keep it together

Reader's Digest 2月号の記事 'Kindness Pass It On!' からの引用です。
I'll always remember the woman who gave me tissues when I was crying on the train. I was trying so hard to keep it together. Everyone else looked away but her. She handed me the tissues and said, "We've all been there, crying on the train. It sucks." As she was getting off, she added, "Whatever's wrong, it will get better. That doesn't mean anything right now, of course. But it really will." She was this regular business-casual lady, but she was a hero to me. Also! She inspired me to always carry a little pack of tissues in case I see someone crying.
"keep it together" の意味を辞書で調べます。
・Wiktionary: To maintain composure; to avoid an overly emotional reaction; to suppress an instinct or urge.

・Urban Dictionary: Also used as its acronym kit, keep it together is a self motiviational phrase to use when things are getting chaotic and you are starting to freak. It is meant to be said repeatedly and very quickly, almost as one word.: "Keep it together, keepittogether, keepittogether...."

3/9/2011 に取り上げた "pull oneself together" と共通するところがありますね。
"together" がどちらにも使われているので、もしかして "together" の項にもこの共通する意味の説明があるのではと思い、辞書を見ると、 "together" の形容詞としての説明が次の様にありました。
・Oxford English Dictionary: Self-confident, level-headed, or well organized.: she seems a very together young woman

・Collins Dictionary: If you describe someone as together, you admire them because they are very confident, organized, and know what they want.: She was very headstrong, and very together.

・Cambridge English Dictionary: organized, confident of your abilities, and able to use them to achieve what you want: For a sixteen-year-old, he seems pretty together.
最近はティッシュだけではなくマスクも常時携帯、着用していないと駄目になりましたね。

cilia/cilium

Edward O. Wilsonの "The Creation" を読んでいます。
He will see what astonished Robert Hooke, Antony van Leeuwenhoek, and Jan Swammerdam, the first microscopists of the seventeenth century: a miniature Jurassic Park, inhabited by translucent shape-changing rotifers that snake their way through the detritus, settling and opening out their hairlike cilia on the head to create circular water currents; protozoans darting and spinning through the water and bumping into obstacles like drunkun drivers; crystalline diatoms; and more, alsost infinitely more.
"cilia" は微生物の体の一部で身体を動かすための毛状の器官を示しているようです。辞書を見ます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: A short microscopic hairlike vibrating structure found in large numbers on the surface of certain cells, either causing currents in the surrounding fluid, or, in some protozoans and other small organisms, providing propulsion.

・Collins Dictionary: any of the short thread-like projections on the surface of a cell, organism, etc, whose rhythmic beating causes movement of the organism or of the surrounding fluid

・Cambridge English Dictionary: one of the very small parts like hairs on the surface of a cell that move regularly and keep the surrounding liquid moving around it or help an organism with only one cell to move
"cilia" は複数形で単数形の "cilium" も "The Creation" の中では、この後で次のように出てきました。
Its logic is simply this: biologists have not yet explained how complex systems such as the human eye and spining bacterial cilium could have evolved by themselves; therefore a higher intelligence must have guided the evolution.

pointillist

Edward O. Wilsonの "The Creation" を読んでいます。
Do not teach from the bottom up, with an introduction such as "First, we'll learn some of this, and some of that, and we'll combine the knowledge later to build the bigger picture." Don't paint the picture in pointllist dabs to easily bored students. Instead, put it up whole as quickly as possible, and show why it matters to them and will matter for a lifetime.
"pointllist" の単語は知りませんでしたが、絵を点で描く画家の事ですね。辞書には "pointillism" で次の説明がありました。
・Oxford English Dictionary: technique of neo-impressionist painting using tiny dots of various pure colors, which become blended in the viewer's eye. It was developed by Georges Seurat with the aim of producing a greater degree of luminosity and brilliance of color.: For this simple reason alone, pointillism, as this technique was called, could never become a mainstream art movement.

・Collins Dictionary: the technique of painting elaborated from impressionism, in which dots of unmixed colour are juxtaposed on a white ground so that from a distance they fuse in the viewer's eye into appropriate intermediate tones: Also called: divisionism

・Cambridge English Dictionary: a style of painting developed in France at the end of the 19th century in which a painting is created out of small spots of pure colour that seem to mix when seen from far away

talk the talk

Edward O. Wilsonの "The Creation" を読んでいます。
It was for me an influential bonding with a biologist immersed in an outwardly small yet endlessly intricate part of Earth's biodiversity. Archer was a professional, and he treated me as though I were one also. He gave me self-confidence. He taught me how to talk the talk of a real research scientist. He didn't care about wealth or fame; he cared about the classification and biology of spiders.
３月３日に "walk the talk" を取り上げたばかりですが、その時の "walk the talk" の印象からすると "talk the talk" は「口先ばかり達者」を直ぐに連想してしまいますが、上記の "talk the talk" の意味はその様な皮肉な意味では無いようです。辞書で確認します。
・Oxford English Dictionary: Speak fluently or convincingly about something or in a way intended to please or impress others.: They talked the talk but when it came to the moment of truth they couldn't walk the walk.

