A friend of mine works at a tattoo parlor. A client walked in and got a sentence tatooed on his back. A few hours later the customer called, demanding a refund. "You did my tatoo backwards," he screamed down the phone.
"It's backwards?" my friend said, confused.
"Yes!" came the angry reply. "I'm looking at it in the mirror right now!"
(from Reader's Digest May Issue)
どこの国の人が分かりませんが、刺青が目立つ外国人を良く見かけるようになりました。ヤクザ対策のために温泉では刺青お断りと書かれているところが多いのでどうなるのかなと思っていましたが、最近このことが問題になっているとニュースで取り上げていました。
Trouble is My Businessを読んでいます。
I leaned against the closet door. It didn't move. I threw more weight against it. It still didn't move. braced against it I pushed the bed away with my foot, gave ground slowly.
A weight pushed against me hard. I had gone back a foot or so before anything else happened. Then it happened suddenly. He came out-sideways, in a sort of roll. I put some more weight back on the door and held him like that a moment, looking at him.
He was still big, still blond, still dressed in rough sporty material, with scarf and open-necked shirt. but his face wasn't red any more.
I gave ground again and he rolled down the back of the door, turning a little like a swimmer in the surf, thumped the floor and lay there, almost on his back, still looking at me.
"gave ground" の意味がピンとこないので辞書で "give ground" を見ます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: Retreat or lose one’s advantage during a conflict or competition: he refused to give ground on this issue
・Collins Dictionary: to draw back or retreat: But as more and more men crossed the drawbridge, the castle defenders were forced to give ground.
意味は分かりましたが、何故この意味が出てくるのだろうと不思議に思いましたが、次の辞書に説明がありました。
・The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms: Yield to a stronger force, retreat, as in He began to give ground on that point, although he didn't stop arguing entirely. This expression originated in the 1500s, when it alluded to a military force retreating and so giving up territory to the enemy. By the mid-1600s it was being used figuratively.
なるほど、陣地を渡す（取られる）ことなのですね。
Trouble is My Businessは６５年前の作品なのでタバコを喫う場面が頻繁に出て来ます。今日取り上げるのは喫煙に関係する単語です。
"I don't figure it that way. Because that way I would lose my dough. The old man won't pay-granted. But I wait a couple of years and I collect from the kid. He gets his estate out of trust when he's twenty-eight. Right now he gets a grand a month and he can't even will anything, because it's still in trust. Savvy?" "So you wouldn't knock him off," I said, using my Scotch. "But you might throw a scare into him." Estel frowned. He discarded his cigarette into a tray and watched it smoke a moment before he picked it up again and snubbed it out.
最後に出てきた "snubbed it out" は一旦灰皿に捨てたタバコを又取り上げて火を消し潰したの意味だと容易に推測できますが、"snub" の意味をはっきりと覚えてはいないので辞書で確認します。
・Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary: to extinguish by stubbing: snub out a cigarette
・YourDictionary: To snub is to put something out.: An example of to snub is to put out a cigarette by crushing it against a hard surface.
私は喫煙をしないので余り "snub out" することはないでしょうが、煙いのは嫌いなので他人が喫って火のついたまま灰皿に残って煙を出しているタバコを "snub out" することはこれからもあるでしょう。
"I don't figure it that way. Because that way I would lose my dough. The old man won't pay-granted. But I wait a couple of years and I collect from the kid. He gets his estate out of trust when he's twenty-eight. Right now he gets a grand a month and he can't even will anything, because it's still in trust. Savvy?" "So you wouldn't knock him off," I said, using my Scotch. "But you might throw a scare into him." Estel frowned. He discarded his cigarette into a tray and watched it smoke a moment before he picked it up again and snubbed it out.
最後に出てきた "snubbed it out" は一旦灰皿に捨てたタバコを又取り上げて火を消し潰したの意味だと容易に推測できますが、"snub" の意味をはっきりと覚えてはいないので辞書で確認します。
・Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary: to extinguish by stubbing: snub out a cigarette
・YourDictionary: To snub is to put something out.: An example of to snub is to put out a cigarette by crushing it against a hard surface.
