bedevile

Mario Livio著　"Brilliant Blunders" を読んでいます。


By introducing general relativity, Einstein dazzlingly solved the problem of the faster-than-light propagation of the force of gravity--the predicament that bedeviled Newton's theory. In general relativity, the speed of transmission boils down to how fast ripples in the fabric of space-time can travel from one point to another. Einstein showed that such warps and swells--the geometrical manifestation of gravity--travel precisely at the speed of light.

"bedevil" の意味を辞書で見ます。

・Oxford English Dictionary: (of something bad) cause great and continual trouble to.: ‘inconsistencies that bedevil modern English spelling’

・Collins Dictionary: If you are bedevilled by something unpleasant, it causes you a lot of problems over a period of time.: His career was bedevilled by injury.

・Cambridge English Dictionary: to confuse, annoy, or cause problems or difficulties for someone or something: Ever since I started playing tennis, I've been bedevilled by back pains.

例文を読むと、長い間悩ます問題の様ですね。

smoking gun

Mario Livio著　"Brilliant Blunders" を読んでいます。

My immediate reaction was that the text of Smart's letter was entirely innocent, and it certainly did not suggest any intent of extra editing or censorship. But while I was fairly convinced of the correctness of this nonconspiratorial interpretation of Smart's letter, the two main mysteries--who translated the paper and who deleted the paragraphs--remained unresolved. In an attempt to answer these questions definitely, I decided to explore the matter further by scrutinizing all of the council's minutes and the entire surviving correspondence from 1931 at the Royal Astronomical Society Library in London. After going through many hundreds of irrelevant documents and almost giving up, I discovered two "smoking guns."

"smoking guns" この表現を実際の文章で見るのは初めてだと思いますが、意味は、煙の出ている銃を持っている、つまり銃の保持者は銃を使った動かぬ証拠。　辞書で "smoking guns" の説明を見ます。

・Oxford English Dictionary: A piece of incontrovertible incriminating evidence.: Yes, I think ultimately the White House is going to have to show some concrete evidence, a smoking gun.
・Collins Dictionary: A smoking gun is a piece of evidence that proves that something is true or that someone is responsible for a crime.: The search for other kinds of evidence tying him to trafficking has not produced a smoking gun.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: information that proves who committed a crime: The tape recordings provided prosecutors with the smoking gun they needed to prove he'd been involved in the conspiracy.

cognitive dissonance

Mario Livio著　"Brilliant Blunders" を読んでいます。

At a somewhat deeper stratum, Kelvin's blunder probably stemmed from a well-recognized psychological trait: The more committed we are to a certain opinion, the less likely we are to relinquish it, even if confronted with massive contradictory evidence. (Does the phrase "weapons of mass destruction" ring a bell?) The theory of cognitive dissonance, originally developed by psychologist Leon Festinger, deals precisely with those feelings of discoumfort that people experience when presented with information that is inconsistent with their beliefs. Multiple studies show that to relieve cognitive dissonance, in many cases, instead of acknowledging an error in judgement, people tend to reformulate their views in a new way that justifies their old opinions.

辞書での "cognitive dissonance" の説明を見ます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: Psychology; The state of having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes, especially as relating to behavioral decisions and attitude change.: ‘They often underpin what psychologists call cognitive dissonance - the process of holding two mutually exclusive beliefs without noticing the inherent opposition.’

・Collins Dictionary: an uncomfortable mental state resulting from conflicting cognitions; usually resolved by changing some of the cognitions: First-class rail tickets for dedicated egalitarians are a comic example of cognitive dissonance.

・Merriam-Webster: psychological conflict resulting from incongruous beliefs and attitudes held simultaneously: There’s some real cognitive dissonance going on regarding COVID-19 vaccines.

Merriam-Websterの例文ではコロナ禍での自粛要請の最中にGoToキャンペーンが出たことを思い出しました。世の中には矛盾が多くて分からないことだらけです。戦後に作られた憲法は日本国民の平等、自由をモットーにしていると理解していたのですが、のっけから第一条で、特別な権利を持ち、一般の日本人が有している権利は持っていない人間の定義になっているのが私にとっては "cognitive dissonance" であり理解しがたい憲法です。

speciation

Mario Livio著　"Brilliant Blunders" を読み始めました。副題は 'From Darwin to Einstein--Colossal Mistakes by Great Scientists That Changen Our Uderstanding of Life and the Universe' となっています。 最初に 'The Origin' の章から引用します。

Many of these species become extinct, just like the dead and broken branches of a tree. However, since at each splitting the number of offspring species from a given ancestor doubles, the number of different species can increase dramatically. When does speciation actually occur? According to modern thinking, mainly when a group of members of a particular species become geographically separated. For instance, one group may wander to the rainy side of a mountain range, while the rest of the species stays on the dry slope.

今日はここに出てきた　"speciation" を覚えたいと思います。

・Oxford English Dictionary: The formation of new and distinct species in the course of evolution.: ‘Many of us think of evolution as speciation, but populations of insects evolved resistance without budding into new species.’

・Collins Dictionary: the evolutionary development of a biological species, as by geographical isolation of a group of individuals from the main stock

・Vocabulary.com: Speciation is the process, through evolution, that produces a new species of animal.
Reproduction creates new offspring of a species, but speciation is even more creative: it results in a species that never existed before. Biologists study speciation, often through looking at fossils and other evidence, to see exactly when and where a new species developed. Speciation is a major part of evolution, which is one theory about how life grows, develops, and changes throughout time.


"speciation" の基は "species" ですね。

speakeasy

The Japan Times Sept.12の記事からの引用です。

Behind the ‘closed’ doors of Tokyo’s bars, alcohol is still flowing
A pervasive but hushed rebellion is happening across the city. Whether they accepted subsidies or not, bars operating as semi-secret COVID-era speakeasies are everywhere.

