grit

Reader's Digest 10月号の記事 'The Nicest Place in America' からの引用です。

Salcedo's father was a member of the Pueblo tribe; his mother, a Yagui. His Coulterville neghbors remind him of the tireless men and women who worked alongside his parents in the California vineyards. "The grit of these people--they're survivors," says Salcedo.

"grit" は以前取り上げていると思ったのですが、記録が無いので今回取り上げます。

・Oxford English Dictionary: the courage and strength of mind that makes it possible for somebody to continue doing something difficult or unpleasant: It takes sheer grit to stand up to a bully like that.
・Collins Dictionary: If someone has grit, they have the determination and courage to continue doing something even though it is very difficult.
You've got to admire her grit.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: courage and determination despite difficulty: It takes true (= real) grit to stand up to a bully.

"grit" は砂粒そして歯を食いしばる意味があるので、それで上記の意味にもなったのでしょうね。

bycatch

Reader's Digest 10月号の記事 'The Healthy Wellness from thehealthy.com' からの引用です。
Source sustainable seafood
"The most environmentally friendly seafood choices would likely be those that are wild-caught with a line-and-pole method--meaning only one fish is caught at a time,"　Hunnes says. "Industrial fishing methods are abhorrent when it comes to sustainability, as they pull up all types of bycatch."
What's bycatch? Hunnes explains that these are "unintended species that end up dead when they're thrown back into the ocean."

"bycatch" の意味は文中にありますが、一応辞書の説明も見ます。

・Vocabulary.com: unwanted marine creatures that are caught in the nets while fishing for another species: The tricky part with this fishing method is that there is often considerable bycatch—unintended species, also trapped inside the pouch, who perish in the harvesting process.

a hero and a sub

Reader's Digest 10月号の記事 'Life In These United States' からの引用です。

Scanning the diner's menu, I noticed that the offerings included both a hero and a sub.
"What's the difference?" I asked my waitress.
"I don't know. I'll find out." She walked into the kitchen and returned a minute later. "They're both exactly the same."
"OK, I'll have one."
Grabbing her pad and pencil, she asked, "Which one do you want?"

私は "hero" は中に挟む具材の種類が最も多いのかと思っていました。 どっちも同じなら、何故メニューに両方の名前で載せているのでしょうか？　"hero" を辞書で見ます。

・Oxford English Dictionary: (also submarine, submarine sandwich, sub (all North American English)) a long bread roll split open along its length and filled with various types of food
・Collins Dictionary: a large sandwich, usually consisting of a small loaf of bread or long roll cut in half lengthwise and containing a variety of ingredients, as meat, cheese, lettuce, and tomatoes
USAGE
The terms hero sandwich and hero, once largely associated with the New York City and Northern New Jersey area, are now too widely spread to warrant a specific regional label. This same sandwich is also called a submarine or a sub, esp. in the Northeastern and North Midland U.S., although this use has spread south along the Atlantic coast and as far west as Los Angeles. torpedo, though less common, has also spread to various regions. The sandwich is called a grinder, chiefly in New England and the Inland North, though this use has spread to the South and West. spuky is restricted to the Boston area, while wedge is a common synonym in Rhode Island and coastal Connecticut. hoagy (or hoagie) is used chiefly in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, esp. Philadelphia, though it too has spread to other regions. poor boy is chiefly New Orleans use, originally referring to a somewhat different sandwich in which distinct sections of fillings represented the courses of a meal. cuban sandwich, usually referring to a grilled sandwich with ham, pork, cheese, etc., is chiefly used in Southern Florida as well as the New York City area
米国の各地によって色々な名称が使われているのですね。

breadcrumb

ある米国の電子機器メーカーのカタログに書かれていた宣伝文句です。

The PRS-330 utilizes a large state-of-the-art color capacitive touchscreen which provides super fast response time. Even in low or bright light conditions the display provides exceptional clarity with large fonts and easy-to-read menus.
Breadcrumbs always let you know where you are in the menu system.

機器の画面にパンくずが出てくるのは解せません。"Breadcrumbs" が分からないので辞書を見ました。

・Oxford English Dictionary: (also breadcrumb trail [countable]) a series of links displayed at the top of a web page, indicating the path to that page: Breadcrumbs are usually located at the top left of the page.
・Wiktionary: (graphical user interface, chiefly in the plural) A single link in a chain indicating the hierarchical location of a directory, web page or similar, used as a navigation aid.
・Dictionary.com: Usually breadcrumbs. Also called breadcrumb trail .Digital Technology. a sequence of text links on the current page of a website or web-based application, usually at the top, showing the page's location within a hierarchy of content or browsing history and providing a convenient navigational tool: Online shoppers can use breadcrumbs to see other products in the same category.

