I am the begining of the end and the end of time and space. I am essential to creation and I surround every place. Who am I?
Reader's Digestに出ていた謎々です。
答えは来週までお預け。
I visited my daughter bearing gifts: summer squash from my garden. "What should I do with it?" she asked. "Whatever you would do with zucchine," I replied. "OK, we'll give it to our neighbour."
Japan Times OnlineのAugust 12, 2014の見出しObama should follow Nixon’s lead and do the right thingの記事を引用します。
By today’s standards, however, Nixon’s efforts to protect his henchmen, including his screwing around with the FBI investigation that led to an article of impeachment for obstruction of justice, look positively penny-ante, more worthy of a traffic ticket than a high crime or misdemeanor. Obstruction of justice, scandalous and impeachable just 40 years ago, has become routine.
上の引用文に出てきた "penny-ante" はどんな意味でしょうか？
・Merriam-Webster's Learner's Dictionary: not important, valuable, or impressive: a penny-ante operation: penny-ante politics
・Cambridge English Dictionary: of little value or importance: He was proposing some penny-ante increase.
大事ではないとの事ですが覚えて置きましょう。
Reader's Digestの７月号がそろそろ借りれる頃なのですが、まだなのでUnderstand Psychologyを読んでいます。また興味のある単語が出てきました。
Children tend to use iconic imagery a great deal. They remember what things looked like, very cleary and, sometimes, even photographically. About one in ten children have eidetic imagery - visual memories that are so clear that they are almost photographic. But this usuary disappear with puberty, and the number of adults with eidetic memory is estimated to be less than one in 10,000.
"eidetic" は visualとかphotographicと関係があるようですが、辞書の説明を見ます。 ・Oxford English Dictionary: Relating to or denoting mental images having unusual vividness and detail, as if actually visible.: ‘Many of those exceptional individuals who retained the ‘photographic’ or eidetic memory that is common in children but rare in adults, have had their lives blighted by their inability to forget unimportant details.’
引用文での説明とほとんど同じでした。しかし子供の頃にそんな能力があった記憶もないし、この話は日本では聞いたことがありません。でも数万人に一人はいる様なのでこの能力を備えた日本人もかなりいるのでしょうね。
ネットで本を予約して図書館から借りるので、次の本を借りれるまでに空きができます。その時に読む手持ちの本 Understand Psychologyの第６章Motivationに今日覚えたい言葉 "homeostasis" の説明があります。
Psychologists investigating such physiological motives have found that these mechanisms are all concerned with getting the right balance in the body. As long as everything is at the right kind of level, we don't feel the motivation. But if something becomes imbalanced, for instance, if our blood sugar level gets too low or if we don't have a high enough level of fuid in the body, then we take action to put it right. This is known as maintaining homeostasis - maintaining the appropriate balance in the body so that we can function well, physically.
...
Physiological motives such as hunger and thirst serve to maintain homeostasis in the body.
"homeostasis" の意味は文中にありますし、以前 Biologyの本に出てきたことも思い出しました。今度は覚えられるかな。
ホームレスだったThe Pursuit of Happynessの主人公はやっと家賃の安い家を見つけ、そこに住めるようになりました。
My good friend Latrell Hammond insisted that I come get the five pound of neck bones she had just bought that day. What the hell, I'd never cooked neck bones, but I went and got them just the same, figuring that I'd have some OJT in the kitchen, and then I went out to buy a secondhand freezer. At the grocery store, where the butcher, Ms. Tookie, had the hots for me, I got some helpful hints on the basics.
この俗語的なイデオム "had the hots for" の意味が分かりません。辞書に意味が出ているでしょうか？
・Oxford English Dictionary: Be sexually attracted to: 'Maggie, if you have the hots for Bianca, grow some balls and say so.’
・McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs: to be sexually aroused by someone. Perry has the hots for Earline.
・Cambridge Dictionary of American Idioms: to be strongly sexually attracted to someone He's got the hots for that new girl Libby.: Usage notes: sometimes used in a humorous way that is not sexual: Consumers have the hots for DSL Internet connections.
