Jennifer WeinerのFly Away Homeを読んでいますが、そうだよなと思う箇所がありました。
He’d have simply bounced the baby in his arms and sung “New York, New York” to her, loudly and off-key, impervious to the stares and rolled eyes and loudly heaved sighs of his fellow travelers. You couldn’t embarrass Richard. He was immune to shame the same way some people never caught colds. It was why she thought he actually could be president someday—unlike the vast majority of people walking the earth, he could withstand a campaign, and all the things his opponents would say about him; he believed in himself, and no amount of criticism could convince him that he shouldn’t.
Richardはインターンとの不倫を暴露された代議員です。連想したのはどこかの国の大統領やどこかの国の首相です。どこかの首相は不倫はしていないと思いますが、怪しいことをしているにも関わらず、知らん顔をしていることは同じです。 "immune to shame" は大物になる素質の一つなのですね。
Jennifer WeinerのFly Away Homeを読んでいます。
"I'm on the New Jersey Turnpike. What's going on?" Sylvie settled more comfortably into the seat, readying herself for the soliloquy Ceil would doubtlessly deliver about New Jersey. Ceil hated suburbs and conformity and any place where people lived that wasn't the right neighborhoods of Paris or Manhattan, even though she, herself, was leading as white-bread a life as possible, with her ex-Cornhusker husband named Larry, her twins Dashiell and Clementine, and the granddaughter named Lincoln whom she carted to Little Mozard music class every Tuesday (the normalcy of that, she insisted, was leavened by the fact that her daughter was a lesbian, and that Suri Cruise had attended one of Lincoln's makeup class).
上に出てきた "white-bread" は文脈からすると平凡なと解釈できそうだがどうでしょうか？ 辞書を見ます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: Blandly conventional in a way that is regarded as characteristic of the white middle classes.: inoffensive white-bread comedies
・Macmillan Dictionary: ordinary or traditional, used especially to refer to the behavior and values typical of white North Americans: white-bread tastes
・Dictionary.com: pertaining to or characteristic of the white middle class; bourgeois: a typical white-bread suburban neighborhood.
ちょっと違いましたね。平凡なニュアンスもちょっとあるようですが、白人の生活、嗜好、思考に大いに関係がある様です。
Jennifer WeinerのFly Away Homeを読んでいます。
"So you're rich?" Ceil had asked, in her guileless way.
Sylvie winced. Ceil's mother, elegant and blond in a Lilly Pulizer shift and pearls, and her blue-eyed dad, who'd worn a cotton sweater tied around his shoulders, had just left the dorm, looking as if they were on their to lunch at the country club.
上に出てきた "shift" は私の知らない意味に違いありません。辞書を引きます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: A woman's straight unwaisted dress.: The girl changed her dress into a simple shift and checked the hall way for any lingering servants.
・Collins Dictionary: a loose dress that hangs straight with no waistline
・Cambridge English Dictionary: a simple dress that hangs straight from the shoulders
なるほど、そうするとLilly Pulizerは女性なら知っていそうなブランド名ですね。
地元の図書館から多読シリーズの本 "The Seventh Scroll" と "Titanic"を借りて読みましたが、特に取り上げる様な知らない単語や表現はありませんでした。Kazuo Ishiguroの "The Buried Giant" を読みたいのですが、貸出中でいつ読めるか分かりません。 そんな時、インターネットに「洋書初心者が読むべき最初の１０冊」のサイトを見つけたので、そこで薦めている本の内図書館にあるものを読むことにしました。１０冊の内既に読んだ本が3冊あり、残りの7冊の内 "Fly Away Home"、"Audrey Hepburn"、"The Alchemist" 三冊が図書館にありました。
最初に一寸厚めの本ですが "Fly Away Home"(Jennifer Weiner) を読むことにしました。
その "Fly Away Home" からの引用です。
She was in the backseat of her own Town Car by four o'clock, an issue of The Economist open in her lap, reading the latest news from the Middle East as the car crawled through a five-mile backup on the New Jersey Tunpike.
二十数年以上も前になりましたが、New Jerseyに約6年住んでいたのでNew Jersey Tunpikeは懐かしいですね。数か月の間ですが、住んでいる所から百マイル程あるNJの南にあるCherry Hillの客（会社）の所にNJ Tunpikeで毎日の様に通っていました。1時間程のドライブですが、慣れてくると眠くなるので結構怖い思いを経験しました。
さて、引用文に出てきた "backup" の意味が分かりません。辞書を見ます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: An overflow caused by a stoppage, as in water or automobile traffic.: there are long backups on all routes
・Collins Dictionary: a traffic jam or tailback usually caused by something blocking the road: The accident caused a backup on the freeway.
