firebreak

Reader's Digestの定番記事Smart Animalsの２月号から引用します。
My daughter Jenny owned a beautiful German shepherd called Elke. As my wife Sue and I have a holiday house on two hectares of land, we often took Elke along for short breaks so she could exercise in the extra space and enjoy the change of environment. She also liked to be with us and particularly liked to walk us around the firebreaks each day.
"firebreaks" が分からないので辞書を見ます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: An obstacle to the spread of fire, such as a strip of open space in a forest: we passed into a conifer forest and followed firebreaks downhill: a fire-resistant door designed to be a firebreak
・Collins Dictionary: Also: fireguard, fire line. a strip of open land in a forest or on a prairie, to arrest the advance of a fire
・Wiktionary: An area cleared of all flammable material to prevent a fire from spreading across it. The firefighters used a bulldozer to clear a firebreak in the forest to try to contain the forest fire.
なるほど、分かってしまえば覚え易い単語ですね。日本では森林火事は余り発生しないので、引用文の "firebreaks" に対応する言葉は多分防火帯だと思いますが、滅多に見聞きしません。

dye pack

父親が息子と娘を巻き込んで銀行強盗をしたと言う、Reader's Digest ２月号の記事、The Family That Robbed Banksに興味深い表現がありました。
He strode in wearing a baseball cap, black tracksuit pants, a white painter's mask, and sunglasses. He was carrying a trash bag and an antique pistol - unloaded. He went up to a window, demanded the teller's money, and ordered her not to add bait bills or dye packs.
目に留まったのは "dye packs" です。この語の直前に "bait bills" とあるので、一種の贋金あるいは本物だが記号・番号でトレース可能なお金ではないかなと推測します。辞書で確かめます。
この言葉を載せている辞書は見つかりませんでしたが、Wikipediaに説明がありました。全文の引用は長くなるので冒頭の部分のみ引用します。
A dye pack is a radio-controlled incendiary device used by some banks to preemptively foil a bank robbery by causing stolen cash to be permanently marked with dye shortly after a robbery.
In most cases, a dye pack is placed in a hollowed-out space within a stack of banknotes, usually $10 or $20 bills. This stack of bills looks and feels similar to a real one, with technology allowing for the manufacturing of flexible dye packs which are difficult to detect by handling the stack.
この "dye packs" を含んだ札束を持って強盗が銀行を出ると、ドアに仕掛けられた装置から無線で "dye packs" にスイッチが入り、"dye packs" は破裂して、赤色のペイント and/or 催涙ガスが飛び散る仕組みになっているそうです。日本ではこんな手の込んだ代物は聞いた事がありません。詳しくはWikipediaで続きを読んで下さい。

boffin

Reader's Digest ２月号の記事Sir World Wide WebはWWWを創り出したSir Tim Berners-Leeについての記事で、その冒頭を引用します。
OVER LONG YEARS, it took innumerable people to develop the internet, which for decades was used only by professional boffins and highly skilled geeks - not you and I. But the world wide web (WWW), created for the internet in 1989-90 by one man, Tim Berners-Lee, changed everything.
"geek" はオタク、特にコンピュータ関係のオタクの意味で使われるのは知っていますが、"boffin" は初めて見る単語です。ここでは恐らく技術者とか専門家を示している様です。辞書で確認します。
・Oxford English Dictionary: informal , chiefly British: A person engaged in scientific or technical research: a computer boffin
・Cambridge English Dictionary: In groundbreaking research Leeds University boffins discovered that men relax in pubs. a scientist who is considered to know a lot about science and not to be interested in other things: a technical/computer boffin.
主にイギリスで使われる英語ですね。それで今まで見た事がなかったのでしょう。
Wikipediaに "geeks" との関係の説明がありました。
A boffin is British slang for a scientist, engineer, or other person engaged in technical or scientific work. The original World War II conception of war-winning researchers means that the term tends to have more positive connotations than related terms like egghead, nerd, or geek.

trace mineral

Reader's Digestには必ず健康や食べ物に関する記事があり、2月号にはEveryday Superfruitsについて書かれていました。その中の次の項目に私が知っている意味では通じない単語がありました。
Blueberries: One cup (150g) of blueberries supplies 24% of your daily vitamin C needs and about 14% of your fibre needs. It also contains vitamin K and the trace mineral, manganese - all for only 250kJ.
"trace mineral" の "trace" がその単語ですが、後に "manganese" があるのがヒントです。マンガンは稀少金属ではなかったと思うが、いずれにしてもブルベリーにはほんの僅か入っているだけですよね。辞書を見た方が早い。
・Collins Dictionary: any of various chemical elements, such as iron, manganese, zinc, copper, and iodine, that occur in very small amounts in organisms and are essential for many physiological and biochemical processes
・Oxford English Dictionary: A trace element required for nutrition: selenium and other trace minerals are vital to good health: Nutritionally, mushrooms are rich in potassium and selenium, a trace mineral known for its antioxidant properties and tested recently for its ability to combat prostate cancer and cardiovascular disease.
なるほど、それなら "trace" に微量、わずかなの意味があるはずなので、"trace" の項目も見ます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: A very small quantity, especially one too small to be accurately measured: his body contained traces of amphetamines: [as modifier]: trace quantities of PCBs
・Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary: a very small amount of a substance, especially when it is too small to see clearly or measure accurately: trace of: Traces of blood were found in the bathroom.

