Cinderella-themed Party

2018年もいよいよ今日で最後ですね。大掃除は済みましたか？　我が家は中掃除で済ませました。
私のブログも掃除の話で締めくくります。Reader's Digest 11月号の記事 'Laughter the Best Medicine' からの引用です。
My granddaughter wanted a Cinderella-themed party, so I invited all her friends over and made them clean my house.
では皆さま良いお年を！

I could not complain.

Reader's Digest 9月号の記事 'Laughter the Best Medicine' からの引用です。
A North Korean defector moves in to an apartment in Chicago, and his new neighbor asks what his apartment back home was like.
"Oh, it was perfect," the defector says. "I could not complain."
"What about your job?"
"Oh, my old job was perfect. I could not complain."
"And the food?"
"Oh, the food was perfect. I could not complain."
"So if everything was perfect in North Korea, why did you move?"
The man says, "Here I can complain."

faculty of your mind

Napoleon HillのThink and Grow Richを読んでいます。
Resolve to throw off the influence of any unfortunate environment, and to build your own life to ORDER. Taking inventory of mental assets and liabilities, you will discover that your greatest weakness is lack of self-confidence. This handicap can be surmounted, and timidity translated into courage, through the aid of the principle of autosuggestion. The application of this principle may be made through a simple arrangement of positive thought impulses stated in writing, memorized, and repeated, until they become a part of the working equipment of the subconscious faculty of your mind.
今日取り上げる単語 "faculty" も6年前（6/11/2012）に取り上げていますが、例によって忘れているので再度辞書を見ました。
・Oxford English Dictionary: An inherent mental or physical power.: Also like humans, apes have a marked faculty for language.
・Collins Dictionary: Your faculties are your physical and mental abilities.: He was drunk and not in control of his faculties.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: a natural ability to hear, see, think, move, etc.: Even at the age of 100, she still had all her faculties.

in the bargain

Napoleon HillのThink and Grow Richを読んでいます。
Robert Burns was an illiterate country lad, he was cursed by poverty, and grew up to be a drunkard in the bargain.
"in the bargain" は以前(10/15/2015) "into the bargain" の形で取り上げましたが、忘れていました。再度辞書を見ます。
・Collins Dictionary: You use into the bargain when mentioning an additional quantity, feature, fact, or action, to emphasize the fact that it is also involved. You can also say in the bargain in American English.: She is rich. Now you say she is a beauty into the bargain.

・Cambridge English Dictionary: in addition to other facts previously mentioned: He's intelligent, funny, a loving husband, and an excellent cook into the bargain.

uninitiated

Napoleon HillのThink and Grow Richを読み始めました。1937に書かれた本なので内容が古い様ですが、借りた本は必ず終わりまで読みます。
When thid DESIRE, or impulse of thought, first flashed into his mind he was in no position to act upon it. Two difficulties stood in his way. He did not know Mr. Edison, and he did not have enough money to pay his railroad fare to Orange, New Jersey.
These difficulties were sufficient to have discouraged the majority of men from making any attempt to carry our the desire. But his was no ordinary desire! He was so determined to find a way to carry out his desire that he finally decided to travel by "blind baggage," rather than be defeated. (To the uninitiated, this means that he went to East Orange on a freight train).
懐かしい地名が出てきました。35年程前ですが、New JerseyのWestfieldに住んでいた頃に Orange, NJにあるエジソン博物館に行ったことを思い出しました。
最後の文の注釈に出てきた "uninitiated" ですが、接頭辞の "un" を除いた単語は馴染みのあるものですが、私の知っている意味では上記の文と意味としては合いません。辞書で "uninitiated" を見ます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: Without special knowledge or experience.: the discussion wasn't easy to follow for the uninitiated
・Collins Dictionary: You can refer to people who have no knowledge or experience of a particular subject or activity as the uninitiated.: Its appeal may not be immediately obvious to the uninitiated.

