A teacher asks her students if they're Yankees fans.
All of the hands go up except for one student.
"Okay, Bobby. What team are you a fan of?"
"The Red Sox."
"Why's that?"
"Well, my parents are both Red Sox fans, so I'm a Red Sox fan too."
"That's not a good answer, Bobby.
If your parents were both morons, would you be a moron too?"
"No, that would make me a Yankees fan!"
ジョークの紹介はいつも毎週日曜日にしているのですが、明日は朝早くからハーフマラソンに参加するために出かけるので、今日をジョークの日にし、明日はブログの更新を休みます。
題名の長い短編 'For a Long Time This Was Griselda's Story' から取り上げるのは次の引用個所にあった単語一つだけです。
They stopped on a high ridge, panting, the town streched out below them, the capitol dome, the arbor-lined streets, the slim neighborhoods of the North End in rows and, far off, the glittering Owyhee Mountains.
"arbor-lined streets" ですが、"arbor" の意味として「あずまや」だけを覚えているだけなので、「あずまや」が並んでいる道（複数）はどう考えても可笑しい。 "arbor" には他の意味があるに違いありません。辞書を見ます。
・Vocabulary.com: You can use the noun arbor to talk about a tree. For example, you might describe a tree-planting party as an arbor festival.
You're more likely to come across the word arbor in the context of a garden structure, like a trellis or pergola. However, if you've heard of the holiday known as "Arbor Day," you know that an arbor is also a tree. These two meanings come from two different roots: the wooden arch type of arbor comes from the Latin herba, "grass or herb," while the tree arbor comes directly from the Latin arbor. Simply enough, it means "tree."
なるほど、ただの木ですか。「あずまや」の "arbor" が "herb" と関係があるのも面白い。確かに発音に共通点がありますね。
今日の単語も短編So Many Chancesからです。主人公の少女DoroteaはOhioからMaineに引っ越して来ました。
When the giant leaves with his fish, he looks at Dorotea and smiles and tells her she is a fine fisherwoman and wished her luck. Buena suerte, he says, which is funny because he sounds like a giant gringo from Maine when he says it, but it is nice all the same.
"the giant" はDoroteaが釣り具を買った店の大男です。さて、上の "gringo" はどんな人のことを指すのでしょうか？
・Oxford English Dictionary: (In Spanish-speaking countries and contexts, chiefly in the Americas) a person, especially an American, who is not Hispanic or Latino.: He laughed and said, ‘That's just for the gringos.’
・Collins English Dictionary: (derogatory) (used by Latin Americans) a person from an English-speaking country, esp the USA
ヒスパニックが米国人の事を "gringo" と言うのですね。日本語だと「アメ公」ですかね？ 「アメ公」はほぼ死語だと思いますが。
Anthony Doerrの短編集The Shell Collectionの中の短編So Many Chancesを読んでいます。
She follows arrows to C-4, a concrete pier with a heavy crane hanging above and bordered by boxcars in high stacks. Men in suits and ties and hard hats walk past, rolled plans under their arms. A beeping forklift wheels; the driver gives her a hard look.
She finds her father at the pier's edge by a big blue Dumpster, where the river rolls past dirty. Stryofoam cups bob in the current. Gulls screech around the Dumpster, a flurry of white and gray feather.
"Dumpster" は大文字で始まっていますが、文中には特に説明がないので、米国では常識の物なのでしょう。辞書を見ます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: US trademark: A large trash receptacle designed to be hoisted and emptied into a truck.: The part of the river we were cleaning was probably more used as a trash disposal than any dumpster was.
・Collins English Dictionary: R, US) a large container for holding or transporting waste or items for recycling.: 'The report over here was that she was found in a Dumpster,' Thomas said, losing composure.
あの大きなゴミ箱のことですか。"dumpster" と小文字だけで書かれることもあるのでやはり米国では常識ですね。
She follows arrows to C-4, a concrete pier with a heavy crane hanging above and bordered by boxcars in high stacks. Men in suits and ties and hard hats walk past, rolled plans under their arms. A beeping forklift wheels; the driver gives her a hard look.
She finds her father at the pier's edge by a big blue Dumpster, where the river rolls past dirty. Stryofoam cups bob in the current. Gulls screech around the Dumpster, a flurry of white and gray feather.
