. They are one of the three toppings offered on crackers as hors d’oeuvres; a jam made from ants and rice grasshoppers boiled in a sweet soy sauce complete the insect triumvirate.
...
Those attending the fifth Mushi Fes (insect festival), held last month at a basement of a Kabukicho building in Shinjuku, are mostly in their 20s and 30s. About 70 percent of them are male, but the crowd also includes a few single females as well as couples on a date.

上記はThe Japan Timesの記事の抜粋です。全文を読みたい方は下記ＵＲＬへどうぞ。 http://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2013/12/14/lifestyle/waiter-theres-a-bug-in-my-soup/　

ロマネスク収穫

まだ大きく育つような気がしますが、待ちきれなくて、ついにロマネスクを収穫しました。
何度見ても実に綺麗な野菜ですね。色と螺旋模様の形、芸術作品の様です。
食べるのがもったいない気がします。
食べたら、カリフラワーと同じ味です。
でも新鮮なので美味しい。
来年も栽培したい。

the profits were privatized, but the costs socialized

秋に読んだNorm ChomskyのHopes and Prospectsはなるほどと納得できる文が幾つもでてきました。次ぎの個所もその内の一つです。
It should be added that colonization extended in a different way to the societies of the conquerors as well, and continue to do so today. "European societies were also colonized and plundered, less catastrophically than the Americas but more so than most of Asia," historian Thomas Brady wrote. His point was that the profits of empire were privatized, but the costs socialized.
(Excerpts from "Hopes and Prospects" by Noam Chomsky)
我が国でもどこかの銀行に公的資金を投入していました。福島原発の処理もこのよう構図が幾つもあるのでしょうね。