当時NJ TunpikeはNew YorkやBostonのハイウェイ程 "backup" はひどくありませんでした。
Some words are like out-of-state license plates--they're dead giveaways that you're not from around here.
米国でも地域によって使われる単語が異なることを調査した本で、例として次の単語が挙げられていました。
Fireflies vs Lightning bugs
Garage Sale vs Yard Sale, Rummage Sale and Tag Sale
Soda vs Pop, Coke
Soft drink and Cocola
Gargage Can vs Trash Can
You Guys vs Y'all
Drinking Fountain vs Water Fountain
Tennis Shoes vs Sneakers
どの単語がどの地方で使われているかは地図がないと分からないので、Googleで "Speaking American" を検索すると、米国の地域により使われる言葉を地図で示す資料が出てきます。
The Japan Times Sept 6, 2017 FILM / REVIEWSコラムの記事 "‘The Third Murder’: Director Hirokazu Koreeda triumphs with a trial drama that keeps the focus on character" の冒頭文を引用します。
Murder mysteries are popular film and television fodder in Japan, but most revolve around puzzle plots that hold as much real-world probability as the cases of Sherlock Holmes.
"fodder" は飼葉の意味しか知りませんが、この "television fodder" は比喩もしくは、飼葉から派生した新しい用法の様です。辞書を見ます。
・Webster’s New World College Dictionary: something, esp. information, that is thought of as being in large supply and, often, inferior, raw or coarse, etc.: promotional fodder in mass media
・Cambridge English Dictionary: people or things that are useful for the stated purpose: Politicians are always good fodder for comedians (= they make jokes about them).
・Wiktionary: (figuratively) Stuff; material; something that serves as inspiration or encouragement, especially for satire or humour.
なるほど、政治家もよくマスコミの対象になりますが、それは "fodder" なのですね。
Reader's Digest July/Aug Issueの記事 "First Drafts of History" はラッシュモアの歴代大統領の石像、ＳＦのゴールデンゲートブリッジなどの現在の姿は最初の構想とは諸々の事情で違っている話です。
The spire atop New York's Empire State Building was not built solely as a hangout for King Kong; it was originally pitched as a zeppelin dock. In 1929, investors announced that the already 1,050-foot-tall tower would soon add a 200-foot "mooring mast" for tethering luxury dirigibles after transatlantic flights.
エンパイヤステートビルディングの先端を飛行船の係留場にしようとは意外ですね。何故この案が消えたかの理由は、風が強すぎるからでした。当然でしょう。
The best comeback I've ever heard occurred at our store. A customer was complaining to my supervisor about the employees. He was spouting off about how terrible we all were and insisting our company hired only idiots. That was when my boss looked him in the eye and asked, "Would you like an application?"
このボス冴えていますね。ところで、"comeback" はこの様に言葉による逆襲、反論の意味で使えるのですね。辞書で確認します。
・Oxford English Dictionary: A quick reply to a critical remark.: The robot blinked once, accessing its database of snappy comebacks before selecting an answer.
・Wiktionary: A retort or answer.I wish I had thought of a quick comeback for his comment.
・American Heritage Dictionary: To retort; reply: She came back with a clever answer that subtly insulted him.
先日ＮＨＫの番組「ためしてガッテン」を見ていたら、スマホの使い過ぎで手首が痛くなる病気を英語で "smartphone thumb" と呼ばれていることを知りました。
早速この言葉が辞書に載っているか調べましたが、まだ普通の辞書には載っていませんでしたが、オンライン辞書の "netlingo" に次の説明がありました。
The name given to the soreness in one's thumbs and hands from excessively using a smartphone or other handheld device. Similar to "tech neck" and "mouse hand" there are now specialized massages to treat workplace woes.
Historical perspective: In 2017, doctors saw a surge in a form of tendinitis they're calling "smartphone thumb." Typing rapidly on small keyboards causes abnormal motion of bones in the thumb, causing pain onset and eventual osteoarthritis. - As seen in The Week
この病気はスマホを親指で使う人がなり易いそうです。私は人差し指しか使わないし、スマホは極力使わず、面倒くさい入力はパソコンでして、スマホに送信する位なので、"smartphone thumb" には絶対にならないでしょう。
Reader's Digest July/Aug号に出ていた投書です。
"Worked fine with my right hand, but when I used my left hand my writing came out looking like the work of an imbecile. I assumed BIC created a right-handed-only pen."
そう言えば最近BICのボールペンを見かけない気がします。
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