Here's to to parents
When her child's towel was stolen during a school swimming trip, an irate parent demanded of my mother, "What kind of juvenile delinquents are in class with my child?!"
"I'm sure it was taken accidentally," my mother said.
"What does it look like?"
"It's white." said the parent.
"And it says Holiday Inn on it."
Reader's Digest １1月号のSTAFF PICK記事に今年の９月に行った英国のBath市が出て来ました。
I was in Bath, UK, for the chrismas lights ceremony a few years ago and stopped in at the Highgrove shop.
I noticed an unusual fuss at the till; it was Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, chatting merrily with shoppers as her ignored security team glowered behind her. That relaxed charisma comes shining through in "Camilla".
・Cambridge English Dictionary: to look very angry, annoyed, or threatening: There's no point glowering at me like that - you know the rules.
・Vocabulary.com: If you see someone glower at you, you might consider glowering back, but no one likes an angry staring contest. To glower is not only to stare, it's to stare angrily, as if you're going to throttle someone.
You might already have guessed that glower isn't of Greek or Latin origin, since it doesn't ring any of those bells. Chances are that glower comes from northern Europe, where it's related to some old words that mean to "glow." It was probably in the 18th century that it took on the meaning "stare at angrily or sullenly." You can use its root, glo, to recall its meaning: a person that glowers seems to glow with anger.
今日覚えたい単語は上に出てきた "glower" でした。
三島由紀夫のThe Temple of the Golden Pavilionから取り上げる最後の単語です。
Her humming blended with the buzzing of a fly that was flying round her head. After a while the fly happend to settle on one of her breasts.
"Oh, it's tickling!" she said but made no effort to chase it away.
...
Inasmuch as flies love putrefaction, had Mariko begun to putrefy? Did the girl's total absence of belief connote putrefaction? Was it because she inhabited on absolute world of her own that fly had visited her?
蠅が好きな "putrefaction"、そしてMarikoが、その動詞の "putrefy" を始める？ 想像力の弱い私には分かりません。辞書を見ます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: The process of decay or rotting in a body or other organic matter.
・Vocabulary.com: If you suspect that something in your yard is in a state of putrefaction, there's probably something stinky and rotten out there.
The relatives of this word in English all resemble it and fit neatly into one meaning category, "rotten." The mother of them all is putrid, from Latin putris, "rotten." This leads to putrefy, which means "make rotten," and finally putrefaction, the process of rotting or a state of being rotten. The ending is -faction rather than -fication on the pattern of many nouns that have Latin facere in their pasts: benefaction, malefaction, and liquefaction -- to name a few.
分かりました。
ところで、話を脱線します。最初の文に出てきた "fly" で先週の金曜日に観たミュージカルのChicagoを思い出しました。劇中でほんの一瞬ですが、ズボンのチャックが開いている事を教えるのに "fly" が使われたのを聞き逃しませんでした。
"fly": An opening at the crotch of a pair of pants, closed with a zipper or buttons and typically covered with a flap.
英単語は覚えても覚えても直ぐに忘れてしまいます。植物や花の名前も興味があるのにやはり覚えても直ぐに忘れてしまいます。でも植物の名前は知りたいと思います。The Temple of the Golden Pavilionに "sweet flag" と言う植物名が次の個所に出て来ました。
I've been wanting to do some flower arrangement these days, but flowers are far too expensive for me, Now I believe this is just the time when the iris and sweet flag are in bloom at the Golden Temple.
早速 "sweet flag" を辞書で見ます。
・Vocabulary.com: perennial marsh plant having swordlike leaves and aromatic roots
根に芳香があるとなると、菖蒲湯に使われる菖蒲に違いありません。植物を調べるにはやはり写真のあるWikipediaに限りますね。しかしWikipediaは "sweet flag" の項目はなく、学名のAcorus calamusの項目にalso called "sweet flag" と書かれています。
The Temple of the Golden Pavilionを読んでいます。
I wrote my mother clearly that she should not come to visit me again until I had attainted my independence. I had already told her this verbally, but I did not feel that I could rest easy until I had committed it to writing in the strongest terms. Her answer was couched in awkward phrases. She told me about how hard she was working at Uncle's farm and followed this by a few sentences that smacked the following sentence: "I don't want to die until I have seen you with my own eyes as a priest in the Golden Temple."
