bipolar kids

John J. Rateyの "SPARK" を読むことにしました。副題に "The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain" と書かれているので運動が脳に与える影響について書かれた本だと分かります。まずはIntroductionの章からの抜粋です。

Other fragments of the story I'm presenting bubble to the surface, only to sink back down. ABC World News reports that exercise might stave off Alzheimer's disease in rats; CNN flashes stats on the ever-expanding obesity crisis; the New York Times investigates the practice of treating bipolar kids with costly drugs that are only marginally effective yet carry horrendous side effects.

"bipolar kids" このでの "bipolar" とはどんな意味でしょう？　辞書を見ます。

・Oxford English Dictionary: (of psychiatric illness) characterized by both manic and depressive episodes, or manic ones only; (of a person) affected by bipolar disorder.: Alcoholism among bipolar women, however, did not stem from family lineage.

・Collins Dictionary: Bipolar means relating to bipolar disorder.: She is receiving treatment for a bipolar condition.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: (bipolar disorder)a mental health condition that affects someone's moods, so that they can sometimes feel very depressed (= sad and without hope or energy) and at other times very excited and energetic:

いわゆる躁鬱病ですね。

halvsies

Banana Yoshimotoの小説 "The Lake " を読んでいます。

After a long pause, he continued. "I think it'd be great if we could share an apartment, and meals. Since this is my idea, we don't even have to go halvsies. I'll cover what you can't."
"Halvsies. I haven't heard that word in a while," I said, changing the topic for a moment. Then, "I have the money my mom left me, so I think I could probably afford it. I'm sure my dad would help out, too."

"halvsies" の意味は折半あるいは割り勘であることは文脈から推測できます。一応辞書で確認しようと辞書を見ましたが "halvsies" を項目にあげているのは俗語辞典のUrban Dictionaryしか見つかりませんでした。

・Urban Dictionary: Half of something. Giving half of something as in "going halvsies.": The cover charge was $20, and he wasn't earning much money at his job, so I agreed to go halvsies with him.

いろいろと辞書を見ているとhalfの複数形がhalvesで、halfiesはそれと同じ意味と説明している辞書もありましたが、いずれにせよ、"halvsies" は余り使われない俗語ですね。上記引用文の中でも "I haven't heard that word in a while" とあります。しかし、折半も割り勘も通常の使われる日本語なので、元の小説ではどんな言葉が使われていたのか気になったので、日本語版の「みずうみ」を借りて調べることにしました。

該当箇所(I think以降)の原文は次の様になっていました。

「部屋も、食事も、ふたりでシェアしたほうがきっといいよ。君が出せない分は、言い出しっぺの僕がカバーできると思う。」
中島くんは言った。
「ああ、言い出しっぺって言う言葉を、久しぶりに聞いた。」

"halvsies" に対応する言葉は「シェア」で、久しぶりに聞いた表現は「言い出しっぺっ」でした。翻訳者（Michael Emmerich氏）の苦労が分かります。

wire rack

Banana Yoshimotoの小説 "The Lake " を読んでいます。
He had something tucked under his armpit. A hard-looking silver rectangle.
It was such a bizarre sight that at first I couldn't for the life of me tell what it was. Actually, that's not quite right. Maybe I did know what it was, and my brain just refused to accept it. Because it seemed to completely out of place, so surreal.
It was an old wire rack for toasting mochi.
A chill ran down my spine. It didn't make sense,
...
"There's no particular reason I chose the rack," Nakajima said, evidently sensing from my expression that I was wondering what it had to do with his mom. "I just held on to it because it's something she always liked, and she took good care of it. And it's thin, so I can keep it between the pages of a book.

"wire rack" は後に "for toasting mochi" とあるので、日本人なら餅焼きの金網を指していると分かりますが、"mochi"（餅）を知らない英米人がこの "wire rack" で餅焼きの金網を連想できるのでしょうか？
"rack" と言えば電子機器を搭載する棚を連想しますが、英英辞書を見ても普通の辞書には金網を連想できるような意味は出ていません。しかし、多くの辞書を調べると、次の辞書にそれらしき意味が "rack" にある事が分かりました。


・Collins Dictionary: a framework, grating, case, stand, etc. for holding or displaying various things
clothes rack, dish rack, pipe rack, bomb rack
・Macmillan Dictionary: a metal shelf in an oven on which food is placed while it cooks
・Wiktionary: A grate on which bacon is laid.
それにしても著者の吉本ばななは餅焼きの金網を脇の下に挟む癖がある男を連想するなんて、私には理解に苦しみます。

take stock

Banana Yoshimotoの小説 "The Lake " を読んでいます。

When I was young, I used to turn and look back at my mother's face to make sure I knew where I was in relation to her; now, I had to take stock of my situation by myself. Sure, I could see myself through Nakajima, but the second I glanced away I lost it. Parents are absolute; he wasn't.

