Wexford Curse

A Stranger is Watchingを読み終えました。女性作家Mary Higgins Clarkの作品ですが、Stephen Kingの作品より断然面白く、スラングも少ないので読み易いと思いました。他の作品も読みたいと思いましたが、残念ながら利用している図書館にはこの作品しかありませんでした。
A Stranger is Watchingから最後に取り上げる表現は "Wexford curse" で次の様にでてきました。
'Luck?' Steve said the word with wonderment as though he were hearing it for the first time. 'I haven't been thinking of luck so much as I have of an old Wexford curse. Do you know it by chance?'
'I don't think so.'
作品の登場人物も知らなかったので、覚える必要は全くありませんが、気になったので調べると次の詩（？）であることが分かりました。
May the grass grow at your door and the fox build his nest on your hearthstone.
May the light fade from your eyes, so you never see what you love.
May your own blood rise against you,
and the sweetest drink you take be the bitterest cup of sorrow.
May you die without benefit of clergy;
May there be none to shed a tear at your grave,
and may the hearthstone of hell be your best bed forever.

limbic system

Reader's Digest ８月号の記事Is It Just Me?からの抜粋です。
Smells that everyone else seems to find awful, I love!
Wet paint! Petrol! Even (can I admit it here?) the smell of dirty socks - they sometimes smell like roasted nuts. Am I wired wrong?
...
The olfactory nerves go directly from the nose to the limbic systems, which is the part of the brain that stores memories and processes emotions. So if you fondly remember your mother taking care of you when you were sick, Vicks VapoRub may seem like heaven to you, as well dirty socks if you and your brother used to play in the woods and come home happy but stinky.
覚えたい表現は "limbic system" です。意味は上の文章だけで十分に分かりますが、覚えるために辞書の説明も読みます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: A complex system of nerves and networks in the brain, involving several areas near the edge of the cortex concerned with instinct and mood. It controls the basic emotions (fear, pleasure, anger) and drives (hunger, sex, dominance, care of offspring).
・Dictionary.com: a ring of interconnected structures in the midline of the brain around the hypothalamus, involved with emotion and memory and with homeostatic regulatory systems.: In his scheme, the limbic system evolved alongside the developing social complexity of the mammals.

decongestant

Reader's Digest ８月号の記事 Health: What Works, What Doesn'tからの引用です。
Can You Overuse Eye Drops
Yes. Eye drops that promise to erase redness contain a decongestant that narrows blood-filled capillaries. "decongestant" は初めて見る単語ですが、ここでは文脈から容易に眼の充血を取り除く成分、あるいは薬であることが分かります。辞書で確認します。
・Collins Dictionary: relieving congestion, esp nasal congestion: I took an antihistamine and a decongestant this evening," he said promptly.
・Oxford English Dictionary: (Chiefly of a medicine) used to relieve nasal congestion.: For people with significant nasal congestion, a decongestant therapy may be prescribed.
これは鼻詰まりの薬ですね。医学関係の辞書を見ても同じ様なことしか書かれていませんでした。
・MedicineNet.com: Decongestant: A drug that shrinks the swollen membranes in the nose, making it easier for a person to breathe. Decongestants can be taken orally or as nasal spray.
Decongestant nasal spray should not be used for more than 5 days without a physician's recommendation. Many decongestant nasal sprays cause a worsening of symptoms (a rebound effect) when they are taken for too long and then discontinued. Decongestants should not be used by people who have high blood pressure unless they are under a physician's supervision.

gumption

The Japan Times Online Sept.27 の記事からの引用です。
‘Sea of Opportunity’ charts the history of immigrant Japanese fishermen in Hawaii
The common image of Japanese immigrants toiling in the sugarcane fields of Hawaii and -- through years of sheer gumption -- rising in the social of the island is well established.
"gumption" 意味は何でしょうか？　苦労または努力と推測できますが、苦労と努力では意味が違います。辞書で確認します。
・Oxford English Dictionary: Shrewd or spirited initiative and resourcefulness: she had the gumption to put her foot down and head Dan off from those crazy schemes
・Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary: courage and confidence: It took a lot of gumption to speak up for yourself like that.
・Vocabulary.com: If you have gumption, you have guts. People with gumption are determined and full of courage — and common sense, too.
If you easily give up, and don't have a lot of confidence or smarts, then you are lacking in gumption. It takes gumption to get things done — especially difficult things. Someone who takes risks without being afraid has gumption. Having gumption is like having "chutzpah." We all could probably use more gumption. Like common sense, it isn't that common.
私の推測はハズレでした。根性とかやる気、積極性、進取の気性などの意味でした。