コロナで自粛あるいは禁止されているにもかかわらず内緒ではびこっているのも "speakeasies" なのですね。さて、辞書で確認します。

・Oxford English Dictionary: (during Prohibition) an illicit liquor store or nightclub.: Speakeasies flourished and bootleg liquor flowed freely in many municipalities.

・Collins Dictionary: A speakeasy was a place where people could buy alcoholic drinks illegally in the United States between 1920 and 1933, when alcohol was forbidden.

・Cambridge English Dictionary: a place where alcohol was illegally sold and drunk in the US in the 1920s and 1930s: In major cities, speakeasies could often be elaborate, offering food, live bands, and floor shows.

なるほで、アルカポネの時代に出来た言葉ですね。余り大きな声で話せないからでしょう。

houndstooth

Reader's　Digest 7/8月合併号の単語クイズ "Word Power" はファッションと衣服に関係する単語の特集でした。

私には余り関心のない分野なので私は15問中たったの8問しか分かりませんでしたが、一つだけ覚えたいと思った単語がありました。　それは　"" で、答えは "checked pattern" でした。例文は "Should I go with the houndstooth or the classic plaid for my new golf pants? Mona asked.

・Oxford English Dictionary: A large checked pattern with notched corners suggestive of a canine tooth, typically used in cloth for jackets and suits.: as modifier ‘a houndstooth jacket’

・Wikipedia: Houndstooth, hounds tooth check or hound's tooth (and similar spellings), also known as dogstooth, dogtooth, dog's tooth, or pied-de-poule, is a duotone textile pattern characterized by broken checks or abstract four-pointed shapes, often in black and white, although other colours are used.

百聞は一見にしかず、なので写真を貼り付けます。

the bends

Reader's　Digest 7/8月合併号の記事 "Leaving His Fiancee To" からの引用です。

It's called saturation diving because at the intense pressures found in the deep sea, gas that a diver breaths saturates the body. When the diver surfaces and the pressure drops, this gas can emerge as deadly bubbles in the blood and tissues, causing decompression sickness, or the bends. SAT divers reduce this risk by living full-time in a pressurized chamber in the dive ship.

文脈からして "the bends" はいわゆる潜水病のようですが、辞書で確認します。

・Oxford English Dictionary: Decompression sickness, especially in divers.: The disease suffered by divers known as the bends (decompression sickness) is an example of the same phenomenon.

・Collins Dictionary: (functioning as singular or plural) a nontechnical name for decompression sickness; the severe pain in the limbs, joints, and abdomen during decompression sickness, preceded by the

・Cambridge English Dictionary: a serious medical condition that divers (= people who swim underwater) get when they come up to the surface of the water too quickly

この意味の場合は必ず 'the' が付き 'bends' と複数形で使われるとありますね。

bolt gun

Reader's　Digest 7/8月合併号の記事 "The Snake Charmers" からの引用です。
フロリダで外来種の蛇、"python" を駆除している女性の話です。

When hunters working for the wildlife commission catch pythons, they take them to a state laboratory in Davie. Some pythones are killed with a bolt gun and dissected for examination. Some are injected with a microchip for tracking and turned loose so they will lead the hunters and researchers to other snakes.

"bolt gun" は蛇を殺すための何か特殊な銃かと思い調べると、"bolt gun" は他にも名称が幾つかあり、Wikipediaには "captive bolt pistol" の項目があり、次の説明（抜粋）がありました。


・Wikipedia: A captive bolt (also variously known as a cattle gun, stunbolt gun, bolt gun, or stunner) is a device used for stunning animals prior to slaughter.
...
The captive bolt pistol was invented in 1903 by Dr. Hugo Heiss, former director of a slaughterhouse in Straubing, Germany.

一般の英英辞書ではMerriam-Websterだけに "captive bolt" の説明があるのを見つけました。

・Merriam-Webster: a gunlike instrument used in slaughtering animals that projects an attached plunger from the barrel.

用の銃があるのですね。

troll

Naoki Matayoshiの 'spark' を読んでいます。
I was nervous continuing this line of talk. I'd been trolled lately--something other comedians told me was par for the course--and I wanted Kamiya to blow it all off for me, make me feel better. But he wasn't doing that, seemed to be holding back. Could I take what he had to say?

"troll" は以前（3/17/2017）リーダーズダイジェストで初めて知った単語です。 なので復習です。

・Oxford English Dictionary: Make a deliberately offensive or provocative online post with the aim of upsetting someone or eliciting an angry response from them.: If people are obviously trolling then I'll delete your posts and do my best to ban you.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: to leave an insulting message on the internet in order to annoy someone: He's already getting trolled on social media for his comments after the game.

play up to

Naoki Matayoshiの 'spark' を読んでいます。

Until now I never seriously considered the possibility of people being prejudiced agaist Kamiya for hanging out with someone as boring and troublesome as me, and calling him a hypocrite for it. I thought Kamiya and I were the same--incapable of playing up to others--but that wasn't so.

Phrasal Verbとしての "play up" で幾つかの異なる用法が出ていましたが、上記の文脈にピッタリする意味では使われていませんでした。 "play up to" で調べなおすとありました。

・Collins Dictionary: to try to please by flattery, etc.: We have to play up to Schrader if we're going to have any chance of getting invited to his party tomorrow night, you know that.

・Macmillan Dictionary: to behave in a very friendly or polite way to someone because you want them to like you or to do something for you: He took great pains to play up to Joan’s mother.
・Farlex Dictionary of Idioms: To try to win the favor of one, especially in order to gain an advantage.: John's been playing up to the boss so he'll be considered for the promotion.