"take stock" も以前（7/6/2018）に取り上げていましたが、意味を忘れたので復習です。

・Oxford English Dictionary: Review or make an overall assessment of a particular situation, typically as a prelude to making a decision.: He needed a period of peace and quiet in order to take stock of his life.

・Collins Dictionary: If you take stock, you pause to think about all the aspects of a situation or event before deciding what to do next.

・Cambridge English Dictionary: To take stock (of something) is to think carefully about a situation or event and form an opinion about it, so that you can decide what to do: After two years spent teaching overseas, she returned home for a month to take stock of her life.

例文に自分の人生、生活を顧みることが示されていますが、平均余命が１１年程になった私もそろそろ "It is time to take stock of my life." かな。

having a ball

Banana Yoshimotoの小説 "The Lake" を読み始めました。彼女の作品を読むのは、以前 "Kitchen" を読んだので、これで2作目です。

One night, a business associate invited my dad out drinking and took him to my mom's club. My dad fell for my mom the moment he set eyes on her. She had a good feeling about him too. When it came time to close up shop, they went to a Korean restaurant and ordered all sorts of dishes, laughing like crazy and having a ball, sharing their food like old freinds.

"having a ball" この表現は6/12/2012に取り上げていました。語源はOxford English Dictionaryに次の説明があります。

Early 17th century from French bal ‘a dance’, from late Latin ballare ‘to dance’; related to Greek ballizein ‘to dance’ (also ballein ‘to throw’).
ダンスに余り興味の無い私としては "ball" は球技の "ball" を連想した方が納得できるので勝手な解釈ですが
"having a ball" でラグビーやテニス、卓球で楽しむことを連想します。もっとも、今楽しんでいる球技はテニスと卓球だけで、ラグビーは３０年前に卒業し、今はもっぱらテレビでの観戦だけですが。

TMI

Nicholas Epley著　"Mindwise" を読んでいます。
Nobody would want a world in which every half-baked or self-indulgent thought was put on public display. TMI, indeed. But pulling back the curtain and opening up a bit more often, when your own perspective matters and when that perspective is wanted, benefits both those who give their perspective as well as those who are willing to use it.

略語の "TMI" が分かりません。辞書を見ます。

・Oxford English Dictionary: Too much information (used to indicate that someone has revealed personal information of an embarrassing nature): ‘each cough was having a rather disastrous effect on my bladder (sorry, TMI!)’

・Merriam-Webster Dictionary: too much information: Avoid offering up TMI. Find out what prompted your kid's query and what she thinks you'll say. Then answer only the question asked. —used especially to suggest that someone has revealed personal information that would better be kept private

オリンピックの間、ラグビー（７人制を含め）の試合を幾つも見て、その時にビデオ判定のTMOの表示が何度も出てきたので、TMIでTMOを連想してしまいました。TMOはTelevison Match Officialの略で、ラグビーでのビデオ判定を意味しています。
What is the TMO in the Six Nations and is it the same as VAR?
Brought in way back in 2001 in its most basic form, the TMO has been designed to help aid rugby referees in their decision making.
サッカーでのビデオ判定はTMOではなく、VARと言うのですね。Video Assistant Refereeの略です。
又、テニスではビデオ判定の要求はチャレンジと言ってますね。
In 2008, rules for player challenges using Hawk-Eye technology became uniform throughout professional tennis.
スポーツによってビデオ判定のシステムが違うのですね。

disservice

Nicholas Epley著　"Mindwise" を読んでいます。

The most central claims of the gender difference crowd are so perfectly consistent with our stereotypes about men and women that their conclusions hardly seem surprising. In The Essential Difference, neuroscientist Simon Baron-Cohen argues that the most important gender difference is that woment tend to have better social senses--are better able to empathize with others, to recognize others' emotions, and to read the minds of others--than men do. Baron-Cohen, in contrast to other writers on this topic, makes a point of highlighting the large degree of similarity between men and women even on this apparently essential difference, advising us to be "careful not to overstate what can be concluded." Unfortunately, his book's title, which almomst necessarily simplifies complicated matters, does that caveat a disservice.

最後の文に出てきた "caveat" と "disservice" はかなり前（それぞれ9/3/2014 と4/16/2012）に取り上げた単語なので復習です。

"caveat" :
・Oxford English Dictionary: A warning or proviso of specific stipulations, conditions, or limitations.: There are a number of caveats which concern the validity of the assessment results.

