図書館から借りる本の切れ目に読む "THE POWER OF HABIT" by Charles Duhiggを読んでいます。久し振りに読むので、これまでどんな内容だったかも忘れていますが、ここでは第二次世界大戦の頃に普通の食用肉が不足したので米国民に内臓などを食べてもらうよう政府が苦労した事が書かれています。
To convince Americans to eat livers and kidneys, housewives had to know how to make the foods look, taste, and smell as similar possible to what their families expected to see on the dinner table, the scientists concluded. For instance, when the Subsistence Division of the Quatermaster Corps--the people in charge of feeding soldiers--started serving fresh cabbage to troops in 1943, it was rejected. So mess halls chopped and boiled the cabbage until it looked like every other vegetable on a soldier's tray--and the troops ate it without complaint.
知らない表現 "mess halls" を辞書で調べます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: A room or building where groups of people, especially soldiers, eat together.: Reese said an Army colonel named Jordan sent a soldier to the mess hall for ice to preserve the body overnight.
・Collins Dictionary: a military dining room, usually large: There was hardly a pause in conversation, barely a momentary silence, when Bauman walked into the mess hall late.
"If I were to die first, would you remarry?" the wife asks.
"Well," says the husband, "I'm in good health, so why not?"
"Would she live in my house?"
"It's all paid up, so yes."
"Would she drive my car?"
"It's new, so yes.
" "Would she use my golf clubs?"
"No. She's left-handed."
The Running Manの逃亡者Richardsを乗せたジェットは逃亡ゲームのエグゼクティブプロデューサーのいるビルに突っ込みます。
ハイジャックされたジェット機がニューヨークの世界貿易センターに突っ込んだ2001年の世界同時多発テロ事件を思い出させます。更に思い出すと、1983-1984年に私は隣のニュージャージー州からこの世界貿易センターに実際通勤していたのです。運が悪ければ私も既にあの世にいます。恐ろしい話です。
さてThe Running Manから取り上げる最後の単語です。
The sound of its engines drove people into doorways, their faces craning upwards like pale flames. Glass show-windows jingled and fell inward. Gutter litter was sucked down bowling-alley streets in dervishes. A cop dropped his move-along and wrapped his hands around his head and screamed and could not hear himself.
"in dervishes" でちょっと引っ掛りましたが、"dervish" は以前（11/13/2010） "whirling dervish" で取り上げた単語で、ここではクルクル回ることだと思いだしました。
ダルビッシュ投手を思い出した方、あながち無関係ではありません。
"whirling dervish" は旋舞教団の事で、その僧をも意味し、人名としてはDarvishのスペルが多く使われています。７年程前のトルコ旅行で旋舞教団のクルクル回る儀式を見た事があります。ダルビッシュ投手の父親はイラン出身と聞いていますので、ダルビッシュのスペルはDarvishでしょう。
Newark was sprawled and groined below them like a handful of dirty jewelry thrown carelessly into some lady's black-velvet vanity box.
"Captain?" Wearily: "Yes."
"You will now proceed due west."
McCone jumped as if he had been goosed. Amelia made a surprised coughing noise in her throat.
"West?" Holloway asked. He sounded unhappy and frightened for the first time.
ガチョウの "goose" は知っていますが、動詞の "goose" は知らないので "as if he had been goosed" が分かりません。辞書を見ます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: Poke (someone) between the buttocks.: Michael Nunn and Billy Trevitt started goosing me in a sensitive spot and I couldn't stop laughing.
・Vocabulary.com: pinch in the buttocks:“he goosed the unsuspecting girl”
・Wiktionary: (slang) To sharply poke or pinch someone's buttocks. Derived from a goose's inclination to bite at a retreating intruder's hindquarters.
なるほど、そう言えばガチョウが追いかけごっこをしているのを見た覚えが（多分映像で）あります。
The Running Manを読んでいます。逃亡用に用意させたジェットにRichardsは追跡者のリーダーであるMcConeと共にカージャックした時の人質女性も再び人質に連れ出そうと試みています。
"You listen," Richards said, punching through McCone's voice. "And while you are, remember that this conversation is being party-lined by every ham operator within sixty miles. The word is going to get around. You're not working in the dark, little man. You're right out on the big stage. You're coming because you're too chicken-shit to pull a double cross when you know it will get you dead. The woman's coming because I told her where I was going."