・Collins Dictionary: to speak convincingly on a particular subject, showing apparent mastery of its jargon and themes; often used in combination with the expression walk the walk
この様な意味だと政治家が言う「説明責任を果たす」を連想しますが、長く政治家をやっている人の説明は、やはり私には口達者の印象しかありませんね。

closest call

Edward O. Wilsonの "The Creation" を読んでいます。
The most spectacular example is the black robin of the Chatham Islands, an archipelago east of New Zealand. By 1980 rats and feral cats introduced by settlers had had reduced the once abundant robins to just one breeding pair. Kept in caaptivity, "Old Yellow" mated and reared young, and their descendants have now been used to repopulate some of the original habitat on two of the islands. That was the closest call in conservation history.
"closest call" ですが、辞書で "close call" の説明を探します。
・Oxford English Dictionary: A narrow escape from danger or disaster.: the team had a close call in the preliminary group games

・Collins Dictionary: another expression for close shave

・Cambridge English Dictionary: a situation in which something bad, unpleasant, or dangerous almost happens, but you manage to avoid it: It was a close call for residents when a tornado swept through just west of the town.
なるほど、危機一髪でなんとか絶滅を逃れたのですね。

divided leaves

Edward O. Wilsonの "The Creation" を読んでいます。
Subjects in choice tests prefer their havitation to be a retreat, with a wall, cliff, or something else solid to the rear. They want a view of fruitful terrain in front of the retreat. They like large animals scattered thereabout, either wild or domestic. Finally, they favor trees with low horizontal branches and divided leaves. It is probably not a coincidence that some poople, I among them, consider the Japanese maple the world's most beautiful tree.
" divided leaves" の表現は初めて見ますが、その後に続く文に日本のもみじが一番美しい木だとあるので、もみじの葉のような形状の葉を示している事が分かります。辞書の "divided" の項に次の説明があります。
・Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary: of a leaf: cut into distinct parts by incisions extending to the base or to the midrib

・Collins Dictionary: botany another word for dissected
dissected: in the form of narrow lobes or segments: dissected leaves

・American Heritage Dictionary: Botany Having indentations extending to the midrib or base and forming distinct lobes: divided leaves.
"dissected leaves" とも言うのですね。

irrupt

Edward O. Wilsonの "The Creation" を読んでいます。
Around 1518, a plague of ants irrupted at the fledgling Spanish colony on Hispaniola. The event waqs witnessed by Fray Bartolome de Las Casas, exacting chronicler of Columbian America ("who promises before the divine work that everything said and reffered to is the truth") and defender of the Caribbean Indians
"irrupted" は文脈からすると「大発生した」の意味だと推測できますが、辞書で確認します。
・Oxford English Dictionary: (of a bird or other animal) migrate into an area in abnormally large numbers.：But climate change, restoration, biotechnology, and irrupting species have forced ecologists to consider what was, in order to imagine what ought to be.

・Collins Dictionary: (of a plant or animal population) to enter a region suddenly and in very large numbers
最近のニュースにもアフリカでバッタが大発生している事が報じられていましたね。

Second Coming

昆虫学者 Edward O. Wilsonの "The Creation" を読み始めました。
I am puzzled that so many religious leaders, who spiritually represent a large majority of people around the world, have hesitated to make protection of the Creation an important part of their magisterium. Do they believe that human-centered ethics and preparation for the afterlife are the only things that matter? Even more perplexing is the widespread conviction among Christians that the Second Coming is imminent, and that therefore the condition of the planet is of little consequence.
キリスト教信者の言う "Second Coming" とはキリストの再臨と推測できますが、英語でこの様な表現とは知らなかったので辞書で確認します。
・Oxford English Dictionary: The prophesied return of Christ to earth at the Last Judgment.: The Second Coming of Christ is largely a neglected subject in many churches.

・Collins Dictionary: When Christians refer to the second coming, they mean the expected return to Earth of Jesus Christ.

・Cambridge English Dictionary: the return of Jesus Christ to earth from heaven that Christians expect will happen one day

strike me pink

C.S. Lewis の小説 The Magician's Nephew を読んでいます。
"Good old Strawberry," said Polly. "I am glad he was one of the ones picked out to be a Talking Beast." And the Cabby, who was now standing beside the children, said, "Strike me pink. I always did say that 'oss 'ad a lot of sense, though."

"Strike me pink" とは一体何でしょうか？　辞書で調べます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: informal, dated British: Used to express astonishment or indignation: Every day I try to beat everyone else but, strike me pink, the number of times I was slowed down by some commuter bike getting in my way!

・Wiktionary: (dated) an exclamation of surprise: Why, strike me pink, I'd sooner drink
こういう古い言葉でもイギリスの子供達は分かるのでしょうね。
ところで、"'oss 'ad" はCabbyの訛りのある発音を表記しているので、これまでの表記から "horse had" を意味していると推測できます。

Valentine's Day

Reader's Digest 2月号の記事 'Laughter' からの引用です。
One morning, Emma woke up with a start. Her husband, Jim asked what the matter was.
"I had a dream that you gave me a pearl necklace for Valentine's Day," she said. "What could it mean?"
"You'll know tonight," Jim said shyly.
That evening, Jim came home with a small package for his wife. Emma ripped open the wrapping paper, tore into the box, and pulled out her gift--a book entitled The Meaning of Dreams.