Reader's Digest 4月号の記事 'Threats Modern Parents Tell Their Kids' からの抜粋です。
"I'm going to leave non sequitur, embarrassing comments on your social media posts."
"non sequitur" は難しそうな表現ですが、子供に対して使うのですからネイティブには常識に違いありません。辞書を見ます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: A conclusion or statement that does not logically follow from the previous argument or statement.: The professor hesitated for a moment, slightly confused by the question, which seemed on the face of it to be something of a non sequitur.
・Collins Dictionary: A non sequitur is a statement, remark, or conclusion that does not follow naturally or logically from what has just been said.: Had she missed something important, or was this just a non sequitur?
本当に大人が子供に言う台詞ですかね？
Reader's Digest 4月号の記事 'Art of Living, Extraordinary Reuses For Ordinary Things' からの抜粋です。
Razer → Sweater De-Piller
A dull razor can enjoy a second act as a rescuer of pilled sweaters. If you notice a patch of unsightly balls lightly run a razor over them. The blade will remove the pills without damaging the fabric.
"pill" は動詞にも名詞にもなっています。文脈からすると "pill" はここでは毛玉（名詞）、"de-Piller" は毛玉取りでしょう。"pill" を辞書で確認します。
・Oxford English Dictionary: (of knitted fabric) form small balls of fluff on its surface.: The yarn pilled up a lot, and though it was soft it always looked kind of weird on me so I rarely wore it.
・Collins Dictionary: a small ball of matted fibres that forms on the surface of a fabric through rubbing
Reader's Digest March 2017のAll In A Day's Workに載っていた話です。
A new salesman saw the name plate on my desk and said, "Sibyl Short. That's easy to remember, since you're short." The next time he visited our office, he approached me with a big smile and stated with great confidence, "Hello, Ms. Stout!"
Ref. aptronym
The Japan Times Online April 27, 2017 OPINION欄の記事 'When high achievement is a pyrrhic victory' からの抜粋です。
Although Japan ‘s 15-year-olds scored high in science and math against their peers from around the world, they ranked 42nd among 47 participating countries or regions in “students’ satisfaction with life.” On a scale of zero to 10, they placed 6.8, which was below the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development average of 7.3.
記事タイトルに使われた "pyrrhic victory" は 10/25/2013に取り上げた表現です。
村上龍の 'ALMOST TRANSPARENT BLUE' から最後の引用です。
The wired bra was embroidered with flowers and smelled of detergent. I tossed it in the closet. The silver negligee was hanging there. I remembered the taste of Jackson's warm come and felt sick. I felt there must be a little bit left somewhere in my mouth; when I ran my tongue around, sometimes the taste seemed to come back. I tossed the nail parings on the veranda. I could see a woman walking a German shepherd in the garden of the hospital.
この後も大した話はなく、しかしながら、だらだらと話は続きます。結局主人公のRyuから女のLilyも去ってしまい、この本を読んだら私に連絡してくれ、と言うRyuの未練がましいLily宛の手紙で話は終わります。
何でこれが芥川賞？ やはり私には文学を理解する能力がないと言うことでしょう。
それよりも、私の関心は "nail parings" です。辞書で意味を調べます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: Thin strips that have been pared off from something.: fingernail parings
・Collins Dictionary: Parings are thin pieces that have been cut off things such as a fingernails, fruit, or vegetables.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: a thin piece that has been cut away from something: We feed most of our vegetable parings to the guinea pigs.
村上龍の 'ALMOST TRANSPARENT BLUE' を読んでいます。 "Ryu, do you remember Meg? You know, the girl who came to us in Kyoto and wanted to play organ in our band? With the big eyes, right, the one who told whopper about her taking off from the arts college," Male said, pulling a cigarette from my shirt pocket and lighting it. Smoke seeped out from the gap in his teeth.
"whopper" と言えばBurger Kingのハンバーガーですね。"whopper" の意味を辞書で見たことはないので、この際確認します。
・Oxford English Dictionary:
a. A thing that is extremely or unusually large.: the novel is a 1,079 page whopper
b. A gross or blatant lie.: Research revealed that untruths range from little white lies to huge whoppers aimed purely at personal gain.
・Collins Dictionary: If you describe a lie as a whopper, you mean that it is very far from the truth.: ...the biggest whopper the president told.
・Cambridge English Dictionary:
a. humorous informal something that is surprising because it is so much bigger than the usual size: My nose is pretty big, but my Dad's got a whopper.
b. humorous a big lie: Amanda's told some whoppers in her time.
Burger Kingの "whopper" はとても大きいの意味があるのですね。いずれにせよ私はBig Macよりも "whopper" の方が好きです。
小説に出てきた "whopper" は大ぼらの意味ですね。
村上龍の 'ALMOST TRANSPARENT BLUE' を読んでいます。
"Yeah, well, because there're black guys, when there're blacks around it's cool, because they're really something else, blowing grass and pouring down vodka and then while they're stoned playing the best kind of sax, you know, really something else."
マリファナやらウォッカを飲んでいるので "stoned" とはそれでハイになった状態を示しているのでしょうか？ 辞書を見ます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: Under the influence of drugs, especially marijuana.: he was up in the deck chair getting stoned
・Collins Dictionary: under the influence of drugs or alcohol: Half of them were so stoned they couldn't even see.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: slang experiencing the effects of a drug, such as cannabis: They spent the evening getting stoned.