あの表示の事ですか、英語にはそれを示す単語があるのですね。　"breadcrumbs" を特に一つの単語で示す日本語を思い浮かばない。

Red Herring

Yuval Noah Harariの "21 Lessons for the 21st Century" を読んでいます。　世の中変わったなと感じるのは、PCやスマホでインターネットにアクセスし情報のやり取りがいとも簡単にできるようになったことが一番ですね。 Lesson 19(Education)から引用します。

If you live in some provincial Mexican town and you have a smartphone, you can spend many lifetimes just reading Wikipedia, watching TED talks and taking free online courses. No government can hope to conceal all the information it doesn't like. On the other hand, it is alarmingly easy to inundate the public with conflicting reports and red herring. People will all over the world are but a click away from the latest accounts of the bombardment of Aleppo or of melting ice caps in the Arctic, but there are so many contradictory accounts that it is hard to know what to believe. Besides, countless other things are just a click away, making it difficult to focus, and when politics or science look too complicated it is tempting to switch to some funny cat videos, celebrity gossip or porn.

スマホは画面が小さいので私は最低限しか利用していません。PC派です。いずれにせよ、FakeニュースやSPAM、詐欺に違いない情報も非常に増えているのが厄介な問題ですが。

browbeat

Yuval Noah Harariの "21 Lessons for the 21st Century" を読んでいます。
Lesson 18(Science Fiction)から引用します。

As we follow these personified biochemical mechanisms into the depths of Riley’s brain, we never encounter a soul, an authentic self, or a free will.
Indeed, the moment of revelation on which the entire plot hinges happens not when Riley discovers her single authentic self, but rather when it becomes evident that Riley cannot be identified with any single core, and that her well-being depends on the interaction of many different mechanisms.
At first, viewers are led to identify Riley with the lead character - the yellow cheerful joy. Yet eventually it turns out that this was the critical mistake that threatened to ruin Riley's life. By thinking that she alone is the authentic essence of Riley, Joy browbeats all the other inner characters, thereby disrupting the delicate equilibrium of Riley's brain.

"browbeat" は顔で脅している感じですが、辞書を見ます。

・Collins Dictionary: If someone tries to browbeat you, they try to force you to do what they want.: ...attempts to deceive, con, or browbeat the voters.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: to try to force someone to do something by threatening them or persuading them forcefully and unfairly: Don't be browbeaten into working more hours than you want.
・Vocabulary.com: To browbeat is to intimidate with language. Picture yourself in a police station. The cops are trying to get you to talk by using tough, even abusive, language. They are browbeating you.
When someone browbeats you, they're giving you a beating with their mouth and their mind. If your parents have to browbeat you into cleaning your room, they nag you, yell at you and they may even make fun of you and your bad cleaning habits. While the word brow means forehead, think that they're using their head, or brow, to beat you down. It's a figurative, rather than a literal, beating.

物理的な力ではなく、態度や言葉で脅かすのが "browbeat" ですね。

branding

今日から仕事始めです。
さて、Yuval Noah Harariの "21 Lessons for the 21st Century" を読んでいます。
Lesson 17(Post-Truth)から引用します。

Branding often involves retelling the same fictional story again and again, until people become convinced it is the truth. What images come to mind when you think about Coca-Cola? Do you think about young healty people engaging in sports and having fun together? Or do you think about overweight diabetes patients lying in a hospital bed? Drinking lots of Coca-Cola will not make you athletic - rather, it increases your chances of suffering from obesity and diabetes. Yet for decades Coca-Cola has invested billions of dollars in linking itself to youth, health and sports - and billions of humans subconsciously believe in this linkage.
The truth is that truth was never high on the agenda of Homo sapiens.

"brand" は元々烙印から来て、良い意味にも悪い意味にも使われ、引用文にあるように、創り話も何度も繰り返されると真実の様に人は信じてしまうのですね。　私はいわゆるブランド商品なる物に全く興味はありませんが。
・Oxford English Dictionary: brand somebody/something (as) something to describe somebody/something as being something bad or unpleasant, especially unfairly:
They were branded as liars and cheats.
The newspapers branded her a hypocrite.
Her parents had long since branded her a failure.
・Collins Dictionary: The branding of a product is the presentation of it to the public in a way that makes it easy for people to recognize or identify.: Local companies build the theme parks, while we look after the branding.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: the act of making a product, organization, person, or place easy to recognize as different from others by connecting it with a particular name, design, symbol, set of qualities, etc.: The successful branding and marketing of the new beer has already boosted sales.

