もう３０年程前になりますが、米国で仕事をしていた時に、契約書を締結する際には必ず米国人の弁護士のチェックを受けていました。弁護士のコメントで時々見かけた単語 "penultimate" は、その後読んだどんな英文にも出てきませんでしたが、Understanding Bob Dylanを読んでいると次の様に "penultimate" が出てきました。
And later in the same verse "Twas then he felt alone.", and in the second verse "He felt the heat of the night." In the penultimate verse we return to that sense of endless waiting epitomised by the ticking clocks.
固い言葉なので普通の文章では余り見ないでしょうが、ご参考に "penultimate" の辞書の説明を引用します。
・Oxford English Dictionary: Last but one in a series of things; second to the last.: the penultimate chapter of the book
・Collins Dictionary: The penultimate thing in a series of things is the last but one.: ...on the penultimate day of the Asian Games.
Barman sees a guy crying into his beer.
"What's the matter?" he asks.
"My wife has run off with my best mate" is the reply.
"That's bad" says the barman.
"Yes" says the guy "I miss him".
沖ノ島、沖永良部島、徳之島、奄美大島の4島巡りの旅行から帰って来ました。今日からブログを再開します。
さて、Reader's Digest Jan. Issueに '6 Surprising Times You Are Quoting the Bible' と言う記事がありました。 その１として "A HOUSE DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF" があり、次の内容でした。
In Matthew's Gospel, Jesus tells an impudent crowd, "Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand." However, the phrase didn't enter the modern lexicon untill it was quoted by Abraham Lincoln in his famous nomination acceptance speech of 1858. Addressing the contentious issue of slavery in the United States, he told an audience of Republican politicians that "a house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free."
トランプ大統領は米国を "A HOUSE DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF" の状態にする様な気がします。
The Japan Times Online Feb.6の記事 'Trump presidency triggers doomsday inflation' にトランプ大統領を表すのにピッタリと思える表現がありました。
U.S. President Donald Trump is a loose cannon, but he's not the Apocalypse, and most other world leaders are still grown-ups.
ガタがきている様な大砲ではぶっ放されたら砲弾はどこに飛んでいくのか分かりません。物騒ですね。
・Oxford English Dictionary: An unpredictable or uncontrolled person who is likely to cause unintentional damage.: Obviously we were all put on alert in case there was a loose cannon targeting skydivers.
・Collins Dictionary: a person or thing that appears to be beyond control and is potentially a source of unintentional damage: A preposterous seventeenth century opportunist, a loose cannon , an incorrigible hypocrite.
明日から又南の島に（外国ではありません）旅行に行くので、ブログはしばらく休みます。
Reader's Digest 12月号の記事 '13 Things Savvy Shoppers Look for in Online Reviews' の内の一つ 'Super Short Reviews' を引用します。
Paid shills aim to get a product's overall grade as high as possible as quickly as possible, so they'll hit the five-star button and type something quick like "Gread service!"
"shill" は7/06/2010に取り上げて覚えた単語と記録があるのですが、7/06/2010の記事は何故か消えているので、再度辞書の説明を下記します。
・Oxford English Dictionary: An accomplice of a hawker, gambler, or swindler who acts as an enthusiastic customer to entice or encourage others.: Sophisticated news consumers know that Clarke is a fraud and a shill for the campaign.
・Collins Dictionary: If you refer to someone as a shill, you mean that they are paid to sell something or to participate in an activity in order to persuade others to buy or participate. : He is tarnishing his reputation by being a shill for the tobacco industry.
インターネットの情報の真偽は自分で判断する必要がありますね。
Reader's Digest 12月号の記事にMy Father Was the BTK Killerというのがありました。
このBTK Killerは何かと言うと：
The man asked if she knew what BTK was. Yes, she did. BTK--Bind, Torture, Kill--was the nickname for the serial killer who had scared her mom decades ago and who was responsible for murdering ten people in Kansas between 1974 and 1991.
酷い父親を持った娘の話です。
Three days after her dad's arrest, Kerri flew back to Kansas City. On the plane, she escaped by reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. But on her layover, she saw her father's face on the airport's TV screen.