語源が気になり調べました。English Language & Usage Stack Exchangeに掲載の下記説明がもっともらしいと思いました。
Many such slang terms originally meant damaged, badly affected (for example, trashed, smashed, blitzed, hammered, wasted...). It's true stoned is more often used nowadays for intoxicated by cannabis, but it too was first used of alcohol — originally in compounds such as as stone-drunk, stone-cold. First recorded as a single word in print in Hepcats jive talk dictionary (1945).
The term may relate to stoning as a method of execution — and many things can be damaged by stoning (not least, windows), so "execution" may not be central anyway. But I'm more inclined to see it as from the insensible meaning of stone blind (late 14c., lit. "blind as a stone"), stone deaf, etc.
Bob Dylanの歌に 'Everybody must get stoned' と言うのがあるのを思い出しました。
村上龍の 'ALMOST TRANSPARENT BLUE' を読んでいますが、乱交パーティの話ばかりで、ストーリーらしき事件や登場人物のキャラクターも良く分からず、とにかく我慢の読書です。
While I was breasing in the scents of the warming air and fixing coffee, the outside door suddenly opened. There stood three cops, Their thick chests wrapped in sweaty-smelling uniforms, white braid hanging from their shoulders. Startled, I spilled the sugar on the floor. One of the younger cops asked me, "What're you kids up to in here?"
上の引用個所に出てきた "up to" は見聞きした気がしますが、辞書で確認します。
・Oxford English Dictionary: Occupied or busy with.: What's he been up to?
・Collins Dictionary: devising or scheming; occupied with: He's up to something.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: to be doing something, often something bad or illegal, usually secretly: She's up to no good (= doing something bad or forbidden) - you can always tell because she stays in her room.
なるほど、何か怪しい、悪いことをしているような場合に使うのですね。
While I was breasing in the scents of the warming air and fixing coffee, the outside door suddenly opened. There stood three cops, Their thick chests wrapped in sweaty-smelling uniforms, white braid hanging from their shoulders. Startled, I spilled the sugar on the floor. One of the younger cops asked me, "What're you kids up to in here?"
上の引用個所に出てきた "up to" は見聞きした気がしますが、辞書で確認します。
・Oxford English Dictionary: Occupied or busy with.: What's he been up to?
・Collins Dictionary: devising or scheming; occupied with: He's up to something.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: to be doing something, often something bad or illegal, usually secretly: She's up to no good (= doing something bad or forbidden) - you can always tell because she stays in her room.
なるほど、何か怪しい、悪いことをしているような場合に使うのですね。
村上春樹の小説 'after the quake!' を読み終えたので次はノンフィクションにしようかなと思いましたが、村上春樹とほぼ同時期に作家にになり、芥川賞作家となった村上龍の作品を読んで見ることにしました。タイトルだけは聞いたことのある有名な作品『限りなく透明に近いブルー』（英訳本 ALMOST TRANSPARENT BLUE, translated by Nancy Andrew)を読み始めました。 村上春樹作品もこれまでそれほど良いとは思いませんが、海外でも人気があるが芥川賞を取っていない村上春樹とは異なり、海外では評判が高くないが芥川賞を取った村上龍なので、少しは面白いかと期待していますが、1/3程読んだところではとんでもなく面白くない話で、読むのを止めようかとも思いましたが、これまで読書を途中で止めたことはないので、我慢して最後まで読むことにします。
さて、最初に取り上げる単語は私のブログでは既出（11/23/2010）の "dirigible" です。
When we got out of the wind and rain under the eaves of school building, we felt as if we were in the shadow of a dirigible floating in the sky. It was too quiet, and the cold attacked us.
"dirigible" は本物も単語も余り見かけませんが、この単語を初めて見たのは少年向けの小説でした。つまりネイティブなら子供でも知っている単語と言えるのでしょう。
さて、最初に取り上げる単語は私のブログでは既出（11/23/2010）の "dirigible" です。
When we got out of the wind and rain under the eaves of school building, we felt as if we were in the shadow of a dirigible floating in the sky. It was too quiet, and the cold attacked us.
"dirigible" は本物も単語も余り見かけませんが、この単語を初めて見たのは少年向けの小説でした。つまりネイティブなら子供でも知っている単語と言えるのでしょう。
Reader's Digest ３月号の記事 'The Healing Hoagie' に以前（1/21/2010）取り上げた "off-putting" が次の様に出てきました。
No one had been home when the hoagie arrived. It had been sitting in FedEx packaging on the stoop of a friend's house in Houston, where we were staying during my clinical trial for leukemia.
...
The aroma went from off-putting to intoxicating. I had another bite, then another. Meanwhile, my temperature gradually declined.
意味は既に調べたので今回は語源を調べます。
・Online Etymology Dictionary: 1570s, "procrastinating," from off (adv.) + put (v.). Meaning "creating an unfavorable impression" is first recorded 1894.
私もどちらかと言うとせっかちな方なので "procrastinating" な態度に合うと、"off-putting" な気持ちになりますね。
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