"Dumpster" は大文字で始まっていますが、文中には特に説明がないので、米国では常識の物なのでしょう。辞書を見ます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: US trademark: A large trash receptacle designed to be hoisted and emptied into a truck.: The part of the river we were cleaning was probably more used as a trash disposal than any dumpster was.
・Collins English Dictionary: R, US) a large container for holding or transporting waste or items for recycling.: 'The report over here was that she was found in a Dumpster,' Thomas said, losing composure.
あの大きなゴミ箱のことですか。"dumpster" と小文字だけで書かれることもあるのでやはり米国では常識ですね。
短編 "Hunter's Wife" を読んでいます。
Mary leapt forward from where she squatted, her legs all pins and needles, dashed across the snow in her parka and, lunging, grabbed the doe by its still-warm foreleg.
"pins and needles" は慣用句に違いありません。辞書を見ます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: A tingling sensation in a limb recovering from numbness.: These symptoms consist mainly of tingling, numbness, a sensation of pins and needles in the extremities, and muscle aches.
・Collins English Dictionary: a tingling sensation in the fingers, toes, legs, etc, caused by the return of normal blood circulation after its temporary impairment: I pulled my arm out from under Richard's shoulders as I felt the tingle of pins and needles.
足がしびれて感覚が麻痺していることを表現するのに "numb" が使えるのは知っていましたが、あの足がピリピリする感じは "pins and needles" の方が良く分かりますね。
昨日は駒沢オリンピック公園での10kmレースに参加しました。この大会には二度目ですが、昨年は土砂降りで、私も嫌いな周回コースのせいか、去年よりも参加者が少なかったように思えます。しかし久し振りに１時間を切る事ができたので、先月自己最低記録を出して、いよいよ歳かなと思っていたのが、成績の悪いのは練習のせい、改めて実感しました。
Reader's DigestのAll in a Day's Workには冗談より笑える実話の投稿がいつもあります。
A woman complained to my wife, a schoolteacher, that other students were stealing her daughter's pencils.
"It's not the money," she insisted, "it's principle. My husband took those from work."
タイトルにあるLead-HandedはLとRの区別が容易にできない私の様な人間向けの駄洒落ですね。それともネイティブでもLとRの発音を聞き間違える証拠(注)の一つでしょうか？
注：LとRの聞き違から海賊の修行に出されたオペラッタ "Pirates of Penzance" について元同時通訳者の村松さんから聞いた話。(2/26/2006)
8/4/2014に採り上げた "savant" がReader's Digest 8月号の記事、Learning and intelligenceに出て来ました。
Most people that we would call 'intelligent' have a combination of these different abilities, but some are particularly good at only one or two, and not at the others. A musical genius, for instance, will have one type of intelligence very highly developed, but might be quite ordinary in other respects. What we call an 'idiot savant' is someone who is well below average intelligence in most respects, but has one outstanding ability -- to remember, or to calculate.
Most people that we would call 'intelligent' have a combination of these different abilities, but some are particularly good at only one or two, and not at the others. A musical genius, for instance, will have one type of intelligence very highly developed, but might be quite ordinary in other respects. What we call an 'idiot savant' is someone who is well below average intelligence in most respects, but has one outstanding ability -- to remember, or to calculate.
"The Shell Collection" の次の短編 "Hunter's Wife" を読み始めました。日本のマタギのような猟師とその妻との話です。
At his one-room cabin with furs and old rifles on the walls, he unbolted the crawlspace and showed her his winter board: a hundred smoked trout, skinned pheasant and venison quarters hanging frozen from hooks. Enough for two of me, he said. She scanned his books over the fireplace, a monograph on grouse habits, a series of journals on upland game birds, a thick tome titled simply Bear.
"grouse"（雷鳥）は十年程前に通訳ガイドの試験勉強で覚えた単語で、"monograph" は本の一種であることは分かりますが、初めて見る単語なので辞書を見ます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: A detailed written study of a single specialized subject or an aspect of it: a series of monographs on music in late medieval and Renaissance cities
・Vocabulary.com: A scholar who is fascinated with a subject and knows a lot about it might write a monograph, or a long, detailed paper on one topic. If your favorite subject in school is the study of insects, you may one day write a monograph on entomology, full of details about beetles and wasps. A monograph is usually researched carefully, with plenty of footnotes along the way. The thesis or dissertation a college student writes as a requirement for getting a degree is one type of monograph. The word comes from the Greek mono, "single," and graph, "something written."