"double cross" は見覚えのある表現ですが、直ぐに思い出せないので辞書を引きました。
・Oxford English Dictionary: A betrayal of someone with whom one is supposedly cooperating.: Added to this are all the expected red herrings, betrayals, and double-crosses.
ほとんどの辞書はハイフンで二語をつないだ "double-cross" を動詞として掲載しています。
・Cambridge English Dictionary: to deceive someone by working only for your own advantage in the (usually illegal) activities you have planned together: The diamond thief double-crossed his partners and gave them only worthless fake jewels.
The Running Manから今日取り上げるのはやはり単語ではなく慣用句です。
"..I'm Flight Captain Don Holloway. This is my co-pilot Wayne Duninger."
"Under the circumstances, not very pleased to meet you." Duninger said.
Richards's mouth quirked. "In the same spirit, let me add that I'm sorry to be here. Captain Hollowy, you're patched into communications with McCone, aren't you?"
"We sure are. Through Kippy Friedman, our communications man."
"Give me something to talk into."
Holloway handed him a microphone with infinite carefulness.
Get going on your prefilight," Richards said. "Five minutes."
"Will you want the explosive bolts on the rear loading door armed?" Duninger said with great eagerness.
"Tend your knitting," Richards said coldly.
最後に出てきた台詞 "Tend your knitting" も慣用句としての意味を知らなかったので、唐突に何の話かと思いました。辞書を見ると次の意味であることが分かりました。
・Oxford English Dictionary: (Of a person or an organization) concentrate on a familiar area of activity rather than diversify; mind one’s own business.
・Dictionary.com: stick/tend to one's knitting,
a.to mind one's own business: Don't worry about my work?just tend to your knitting.
b.to devote oneself to one's assignments or responsibilities: Years of sticking to his knitting finally paid off.
Richardsは "Tend your knitting" と言っていますが、 "Tend to your knitting" の方が正しい英語でしょう。
The Running Manから今日取り上げるのは単語ではなく、慣用句とも言えないような表現です。
“Ben Richards?” He used no bullhorn, and without it his voice was soft and cultured without being effeminate in the slightest.
"Yes.”
"I have a sworn bill from the Games Federation, an accredited arm of the Network Communications Commission, for your apprehension and execution. Will you honor it?”
"Does a hen need a flag?”
何でこんな所で鶏のことが出てくるのか不思議です。 "hen need a flag" を含む慣用句を探しましたがありそうもありません。結局Google検索で次の記事を見つけました。
When people want something they don’t need, you sometimes hear them say they need it like a hen needs a flag. Hens aren’t particularly in need of flags and obviously the useless of the need is why the expression exists. However, tracing back the history on this idiom proved almost impossible.
なるほど反語的な表現ですね。Googleで更に調べると、この表現 "You need that like a hen needs a flag." を多用しているのはStephen Kingがほとんどで、今読んでる "The Running Man" の他に、少なくとも次の作品でも使っていました。
Stalking The Nightmare
The Mist
Haunted Heart
Skeleton Crew
If you have a headache, do what it says on the aspirin bottle: "Take two aspirin" and "KEEP AWAY FROM CHILDREN".
Stephen KingのThe Running Manに懐かしい食品が出て来ました。
There was a small silver flag-pin in his lapel. All in all, he did not look like a monster at all, the inheritor of such fearsome alphabet-soup bureaus as the F.B.I. and the C.I.A.
昔米国に駐在していた頃 "alphabet-soup" は子供が喜んで食べていました。ここではスープではなく、F.B.I.やC.I.A.などの頭文字の略語を示している様です。辞書の説明を見ます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: Incomprehensible or confusing language, typically containing many abbreviations or symbols.: An alphabet soup of optical technologies is available, including CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-ROM, DVD-R, DVD-RAM and DVD-RW, with even more on the way.
・The Dictionary of American Slang: An array of initialisms or acronyms : Their business-speak is alphabet soup.
・McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs: initialisms and acronyms, especially when used excessively. The names of these government agencies are just alphabet soup. Just look at the telephone book! You can't find anything because it's filled with alphabet soup.
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