引用文の最後にある "The truth is that truth was never high on the agenda of Homo sapiens." は皮肉たっぷりですが、やはり本当の事なんでしょうね。

redound to

昨日のラグビー大学選手権決勝は帝京大学の圧勝でした。早稲田の頑張りも序盤だけ、後はやられっぱなし。試合としては面白くありませんでした。
さて、Yuval Noah Harariの "21 Lessons for the 21st Century" を読んでいます。
Lesson 17(Post-Truth)から引用します。

Trumped-up stories of 'ritual murders' of Christian boys by Jewish communities were common throughout Europe during the Middle Ages and even much later. These fictions cost many innocent Jews their lives. Lincoln had its own legend and the alleged victim was buried in the Cathedral in the year 1255. Such stories do not redound to the credit of Christendom.

"redound" を辞書で見たら、Oxford English DictionaryではPhrasal Verbの "redound to" を見ろとありました。

・Oxford English Dictionary: to improve the impression that people have of you: Their defeat redounds to the glory of those whom they attacked.
・Collins Dictionary: If an action or situation redounds to your benefit or advantage, it gives people a good impression of you or brings you something that can improve your situation.: The success in the Middle East redounds to his benefit.
・Vocabulary.com: Use the verb redound in formal situations to mean "contribute" or "have an effect." You could tell your friend that his patience with unruly children will redound to his reputation as a good school bus driver.
Redound shows up only in the most formal speech and writing, but it's a good way to describe an effect on someone's good name or prestige. Your travels around Asia will redound to your fame as an adventurous traveler, while your unwillingness to talk to your neighbors could redound to your unfriendly reputation. Originally, redound described something that overflows which is the meaning of the Latin root word, redundare.

equating religion with fake news

ウクライナから完全に撤退するのでもないのに一時停戦など図々しく欺瞞に満ちたロシアの提案、本当に気の毒なウクライナの国民。
昨日は高校生のラグビー決勝をテレビで見ました。準決勝と同じく、東福岡の圧勝でしたね。来週は大学の決勝戦、楽しみにしています。
さて、Yuval Noah Harariの "21 Lessons for the 21st Century" を読んでいます。
今日取り上げるのも単語でも慣用句でもありません。私が特に共感する個所の一つです。　Lesson 17(Post-Truth)から引用します。

I am aware that many people might be upset by my equating religion with fake news, but that's exactly the point. When a thousand people believe some made-up story for one month - that's fake news. When a billion people believe it for a thousand years - that's a religion, and we are admonished not to cal it 'fake news' in order not to hurt the feelings of the faithful (or incur their wrath). Note, however, that I am not denying the effectiveness or potential benevolence of religion. Just the opposite. For better or worse, fiction is among the most effective tools in humanity's toolkit. By bringing people together, religious creeds make large scale human cooperation possible.

引用文の最後を読むと、最近の統一教会の問題でも分かるように、多くの政治家が宗教を利用する理由が良く理解できます。

sectarian dress code

Yuval Noah Harariの "21 Lessons for the 21st Century" を読んでいます。
Lesson 14 (Secularism)から引用します。

In contrast, there is no expectation that religious people should deny God or abandon traditional rites and rituals. The secular world judges people on the basis of their behaviour rather than of their favourite clothes and ceremonies. A person can follow the most bizarre sectarian dress code and practise the stranger of religious ceremonies, yet act out of a deep commitment to the core secular values.

イスラム教など厳格なドレスコードがあるのはよく知られています。 辞書で "sectarian" の説明を見ます。

・Oxford English Dictionary: connected with the differences that exist between groups of people who have different religious views: sectarian attacks/violence
・Collins Dictionary: narrow-minded, esp as a result of rigid adherence to a particular sect: Other members of the crowd appealed for reforms that could appeal across the sectarian divide.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: a person who very strongly supports the religious or political group that they are a member of, in a way that may cause problems with people from other groups: We have to stand up for the moderates against the extremists and the sectarians.

今の日本の学校でも未だに厳しい服装の規定がある学校があるそうですが、それなども "sectarian dress code" と言えるでしょう。