"graph" は直ぐに図表や写真を思い浮かべますが "something written" の意味でもあるのですね。
The Shell Collectionから取り上げる最後の単語は海を舞台にした話にふさわしい魚の名称です。
He was numb forever. What clockless hours passed, what weeks and months? He didn't know. He dreamed of glass, of miniature glass-bloweres making cone teeth like tiny snow-needles, like the thinnest ocean glassed over with a thick sheet and him skating out on it, peering down at the reef its changing, perilous sculpture, its vast, miniature kingdom. All of it--the limp tentacles of a coral polyp, the chewed floating body of a clownfish--was gray and lonesome, torn down.
"clownfish" はどんな魚でしょうか？ 名前からした大魚ではなさそうです。辞書を見ます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: A small, tropical marine fish with bold vertical stripes or other bright coloration. It lives in close association with anemones and is protected from their stings by mucus. Also called anemone fish.: So, the protection of the anemone afforded by the clownfish is part of the mutual relationship.
"anemone fish" は知っていました。イソギンチャクの内外でうろちょろするので分かり易い名称だと思っていましたが、鮮やかな色と模様から "clownfish" も合っていますね。日本語で何故クマノミと呼ばれるのかがむしろ不思議ですね。
ウィキペディアには次の説明がありました。
和名「クマノミ」は色分けされた体色を歌舞伎役者の隈取に見立てたもので、「ミ」は魚介を表す接尾語とされる。また「隈」は隠れ場所を意味し、イソギンチャクの触手の間に隠れる行動に由来するという説もある。
He was numb forever. What clockless hours passed, what weeks and months? He didn't know. He dreamed of glass, of miniature glass-bloweres making cone teeth like tiny snow-needles, like the thinnest ocean glassed over with a thick sheet and him skating out on it, peering down at the reef its changing, perilous sculpture, its vast, miniature kingdom. All of it--the limp tentacles of a coral polyp, the chewed floating body of a clownfish--was gray and lonesome, torn down.
"clownfish" はどんな魚でしょうか？ 名前からした大魚ではなさそうです。辞書を見ます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: A small, tropical marine fish with bold vertical stripes or other bright coloration. It lives in close association with anemones and is protected from their stings by mucus. Also called anemone fish.: So, the protection of the anemone afforded by the clownfish is part of the mutual relationship.
"anemone fish" は知っていました。イソギンチャクの内外でうろちょろするので分かり易い名称だと思っていましたが、鮮やかな色と模様から "clownfish" も合っていますね。日本語で何故クマノミと呼ばれるのかがむしろ不思議ですね。
ウィキペディアには次の説明がありました。
和名「クマノミ」は色分けされた体色を歌舞伎役者の隈取に見立てたもので、「ミ」は魚介を表す接尾語とされる。また「隈」は隠れ場所を意味し、イソギンチャクの触手の間に隠れる行動に由来するという説もある。
The Shell Collectorが集めている貝の毒でマラリア患者を病から救ったことが世界中にニュースで知らされ、長年離れて暮らしていた息子から手紙がきました。
I've joined the Peace Corps! I'll be working in Uganda for three years! And guess what else? I'm coming to stay with you first! I've read about the miracles you've been working--it's news even here. You got blurbed in The Humanitarian! I'm so proud! See you soon!
"blurbed" とは何でしょう？ The Humanitarianは雑誌か何かのようなので褒められた記事でもあったのでしょうか。辞書で "blurb" の意味を調べます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: Write or contribute a blurb for (a book, movie, or other product).
NOUN: A short description of a book, movie, or other product written for promotional purposes and appearing on the cover of a book or in an advertisement.: He glowingly blurbed the book as 'splendid and wholly convincing'.
・Vocabulary.com: A blurb is a short piece of writing that describes or summarizes something longer and more complicated. You might browse in the library, reading blurbs on the backs of books to help you choose what to check out. One type of blurb is written to sell or promote something. A movie's official website might include a blurb describing its plot as well as a short trailer and a cast list, and well-known authors often contribute blurbs full of praise to help other writers market their own books. Any brief written summary can also be called a blurb: in fact, right now you're reading a blurb about the word blurb.
書評あるいは書評を書くことも "blurb" と言えるのですね。
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