私は喫煙をしないので余り "snub out" することはないでしょうが、煙いのは嫌いなので他人が喫って火のついたまま灰皿に残って煙を出しているタバコを "snub out" することはこれからもあるでしょう。
昨日とりあげた場面で探偵のMarloweが刑事に次の台詞を吐きました。
"Aw, keep that crap for the boiler room," I told him.
この "boiler room" が気になりました。何故 "boiler room" なのでしょうか？ 調べると "boiler room" には興味深い次の意味の部屋であることが分かりました。
・Oxford English Dictionary: A room used for intensive telephone selling: boiler-room stock salesmen: He is by far the best salesman in his boiler room.
・Word Spy: A room set up as a telemarketing operation, but used to run scams, such as selling fake jewelry or stocks.
"boiler room" の由来がThe Word Detectiveに書かれていましたが、以下はその抜粋です。
As a slang term for such shady enterprises, "boiler room" dates back to the stock swindles of the 1930's, and originally may have referred to the actual basement boiler rooms that are said to have housed banks of early telephone scam artists. The name also might have come from the high pressure atmosphere of such businesses, or from the raucous racket, as loud as a boiler room, of a hundred voices selling schlock.
確かに、おれおれ詐欺を始め、多くの詐欺は電話を使うのが常套手段で、詐欺集団の "boiler room" がＴＶのニュースで映し出されることがありますね。
TROUBLE IS MY BUSINESSを読んでいます。今日取り上げるのは単語ではなく慣用句です。
"Name's Philip Marlowe, eh? A private dick."
"So what?" I said.
"Somebody's goin' to get somebody's face pushed into somebody's floor," Beef said coldly.
"Aw, keep that crap for the boiler room," I told him. "I'm sick of hard guys for this evening. I said 'so what,' and 'so what' is what I said."
Marty Estel looked mildly amused. "Hell, keep your shirt in. I've got to look after my friends, don't I? You know who I am. O.K., I know what you talked to Miss Huntress about. And I know something about you that you don't know I know."
"keep your shirt in" ですが、文脈からしてEstelがMarloweの口調を戒めていると思えますがどうでしょう？ 辞書で確認します。
・Dictionary.com: keep one's shirt on, Informal. to refrain from becoming angry or impatient; remain calm: Tell him to keep his shirt on until we're ready.
・McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs: keep one's shirt on and keep one's pants on: Fig. to be patient. Wait a minute! Keep your shirt on! Keep your pants on! I'll be with you in a minute.
辞書では "keep your shirt in" ではなく "keep your shirt on" となっていますが、同じであると思います。チャンドラーの時代は少し古いのでその違いかな？ "keep your shirt on" の方が意味は分かり易いですね。"keep one's pants on" で数年前にある芸能人が公園でパンツを脱いで騒いだニュースを思い出しました。
Estelの台詞の前にMarloweが言った台詞にある "boiler room" は最初は見過ごしていましたが、何故 "boiler room" が出てきたのか調べたら、これは面白い意味を持っていることが分かりました。"boiler room" については明日取り上げます。
探偵物やサスペンスなどは今まで余り読んでいなかったのでTROUBLE IS MY BUSINESSを読んでいると見慣れない単語が山ほど出てきます。読んでいる時は分からない単語があっても辞書を引かずに飛ばして読みますが、調べたい単語はメモをして、後で辞書で調べています。今日取り上げる次の単語は事件物でなければ余り出てこない単語のようです。
Finlayson studied me. Nothing I had said made an impression on him. Nothing Sebold said made any impression on him. He had an idea and he was holding it like a sick baby.
"You know a little rat named Frisky Lavon?" he sighed. "Used to be a dummy-chucker, then found out he could bug his way outa raps. Been doing that for say twelve years. Totes a gun and acts simple. But he quit acting tonight at seventhirty about. Quit cold-with a slug in his head."
"dummy-chucker" とは何をする人のことでしょうか？ 辞書を見ます。
・Urban Dictionary: Any person who fakes injury or illness in order to gain sympathy, charity or compensation.