sign

Teacher: Why are you late, Joseph?
Joseph: Because of a sign down the road.
Teacher: What does a sign have to do with your being late?
Joseph: The sign said, "SCHOOL AHEAD. GO SLOW!"

DNR

やっとThe Art of ChoosingのEpilogueになりました。この後にまだ１７ページものAfterwordとAcknowledgementsがありますが、The Art of Choosingからの引用はこれが最後です。 When she died at her home in Sussex on June 17, 2009, it was a shock to her family and friends. During the weeks that followed, and as details about her death emerged, it became clear that had arranged a neat exit. She was discovered, for instance, with a DNR card in her pocket; had previously left instructions with her physician that she was not to be resuscitated under any circumstances; and had even written a letter, found beside her body, explaining that she had planned and committed the suicide entirely on her own.
"DNR card" で臓器提供カードを連想しましたが、その後の説明から蘇生させるなとの意思を示すカードと分かります。一般用語になっている様なので辞書で確認します。
・Oxford English Dictionary: Do not resuscitate.
・Wiktionary: (medicine, initialism) Do not resuscitate. The hospital ignored the DNR order because it wasn't entered on the charts.
いずれの辞書も "Do not resuscitate." を略語の第一義の意味として掲載しているので、DNAと同様に "DNR" は専門用語から既に一般用語になっているようです。

staggering

The Art of ChoosingのAnd Then There Were Noneの章からの引用です。
There are now 4.5 million people living with Alzheimer's disease in the United States, and this number is expected to increase to a staggering 11 to 16 millon by 2050.
"stagger" に「よろめく」とか「ふらつく」の意味（あるいは名詞としても使われる）があるのは知っていますが、上の "stagger" は文脈からして「驚く程の」意味の様です。足がふらつく程驚いたと言うことでしょうか？ "stagger" を辞書で確かめます。
・Collins Dictionary: astounding or overwhelming; shocking ⇒ a staggering increase in demand
・Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary: very large, shocking, or surprising: so great as to cause one to stagger: astonishing, overwhelming: a staggering feat: staggering medical bills
・Vocabulary.com: A staggering amount is an astonishing, astounding, stupefying amount. Anything staggering blows your mind.
If you know that stagger means to stumble around uncertainly, then you're close to the meaning of staggering: this is a word for things that are so hard to believe you might fall down when you hear them. If the President gets shot, that's staggering news. If there's a major earthquake, that's staggering. Alien life contacting the Earth would be extremely staggering. Anything that knocks your socks off or makes your mind reel is staggering.
確かに大地震が来たら足もふらついて驚きますね。慣用句の "knocks your socks off" に驚かすの意味があることは知っていましたが、こちらの表現の方がむしろ不自然ですね。
ところで最後に引用したVocabulary.comの説明に出てきた "reel" はやっと覚えることができました。（11/24/2009）

code blue

昨日は毎年恒例になっている早朝の出勤前の千鳥ヶ淵への花見に行って来ました。千鳥ヶ淵の桜はいつ見ても風情があって気持ちがよい。それで昨日はブログを休みましたが、今日から再開します。
The Art of ChoosingのAnd Then There Were Noneの章からの引用です。
When Susan opened her eyes in the recovery room, she saw her husband but not her daughter. She remembered hearing the words "code blue," but was still in a haze and did not know what had happened.
"code blue" はハイフンで囲まれていることから専門用語、この場合恐らく病院での用語だと思われます。普通の辞書に出ているか調べます。
・American Heritage Dictionary: A medical emergency in which a team of medical personnel work to revive an individual in cardiac arrest.
・Dictionary.com: (often initial capital letters) a medical emergency in which paramedics are dispatched to aid a person undergoing cardiac arrest.: Each resident has the opportunity to participate as a member of the code blue response team.
Wikipediaからの抜粋
"Code Blue" is generally used to indicate a patient requiring resuscitation or in need of immediate medical attention, most often as the result of a respiratory arrest or cardiac arrest. When called overhead, the page takes the form of "Code Blue, (floor), (room)" to alert the resuscitation team where to respond.
なるほど、私は "code blue" でWindowsの致命的なトラブルで発生するBlue Screenを連想します。
今夜は会社の花見で上野に行きます。雨が降りそうですが、花はちょっと見るだけで、直ぐに店で飲食する行事なので問題ありません。