上の文に出てきた "couch" は既に２度（6/3/2013、4/11/2011）も取り上げていますが、意味を忘れています。
不思議な事に、上の様に受動態で使われるだけではなく能動態でも使われる例が辞書に出ているのでその２例を引用します。
・Oxford English Dictionary: (usually be couched in) Express (something) in language of a specified style: many false claims are couched in scientific jargon
・McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs: to express something in carefully chosen or deceptive words. He tended to couch his explanations in arcane vocabulary. She couched her words in an overly polite manner.
The Temple of the Golden Pavilionを読んでいます。
Well let's see. How do you tell the type of woman who likes clubfooted men? As a rule, she's a beauty of the first water. She has a cool tapered nose. But there's something a little loose about her mouth...
上の文に出てきた "beauty of the first water" の意味は文脈から分かりますが、辞書を見ます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: (Typically of someone or something perceived as undesirable or annoying) extreme or unsurpassed of their kind: she was a bore of the first water
・McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs: Fig. of the finest quality. This is a very fine pearl—a pearl of the first water. Tom is of the first water—a true gentleman.
何故この様な表現が生まれたのか気になります。次の辞書に説明がありました。
・The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms: Of the finest quality, as in That was a play of the first water. This idiom refers to a grading system for diamonds for their color or luster (compared to the shininess of water). The system is no longer used but the term, used figuratively since the early 1800s, has survived it.
ダイアモンドの鑑定と関係があったとはね。
The boss who was on the 25th floor of the building called up the clerk on the ground floor for an important file.
Since it was rather urgent the boss told the clerk it was an emergency and that he should hurry with the file.
After more than 30 minutes the clerk appears all tired and panting for breath.
The Boss asks him why he was panting and what caused the huge delay.
The clerk replies, 'Boss when I went to the lift it said' during an emergency please use the staircase'!!!
昨夜渋谷のヒカリエで、ＮＨＫの朝ドラ『マッサン』のヒロイン役を演じたCharlotte Kate Foxが主役のミュージカル、Chicagoを観ました。このミュージカルの事を知った半年前に直ぐに予約したので、一番前第一列のほぼ真ん中の席で観たので迫力は満点、Kelly役のCharlotteの可愛い顔もよく見えました。 Charlotteは期待通り歌も踊りも上手でしたが、Velma役のベテラン Amra-Faye Wrightの方が貫禄はありました。
The Temple of the Golden Pavilion by Yukio Mishimaを読んでいます。
The war ended. All that I was thinking about, as I listened in the factory to the Imperial Rescript announcing the termination of hostilities, was the Golden Temple.
ここに出てきた "Rescript" は日本人なら誰でも聞いた事のある、昭和天皇の玉音放送での終戦の詔勅を指していることは "rescript" は知りませんでしたが、容易に分かります。
"rescript" を辞書で引きます。
・Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary: an official or authoritative order, decree, edict, or announcement: even though there was never an official rescript ordering mass genocide, that was indeed the intent and effect of the government's policy
なんとオクスフォード英語辞典では "rescript" の例文として、まさにこの昭和天皇の"rescript" を載せています。
・Oxford English Dictionary: An official edict or announcement.: At noon, the recording of the rescript was broadcast, and the nation heard the emperor's voice announcing Japan's final capitulation.
英訳された三島由紀夫の金閣寺を読んでいます。
That summer the Golden Temple seemed to use the bad war news that reached us day after day as a sort of foil against which it shone more vividly than ever.
ここに出てきた "foil" は12/15/2009に取り上げているので覚えていなければならないのですが、アルミフォイルや刑事フォイル（スペルは違います）が頭に浮かぶので再度辞書を見直します。
・Oxford English Dictionary: A person or thing that contrasts with and so emphasizes and enhances the qualities of another: the earthy taste of grilled vegetables is a perfect foil for the tart bite of creamy goat cheese
・Vocabulary.com: You can serve as a foil to someone if you show them to be better than you by contrast. If you can't dance but your friend Lisa can, you can be a foil to Lisa's grace.
If you're having trouble remembering this definition, think about a shiny piece of tin foil. It reflects an image back to you, so if you're a foil to someone, their image is reflected off of you in a positive light. Your brother's mediocre grades might serve as a foil to your intelligence. As a verb, if you foil someone's plans or attempts to do something, you cause them to fail. Your brother will be really mad if you foil his plans to hide his mediocre report card from your parents.
ドラマには多くの場合、引き立て役がいるのでドラマを見る度に "foil" を思い出すことにしよう。
トータル