・Cambridge English Dictionary: not having knowledge or experience of a particular subject or activity: The author's goal was to introduce uninitiated readers to the area.
なるほど、すると "initiate" に何かを始める他に、誰かに知識などを教える意味がきっとあるのですね。

・Collins Dictionary: If you initiate someone into something, you introduce them to a particular skill or type of knowledge and teach them about it.: He initiated her into the study of other cultures.

saxifrage

Karel CapekのThe Gardner's Yearには当然数多くの植物名がでてきますが、下記の文中に出てきた "saxifrages" も子供の時から馴染みのある植物なので覚えたい。
To this add that each of us gardneres would like and really ought to examine by actual experience all kinds of roses with regard to their buds, flowers, stems, leaves, crowns, and other features; item all the different kinds of tulips, lilies, irises, delphiniums, carnations, campanulas, astilbes, violets, phloxes, chrysanthemums, dahlias gladioli, paeonies, asters, primulas, anemones, aquilegias, saxifrages, gentian, sunflowers, day lilies, poppies, golden rod, ranunculi, and veronicas; each of which has at least a dozen of the best and most indispensable classes, varieties, and hybrids; to these one ought to add several hundred genera and species which have only from three to a dozen varieties; further one should pay special attention to the Alpine, water, and bulbous plants, to heathers and ferns and shade-loving plants, to trees and evergreens; if I were to add all this up I should get, at a very mild estimate, eleven hundred years.
辞書だと写真が付いていないので今回は早速ウィキペデアを見ました。
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saxifraga
"saxifrages" も色々あり、西洋の "saxifrages" はちょっと違うなと云う感じですが、 "Round-leaved saxifrages" は日本のユキノシタと似ていると思います。
都会ではユキノシタも最近余り見かけませんね。

aquilegia

図書館から借りる本の間に読んでいるKarel CapekのThe Gardner's Yearからの引用です。
Well, this black thing here, which is sticking out of the snow s a withered viscaria; this dry stalk is a blue aquilegia; that tuft of shrivelled leaves is astilbe; and look, that sweep there is Aster ericoides; and here, where there is nothing at all, there is an orange trollius; and this heap of snow here is dianthus, of course it is dianthus. And that stem is perhaps the red yarrow.
沢山植物の名前が出てきますが一つだけ和名をしっている植物があったのでそれは覚えたいと思います。それは "aquilegia" です。
英和辞典によると和名はオダマキですが、英英辞書の説明も見ます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: A plant of the buttercup family, bearing showy flowers with backward-pointing spurs. Native to temperate regions of the northern hemisphere, it is widely grown in gardens.
写真の出ている辞典は見当たらなかったのでウィキペディアを見ると（https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquilegia）花の写真もついていますが、色々な花のタイプがあり、私にはこれがオダマキだとは確信はありません。
そこでGoogleで "aquilegia picture" を検索しましたが、花の種類が益々増えただけです。そこで検索に "leaf" を加えたら、馴染みのあるオダマキの葉の写真が現れ、"aquilegia" はオダマキだと納得しました。

You need to buy a drink first.

Reader's Digest 9月号の記事 'Life in these United States' からの引用です。
SCENE: Bar
Me: What's the Wi-Fi password?
Bartender: You need to buy a drink first.
Me: OK, I'll have a Coke.
Bartender: Three dollars.
Me: There you go. So what's the Wi-Fi password?

Bartender: "You need to buy a drink first." No spaces, all lowercase.
先日紹介したやはりReader's Digest（6月号）に掲載のパスワードジョーク "Eight Characters Long" を思い出させる長いパスワードですね。

sticker shock

Reader's Digest 9月号の記事 '13 Thing You Didn't Know About Space Travel' からの引用です。
The first flights will most likely be to the near edge of space--more than 100 miles above Earth--where tourists can experience weightlessness and marvel at the view. If you want to take a ride, prepare for sticker shock: Virgin Galactic is selling tickets for $250,000. About 700 people have signed up.
文脈からして "sticker shock" は「料金が高くてショックを受ける」警告の様ですが、辞書で確認します。

・Oxford English Dictionary: Shock or dismay experienced by the potential buyers of a particular product on discovering its high or increased price.: drugstore consumers are feeling the pain of sticker shock as never before
・Merriam-Webster: astonishment and dismay experienced on being informed of a product's unexpectedly high price: Student loan debt is a ball and chain for many borrowers, who experience sticker shock when the bills begin to arrive.
確かに値札を見て驚くことがありますね。むしろ私は驚くと云うより誰が買うのだろうと不思議に思うだけですが。

Whose Pet is Smarter

Reader's Digest 10月号の記事 'Laughter the Best Medicine' からの引用です。
Two dog owners are arguing about whose pet is smarter.
"My dog is so smart," says the first owner, "that every morning he goes to the store and buys me a sesameseed bagel with chive cream cheese, stops off at Starbucks and picks me up a mocha late, and then comes home and turns on ESPN, all before I get out of bed."
"I know," says the second owner.
"How do you know?" the first demands.
"My dog told me."