そんな意味ですか。毎週見ている笑点の小遊三を連想しました。ホームレス時代のエピソードに、自動販売機が故障して釣銭が出なかったと言ってホテルのフロントから釣銭代を稼ぐ個所も小遊三風ですね。
The Pursuit of Happynessの主人公は結局離婚し、昼間の仕事はありますが、息子連れのホームレスとなりました。
The deal was this. No one was admitted into the hotel before 6:00 P.M., and everyone had to be out by 8:00 A.M. No one received a key. No going out once you were in for the night, and no leaving your things in the room because they'd be gone when you returned. When you left the room, you took everything you owned with you. No one was assigned the same room two nights in a row.
It was catch-as-catch-can. And if you didn't get there early, before the hotel filled up, you were out of luck. There were no reservations, no one giving you special treatment and saying, "We knew you were coming so we held you a spot."
ホームレスが夜寝られる場所を紹介して貰えましたが、先着順なので毎晩泊まれるとは限りません。上の引用文にある "catch-as-catch-can" はどんな意味でしょうか？ 早い者勝ち？ 何でしょうか、辞書を見ます。
・Collins Dictionary: (mainly US & Canadian) using any method or opportunity that comes to hand: That right is cherished here, but in practice it's catch-as-catch-can.
・Dictionary.com: Also, catch-can. taking advantage of any opportunity; using any method that can be applied: a catch-as-catch-can life, as an itinerant handyman.
・Infoplease Dictionary:(idiomatic) intermittent; only when possible or when the opportunity presents itself My efforts lately have been catch-as-catch-can, not carefully planned.
・McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs: the best one can do with whatever is available. We went hitchhiking for a week and lived catch-as-catch-can. There were ten children in our family, and every meal was catch-as-catch-can.
早い者勝ちではありませんでしたね。行き当たりばったり、その日暮らしと言ったところでしょうか。
An old man was driving down the motorway when his phone rang. Answering, he heard his wife's voice urgently warning him, "Vernon, I just heard on the news that there's a car going the wrong way on the M5. Please be careful!" "Heck," replied Vernon, "It's not just one car. It's hundreds of them!" 実は私もこの経験があります。日本からシカゴに駐在となり自分の車で初めて出勤した日の夜、残業が終えて、会社の敷地から右に回り一般道に出て自宅に向かって走っていると、正面にまぶしいヘッドライトが見えて来ました。なんて奴だ、反対車線を走るなんてと思った瞬間、米国では車は右側を走ることに気が付きました。日本で車を運転している方が米国で運転する場合は十分に注意して下さい。
誰が言ったのか、あるいは何の記事に書かれていたのかメモするのを忘れましたが、Reader's Digest June 2014で見かけた文です。
An outrageously high salary paid to CEOs. middle managers, civil servants or assorted lucky others, which dwarfs the microsalaries going to most workers.
日本では最低賃金の制度があり、地域により最低賃金の額は異なりますが最も高い東京でも時給で８５０円（H25年）です。物価や生活費を考えるとこれではどんなに働いても大変ですよね。
The Pursuit of Happynessの主人公は結婚して子供もできましたが、収入その他の問題で妻との関係が悪化しているさなか、収入の多い新しい仕事に就けるはずだったのですが、ポストを約束してくれた当人が首になり無職になってしまいました。
Complicating those principles was the crumbling foundation of my relationship with Jackie. When I first came home to tell her what had happened, she said absolutely nothing. What could she say? "Sorry, old chap, hang in there," but she didn't. We had no savings, no income, only bills. Not anything extravagant, just your normal run-of-the-mill living bills: food, rent, car note, day care, Pampers.
"car note" という言い方は知りませんでしたが、日常の支払（請求書）の一つなので車の月賦の事かと思います。辞書を見ます。
普通の辞書には "car note" の見出しはありませんでしたが、俗語辞典のUrban Dictionaryには次の説明がありました。
another name for a car payment.: Auto Plaza got my car note so low I can actually pay it this time.
Complicating those principles was the crumbling foundation of my relationship with Jackie. When I first came home to tell her what had happened, she said absolutely nothing. What could she say? "Sorry, old chap, hang in there," but she didn't. We had no savings, no income, only bills. Not anything extravagant, just your normal run-of-the-mill living bills: food, rent, car note, day care, Pampers.
"car note" という言い方は知りませんでしたが、日常の支払（請求書）の一つなので車の月賦の事かと思います。辞書を見ます。
普通の辞書には "car note" の見出しはありませんでしたが、俗語辞典のUrban Dictionaryには次の説明がありました。
another name for a car payment.: Auto Plaza got my car note so low I can actually pay it this time.
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