giving

誘拐されて手足を縛られているSharonはなんとか手を自由にしようともがいています。
She worked on, her face clammy with perspiration, he hands sticky with blood, not feeling pain any more. She felt Neil's eyes watching her. Pray, Neil.
At ten after eleven, she felt the cord weakning, giving. Summing up a last reserve of energy, Sharon pulled her hands apart. They were free; the cords were dangling from them.
この "giving" は以前（ブログの引っ越しで記録はなくなりました）取り上げた意味ですね。
・Collins Dictionary: a tendency to yield under pressure; resilience ⇒ there's bound to be some give in a long plank, ⇒ there is no give in his moral views
・Wiktionary: The act of softening, breaking, or yielding.

presentiment

A Stranger is Watchingの真犯人は殺人現場の目撃者で被害者の息子のNeilと被害者の夫の恋人を誘拐しました。そして身代金を獲得するために工作しています。
Foxy moved slowly across the waiting aea of gate 9 towards the enclosed ramp that led to the plane. A presentiment of danger as definite as a tripped alarm was jangling nerves through his entire system.
"presentiment" の意味を調べます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: An intuitive feeling about the future, especially one of foreboding: a presentiment of disaster
・Vocabulary.com: Do you ever have the feeling that something bad is about to happen? That’s called a presentiment.
The word presentiment comes from the Latin word prasentire, meaning “to sense beforehand.”
Some people call it a "gut feeling." For example, if you leave for a trip and something doesn't feel right, you may chalk it up to just being nervous. But later, when your flight is cancelled and you lose your luggage, you may remember that little twinge -- the presentiment that something bad was about to happen.

A frantic man

 A frantic man calls his doctor: "My wife is pregnant, and her contractions are only two minutes apart!"
"Is this her first child?" the doctor asks.
"No!" the man shouts. "This is her husband!!"

MR MALAPROP

Is It Just Me?
I'M MR MALAPROP. I'm not an idiot, and I'm not shy. But no matter what, words tumble out of my mouth differently than how I thought of them Why?

in a pig's eye

今日取り上げるA Stranger is Watchingに出てきた慣用句も何か見覚えがあります。
'Maybe. When Arty left with the others ... and they said something about not having the chance to see Bill before he left for Rhode Island ...'
'Yeah. And in a pig's eye Arty's heading for Rhode Island ...'
'That's what I mean. He said something else ... and that advertising guy Allan Kroeger made a crack on top of it ... a crack about ... about the painted desert. That's it!'
この "in a pig's eye" は昔豚インフルエンザは流行した時に取り上げたジョークに出てきた表現と語呂が似ているのです。
Someone once said that when a black man becomes president of the United States, pigs will fly. Sure enough, 100 days later, swine flu.
一応辞書で "in a pig's eye" の意味を確認します。
・Oxford English Dictionary: Expressing scornful disbelief at a statement.: In a pig's eye is rhyming slang for lie, and usually means Nonsense!
・The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms: Under no condition, not at all, as in In a pig's eye he'll pay me back, or You think he's competent? In a pig's eye! This expression, a euphemism for in a pig's ass, is generally used as a strong negative.
なるほど。しかし、あり得ない "pigs will fly" の方が韻を踏んでいるので "in a pig's eye" から連想し易いですね。

R and R

A Stranger is Watchingを読んでいます。
They'd been married right after graduation. Then he'd gone into service, been commissioned and sent to Viet Nam. They didn't see each other for two years. Finally he'd got an R and R and she'd met him in Hawai. She'd been so beautiful, running down the steps of the plane, tumbling into his arms.
"R and R" は何の略でしょうか？
・Wiktionary: Rest and recreation, or rest and relaxation; especially as a respite from military combat
・Dave's ESL Cafe: R and R: rest and relaxation (a vacation).: "I think you're working too hard, Dave. You need some R and R."