wager

The Quiet Americanを読んでいると以前何かで見た覚えがありますが、意味を思い出せない単語が出てきました。（そんな単語はこれだけではありませんが）
'"Let us weigh the gain and loss,"' he quoted, '"in wagering that God is, let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose you lose nothing."'
I quoted Pascal back at him--it was the only passage I remembered. '"Both he who chooses heads and he who chooses tails are equally at fault. They are both in the wrong. True course is not to wager at all.
この "wager" の意味を調べます。
・Collins Dictionary: to risk or bet (something) on the outcome of an unsettled matter: Syndicated columnist Bob Christ has been given a hypothetical $500 to wager on NFL games this season.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: an amount of money that you risk in the hope of winning more, by trying to guess something uncertain, or the agreement that you make to take this risk: She put a cash wager of ￡50 on the biggest horse race of the year.
・Vocabulary.com: You can use the word wager as either a noun or a verb, to mean "place a bet" or "the amount of money being risked in a bet." So you could offer a wager at the poker table, or ask if anyone wants to wager on Monday's football game. Either way you use it, wager is a Middle English word that comes from the Old North French wage, "to pledge."

lay possum / play possum

狸寝入りをすると言うのは日本語特有な表現と思っていましたが、The Quiet Americanに同じ様な表現が次の様に出てきました。
Under my breath I said, 'Go away, Pyle. Don't come near me. I don't want to be saved.'
'Thomas.' He was hitting at my door, but I lay possum as though I were back in the rice-field and he was an enemy.
辞書にこの表現の説明があるか調べましたが見当たりません。しかし "play possum" と言う表現が一般的に使われることが分かりました。
・Wikitionary: play possum: 1. to feign death; to remain quiet and still to escape attention or remain undetected; to lay low. 2. to feign sleep, illness, etc. When we used to get home late at night, I would play possum so my daddy would carry me inside and put me in bed.
・Wikipedia: Playing possum: Apparent death, colloquially known as playing dead or playing possum, is a behavior in which an animal takes on the appearance of being dead. This form of animal deception is an adaptive behavior also known as tonic immobility or thanatosis. Apparent death can be used as a defense mechanism or as a form of aggressive mimicry, and occurs in a wide range of animals.
"tonic immobility"と "thanatosis" は覚えにくいですね。Wikipediaには "Apparent death" の項目で狸以外にも色々な動物が "Playing possum" をする説明が写真入りで掲載されています。

prise

Fowlerは戦場で負傷しました。
I lay still and heard nothing but my own pain beating like a monstrous heart and held my breath and prayed to the God I didn't believe in, 'Let me die or faint'; and then I suppose I fainted and was aware of nothing until I dreamed that my eyelids had frozen together and someone was inserting a chisel to prise them apart, and I wanted to warn them not to damage the eyeballs beneath but couldn't and the chisel bit through and a torch was shining on my face.
"prise" は知らない単語ですが、凍りついたような瞼をノミで "prise them apart" とあるので、こじ開けるような意味があると推測できますが、辞書で確認します。
・Cambridge English Dictionary: to use force to lift something off something else, for example by pressing a tool against a fixed point; to separate things using force: I managed to prise the lid off the tin of paint.
・Collins Dictionary: to force open by levering: It took him six weeks, working two or three hours a day, to prise the drawers open.
"prise" は英国のスペルで、米国では "prize" との説明がありました。 それで以前（6/26/2010）"prize out" を採り上げたのを思い出しました。