記事の話には余り興味はありませんが、"layover" が気になりましたので辞書を見ます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: A period of rest or waiting before a further stage in a journey.: The entire flight process takes about eight hours with layovers, so that's not a huge difference.
・Collins Dictionary: A layover is a short stay in a place in between parts of a journey, especially a plane journey.: She booked a plane for Denver with a layover in Dallas.
先日行ったハワイでも遠いと思ったので "layover" を伴う旅行はもうしたくありません。
Understanding Bob Dylanをまだ読み終えていませんが、先日丸善に立ち寄った時に目についたEMOTIONAL FIRST AIDを買ってしまったので、並行して読むことにしました。
Severe and repeated experiences of rejection can elicit the kind of aggression that goes far beyond the realm of white noise or hot sauce. When psychological wounds of this nature are left untreated they quickly become "infected" and threaten serious damage to a person's mental health. Stories of injurious and self-injurious aggressive behaviors following rejections are frequently in the news. Jilted lovers who seek revenge, fired postal workers who..."go postal," and the terrible epidemic of bullied children who take their own lives are just a few such examples of what happens when the psychological wounds caused by chronic and severe rejections remain untreated,
首になった郵便局員が "go postal" とは如何に？ どこかで見覚えのある表現ですが思いだせません。引用符で囲まれているので郵便とは直接関係のない特別な意味があるに違いありません。辞書を見ます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: Become crazed and violent, especially as the result of stress.: I guess there's no use in screaming for help since I doubt our friends have gone postal and are out to kill us.
・Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary: to become very angry and do something violent: The man went postal and shot twelve of his colleagues.
語源が気になりますね。次の辞書に説明がありました。
・Cambridge Idioms Dictionary: to suddenly become violent or angry I don't think anybody is going to come in to work and go postal on me.
Etymology: based on an event in which an employee of the US Postal Service shot and killed other workers
ほんの一人の人間のお陰で他の郵便に従事する人にとっては迷惑な表現ですね。
Understanding Bob Dylanを読んでいます。
Among the most common images in Dylan's songs are the door, the window, the gate and the hallway. Like the lines and the tracks, they are usually barriers or boundaries that separate the singer from others, or that prevent his moving on, or creating. So common is their use - and perhaps now their overuse - that they are another common poetic denominator of Dylan's songs. It would be odd to hear a Dylan song which didn't have a highway, door or a window in it.
上の引用箇所に出てきた "denominator" ですが、数学用語の意味しか頭に浮かびません。 辞書を見ます。
・Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary:
a) a shared trait: a common denominator
b) the average level (as of taste or opinion)
次の辞書に詳しい説明がありました。
・V2 Vocabulary Building Dictionary: a common characteristic or shared quality: It seems like movies today are developed for the lowest common denominator. (common trait, divisor)
Tips: In math, a denominator is the number that appears at the bottom of a fraction. The number 4 is the denominator in the following fractions: 1/4, 2/4, 3/4. When you hear the term "common denominator," it refers to that which several different people or things have in common. For example, in the fractions previously listed, the common denominator is the number 4. This is where the idea comes from. You may have heard the phrase "lowest common denominator." This often refers to the large number of people who will accept bad quality products.
なるほど、"common denominator" のフレーズも一緒に覚えると良さそうですね。
・Wiktionary: (by extension, figuratively) A trait or attribute that is shared by all members of some category.
Understanding Bob Dylanでもこの後に "common denominator" が次の形で出てきました。
We have attempted to understand the power of Dylan's lyrics through the ways in which he has used common poetic denominators that have been central to modern western literature.
A wealthy 75-year-old widower starts showing up around town with a beautiful and much younger wife.
"How did you get her to marry you?"
"I lied about my age."
"You told her you were 60?"
"No, I told her I was 90."
これも逆転の発想ですね。
POINT: "An optimist is someone who falls off the Empire State Building, and after 50 floors says, 'So far so good!"
COUNTERPOINT: "The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleassntly surprised."
(出典Reader's Digest 10月号)
さすがに、ここまで楽観的な人はいないでしょう。
自分はどちらかと言うと楽観的で、悲観的より良いはずと思っていましたが、悲観主義者の上記の利点はなるほど、悪くはないなと思います。
いつもデタラメを言う人がいますが、万一それが実現したら「出たら芽」になるのと似ていますね。
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