・Collins Dictionary: A caveat is a warning of a specific limitation of something such as information or an agreement.: [formal] I've given it to them, but with the caveat that it didn't work.

・Cambridge English Dictionary: a warning to consider something before taking any more action, or a statement that limits a more general statement: He agreed to the interview, with the caveat that he could approve the final article.

"disservice":
・Oxford English Dictionary: A harmful action.: You have done a disservice to the African people by ignoring this fact.

・Collins Dictionary: If you do someone or something a disservice, you harm them in some way.: [formal] He said the protesters were doing a disservice to the nation.

・Cambridge English Dictionary: an action that harms something or someone: She has done a great disservice to her cause by suggesting that violence is justifiable.
"disservice" は次のニュアンスも気に留めた方が良さそうです。
・Vocabulary.com: an act intended to help that turns out badly: And as technology has improved - from elevators to email - we've only done ourselves a greater disservice by becoming more sedentary

out of whack

Nicholas Epley著　"Mindwise" を読んでいます。

Think back to the finding I described in chapter 1, in which we asked our research volunteers to predict how attracive they would be rated by a member of the opposite sex who looked at a photograph of them. Accruracy in such sitations is abysmal, partly because the expertise you have about yourself leads you to evaluate yourself through a much more microscopic lens than others do. You know that your hair is slightly out of place just above your left eye and that your complexion looks worse than normal, or that your smile is slightly out of whack. Indeed, when we asked our volunteers to write down how the evaluator would describe their picture, they included small details and subtle features that only a detailed examination would pick up on.

"out of whack" の "whack" は 4/20/2017 に "whack-a-mole" (whac-a-mole とも綴られる)で取り上げた表現にもありますが、"whack-a-mole" はモグラ叩きなので、 "whack" は強く叩くの意味を持っていると覚えています。"out of whack" ではどんな意味になるのでしょう？

・Oxford English Dictionary: Out of order; not working.: all their calculations were out of whack
・Collins English Dictionary: If something is out of whack, it is not working properly, often because its natural balance has been upset.: The ecosystem will be thrown out of whack.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: not operating correctly or looking right: You can use Carol's old bike - the gears are out of whack, but it still goes.

bilateral symmetry

オリンピックが終わったのでテレビ・録画を見る時間が平常に戻れます。　さて、Nicholas Epley著　"Mindwise" を読み始めました。副題は "Why We Misunderstand What Others Think Believe, Feel, and Want" となっています。

Despite what you've been told, beauty is not really in the eye of the beholder. People around the world, and even one-day-old infants, generally agree about who is hot and who is not. One of the primary determinants of attractiveness is a signal that has proven useful over millennia for finding healthy and fit partners to have babies with. Do you know what it is? Big muscles? Big smiles? Big breasts? Yes, for some, but there's one that's far more consistent around the globe: bilateral symmetry. That is, the degree to which the left and right sides of your body are identical.

"bilateral symmetry" の意味はその後に説明があるので「左右対称」の事だと分かります。
一応辞書の説明も見ます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: The property of being divisible into symmetrical halves on either side of a unique plane.: With few exceptions, animal color patterns show a high degree of bilateral symmetry in shape of pattern elements.
・Collins English Dictionary: the property of an organism or part of an organism such that, if cut in only one plane, the two cut halves are mirror images of each other: Rorschach gave them each bilateral symmetry, reflecting the symmetry of the animal body.

"bilateral symmetry" が美の一つの要因なのは認めますが、左右非対称でも美を感じるのも確かです。美人でも横や斜めから見れば左右対称ではないし、庭園でもフランス式の左右対称の幾何学模様も綺麗ですが、より自然な英国式庭園の方が私は魅力を感じるし、日本庭園も左右対称とは縁がありません。何が美を感じさせるのかは不思議です。

pass someone off as

図書館から借りて読んでいる本が途切れたので Merriam-Webster's Vocabulary Builderを読んでいます。
語幹pater/patrの個所の "patrician" の例文を引用します。


They passed themselves off as patricians, and no one looked too closely at where their money came from.

慣用句らしい "passed themselves off as" の意味が分からなかったので辞書を引きます。

"pass (someone or something) off (as something else)" で次の説明がありました。

・Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary: to cause people to wrongly believe that someone or something is someone or something else: amateurs passing themselves off as professionals

・Farlex Dictionary of Idioms: To pretend someone or something is, or disguise someone or something as, something else.: There are always guys passing cheap watches off as Rolexes in this part of town.