joss stick

The Quiet Americanを読んでいます。
'I can tell you that. She'll have decided that I'm spending the night at Tanyin--it won't be the first time. She'll be lying on the bed with a joss stick burning to keep away the mosquitoes and she'll be looking at the pictures in an old Paris-Match. Like the French she has a passion for the Royal Family.'
"joss stick" は蚊よけのために燃やしているとあるので、ここでは蚊取り線香の意味であることは確かですが、米国や欧州で蚊取り線香が使われているのを見た事はないので "joss stick" もしくは "joss" が英語の辞書でどの様な説明があるのか確認します。
・Oxford English Dictionary: A thin stick consisting of a substance that burns slowly and with a fragrant smell, used as incense.: Some people spent more than 400,000 yuan to gain the right to plant the first joss stick in various temples.
・Vocabulary.com: a slender stick of incense burned before a joss by the Chinese
日本で言うと仏壇に供える線香ですね。 "joss" は仏像のことでしょうか？
・Collins Dictionary: a Chinese deity worshipped in the form of an idol: `So,' she said, getting up to light a joss stick on the mantlepiece.
Word Origin: C18: from pidgin English, from Portuguese deos god, from Latin deus
なるほど、確かに "joss" は日本語になったゼウスと発音が似ていますね。同じ語源でしたか。

lock, stock and barrel

The Quiet Americanに５年前（2009/8/24）に覚えた慣用句が出てきました。
At last I did drag myself to see one apartment in a so-called modern building (Paris Exhibition 1934?) up at the other end of the rue Catinat beyond the Continental Hotel. It was the Saigon pied-a-terre of a rubber planter who was going home. He wanted to sell it lock, stock and barrel. I have always wondered what the barrels contain: as for the stock, there were a large number of engravings from the Paris Salon between 1880 and 1900.

諏訪湖マラソン（ハーフ）に参加するのでこれから諏訪に行きます。明日はブログをお休みします。

four-to-one

Graham GreeneのThe Quiet Americanを読んでいます。話の舞台がフランスの植民地時代のベトナムなのでフランス語の台詞がやたらと出てきます。無視しても話の中身はだいたい分かりますが、図書館に翻訳版（早川書房発行の『おとなしいアメリカ人』）もあるのに気づき、借りて気になる個所だけを読むことにしました。
次の原文の個所を読むと、
'Quatre Cent Vingt-et-un?' he asked.
'Why not?'
We began to throw and it seemed impossible to me that I could ever have a life again, away from the rue Gambetta and the rue Catinat, the flat tast of vermouth cassis, the homely click of dice, and the gunfire travelling like a clock-hand around the horizen. I said, 'I'm going back.'
'Home?' Pietri asked, throwing a four-to-one.
'No. England.'
翻訳は次のようになっていました。 　「"四・二・一"はどうです？」 　　・・・中略・・・ 　「家ですか？」"四・二・一"のダイスを投げながら、ピエトリが訊いた。 　「いいや。イギリスへだ」 あれあれ、"four-to-one" が "四・二・一" になるとは。私はフランス語が分からないので "Quatre Cent Vingt-et-un" の方は "四・二・一" で正しいのかどうか何とも言えませんが、"four-to-one" の "to" が "two" に化けるのは単なるぽかとしか思えません。
私は "four-to-one" はサイコロゲームの一種かと思ったのですが、Wikipediaに Fractional oddsの項にあった次の説明にある "four-to-one" を指していると解釈するのが正解ではないでしょうか。
Favoured by bookmakers in the United Kingdom and Ireland, and also common in horse racing, fractional odds quote the net total that will be paid out to the bettor, should he win, relative to his stake. Odds of 4/1 ("four-to-one" or less commonly "four-to-one against") would imply that the bettor stands to make a £400 profit on a £100 stake. If the odds are 1/4 (read "one-to-four", or "four-to-one on"), the bettor will make £25 on a £100 stake. In either case, against or on, should he win, the bettor always receives his original stake back, so if the odds are 4/1 the bettor receives a total of £500 (£400 plus the original £100). Odds of 1/1 are known as evens or even money.