Dummy-chucking is a fraud in which a mannequin (or dummy) is placed on a roadway on a dark night. If a vehicle runs over the dummy then the confidence man runs onto the road, throws (chucks) the dummy out of sight and then lays down in its place and pretends to have painful injuries. If the driver stops to see what happened then the dummy-chucker begs for monetary compensation.
当たり屋ですね。
A cheetah is bragging one day about being the fastest animal in the jungle, when a snail overheards him and challenges him to a race. "Whoever loses has to leave the jungle forever," says the snail, "but I get to pick where we race to." The cheetah grins and quickly agrees. "OK, snail," he sneers. "Where do you want to race to?" "Home," says the snail.
Raymond ChandlerのPLAYBACKは想像力の乏しい私でもあたかも映画のワンシーンを見ている気がする描写が多く、とても気に入っています。Chapter 12の次の個所もとても興味深い男女の会話なので是非紹介したい。
"Would you care to go to Romanoff's for dinner?"
"And then what?"
"Where do you live?"
"West Los Angeles. A house on a quiet old street. It happens to belong to me. I asked you, and then what, remember?"
"That would be up to you, naturally."
"I thought you were a tough guy. You mean I don't have to pay for my dinner?"
"I ought to slap your face for that crack."
She laughed suddenly and stared at me over the edge of her glass.
"Consider it slapped. We had each other a bit wrong. Romanoff's could wait a while, couldn't it?"
"We could try West Los Angeles first."
"Why not here?"
"I guess this will make you walk out on me. I had a dream here once, a year and a half ago. There's still a shred of it left. I'd like it to stay in charge."
She stood up quickly and grabbed her coat. I managed to help her on with it.
Raymond ChandlerのTROUBLE IS MY BUSINESSを読んでいます。
Finlayson picked the ejected shell off the carpet, pressed it into the magazine and snapped the magazine back in place. He handed me the gun. I put it back under my arm.
"Been out anywhere tonight?" he asked tersely.
"Don't tell me the plot," I said. "I'm just a bit-player."
"Smart guy," Sebold said dispassionately. He dusted his hair again and opened a desk drawer. "Funny stuff. Good for a column. I like 'em that way-with my blackjack."
Finlayson sighed. "Been out tonight, shamus?"
"shamus" は何度もでてくるので覚えてしまいました。今日は "bit-player" を覚えたい。
・Collins Dictionary: a person or thing with a very small part in something: Lloyds TSB are not more than a bit player in the US retail market.
・Random House Unabridged Dictionary: an actor having a very small speaking part in a play, motion picture, etc.
なるほど、小者、下っ端、端役のことですね。これなら一度で覚えられます。
ChandlerのTrouble is My Businessを読んでいます。
We sat with some of Miss Harriet Huntress' Scotch in our glasses and looked at each other across the rims. George looked nice with his cap off. His head was clustered over with wavy dark-brown hair and his teeth were very white and clean. He sipped his drink and nibbled a cigarette at the same time. His snappy black eyes had a cool glitter in them.
"Yale?" I asked.
"Dartmouth, if it's any of your business."
"Everything's my business. What's a college education worth these days?"
"Three squares and a uniform," he drawled.
最後の台詞にある "Three squares" が分かりません。辞書で "squares" を見ます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: A square meal: three squares a day: Mine was a lousy job. There must be a better way of making three squares a day.
・Wiktionary: (colloquial, US) A square meal. Even when times were tough, we got three squares a day.
なるほど、寄宿舎の三度の食事ですか。でも何故 "square" が食事の意味になるのかは分かりませんでした。
追記
Online Etymology Dictionaryを見ると名詞としての "square" に "As short for square meal, from 1882." とあったので "square meal" で辞書を引き直すとOxford Dictionaryに次の意味と語源の記述がありました。
A substantial, satisfying, and balanced meal
Origin: Said to derive from nautical use, with reference to the square platters on which meals were served on board ship.
これで一件落着
トータル