turn of the screw

The Quiet Americanにいかにも慣用句らしい表現が出てきました。
Expulsion meant the end of a whole life, it meant the victory of Pyle, and there, whan I returned to my hotel, waiting in my pigeon-hole, was in fact his victory, the end of the affair--a congratulatory telegram of promotion. Dante never thought up that turn of the screw for his condemned lovers.
"turn of the screw" の意味を調べます。
・Cambridge English Dictionary: an action that makes a bad situation worse, especially one that forces someone to do something: Each letter from my bank manager is another turn of the screw.
・Macmillan Dictionary: an occasion when someone puts more pressure on someone else to do something: This latest demand was one more turn of the screw on the government.
これは分かり易いので簡単に覚えられそうです。
"pigeon-hole" は動詞の "pigeonhole(3/27/2010)" / "pigeonhole(6/6/2014)" を以前採り上げたので意味は推定できますが、念のためにWiktionaryで確認します。
1.A nook in a desk for holding papers.
2.One of an array of compartments for sorting post, messages etc. at an office, or college

got him on the raw

旅行から帰って来て昨日ブログを更新しようとしたらPCの動きがおかしく、投稿する時間がなくなりました。今朝もPCの立ち上げに何故か時間がかかりましたが、何とか正常に動くようになって様です。早速英語の話題に移ります。
以前 "flick on the raw" を採り上げましたが、それと似ている表現がThe Quiet Americanに出てきました。
'Got him on the raw,' said Granger with satisfaction, and he went into a corner by the bar to write his telegram.
この表現はイギリス英語なのでこの慣用句を辞書で見つけるのは苦労しましたが、 "flick on the raw" で次の説明を見つけることができました。
・UsingEnglish.com: catch (touch or get) somebody on the raw = touch someone on the tender spot
・Oxford Learner's Dictionary: catch/touch somebody on the raw (British English) to upset somebody by reminding them of something they are particularly sensitive about

gel with

Japan Times Online Oct.2の映画批評の記事に以前取り上げた単語が使われていました。
Million Dollar Arm: ‘Even Disney can’t completely botch a baseball tale’
There’s something about baseball that truly gels with movies. My secret conviction is that it’s impossible to make a really terrible baseball movie. Even Disney can’t botch it up completely, which is why their new true-to-life baseball tale “Million Dollar Arm” will wind up making you cry and glad to be alive and all that.
しかし、上に出てきた "gel" 以前取り上げた引用文での意味とは違いますね。今度の "gel" は次の意味でしょう。
・Macmillan Dictionary: when a group gels, the people in it start to form a good relationship with each other or start working together effectively: We gelled as a group, right away.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: If two or more people gel, they form a good relationship or become friends: The team really gelled during the first few games of the season.
記事は人ではなく野球と映画の関係ですが、相性が合う、上手くいくとの意味で使われているのだと思います。

明日から福岡と長崎のハウステンボスに行って来ますのでブログはその間休みます。

heel

英語には何故か "heel" を含んだ表現が多くあり、これまでにも幾つかの慣用句を採り上げました。残念ながら忘れているのがほとんどですが。The Quiet Americanの次の個所に出て来た "heel" は慣用句ではありませんが、私の知らない意味があるようです。
'I don't think she's in need of protection. Has Miss Hei invited you out?'
'Yes, but I haven't gone. I've kept away.' He said gloomily, "It's been terrible. I feel such a heel, but you do believe me, don't you, that if you'd been married--why, I wouldn't ever come between a man and his wife.'
辞書を見ます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: An inconsiderate or untrustworthy person: What kind of a heel do you think I am?
・Cambridge English Dictionary: a person who treats other people badly and unfairly: I felt like a real heel when I saw how I'd upset her.
語源辞典(Online Etymology Dictionary)を見ると次の説明がありました。
"contemptible person," 1914 in U.S. underworld slang, originally "incompetent or worthless criminal," perhaps from a sense of "person in the lowest position" and thus from heel
たしかに、陸上選手ならいざ知らず、お前は "heel" だと言われても嬉しくないでしょうね。