Pink Supermoon

スーパームーンを昨日のブログタイトルで Super-Moon と書きましたが、BBC Newsを見るとApril 8付の記事でスーパームーンはハイフンを使わずに "supermoon" と綴られていました。
記事の抜粋を引用します。
Stargazers across Scotland captured some stunning images of a pink supermoon overnight.
Despite its name, there is not any noticeable colour difference to the full moon.

...
In many cultures, including Native American tribes, people named the full moons throughout the year as a way to keep track of time.

So although April's full moon is known as the Pink Moon, don't expect it to look particularly pink!
It's named after pink flowers called wild ground phlox, which bloom in early spring and appear throughout the United States and Canada.
It is also called the Sprouting Grass Moon, the Egg Moon and the Fish Moon in other parts of the world.
四月の満月を "Pink Moon" というので、８日の満月は "Pink Supermoon" といえるのですね。。

A Ball Like a Super-Moon

昨夜スーパームーンを見ました。気のせいかいつもの月より大きく明るく見えました。
さて、今日は月のように丸い物の話です。Reader's Digest 2月号の記事 'Laughter the Best Medicine' からの引用です。
A nurse noticed a golfer pacing up and down the hallway outside an operating room where another golfer--who had a golf ball lodged in his throat--was being treated.
"Is he your relative?" the nurse asked.
"No," said the golfer. "It's my ball."

IV drip

今日から私が通っているジムもテニス教室も休会となりました。図書館も閉館ですが、オンラインでの予約と本の受け取り、返却はできるので、私には影響ありません。早くコロナ感染が収束することを願っています。
さて、宮部みゆきの小説 "The Sleeping Dragon" を読んでいます。
One evening when I had gone out for a drink with a colleague, I asked after a few beers, what he would do if a UFO came out of the sky and landed and its crew told him that they knew who had committed a major crime that the police were investigating. The answer I got was, "I'd go home and go to bed," followed by, "And if I woke up the next morning and was still pretty sure I'd really seen it, then I'd have myself committed. I'd probably see goldfish swimming in the IV drip, too."
"IV drip" の "IV" を最初はローマン数字の表記と勘違いし、何の事か不思議に思いましたが、"drip" を調べかけて、"intravenous" の略字表記だと気が付きました。

・Oxford English Dictionary: Intravenous or intravenously: they put an IV in me

・Collins Dictionary: An IV or an IV drip is a piece of medical equipment by which a liquid is slowly passed through a tube into a patient's blood: She was muzzled with an oxygen mask and tethered to an IV.

・Cambridge English Dictionary: intravenous: IV drug users

twenty-twenty

英訳された宮部みゆきの小説は江戸川区図書館に5冊あるのですが、これまでに "Devil's Wisper", "Shadow Family", "Crossfire", "All She Was Worth" を読んだので、これから読む "The Sleeping Dragon" が最後になります。
今日取り上げる表現はそのPROLOGUEからです。
This is the record of a battle.
Right off the bat, though, I need to make it clear that I was never on the front line. The heroes were two young men just past adlescence.
One I knew well, and the other I came to know well enough to be sure that he wouldn't mind me telling you what happened. If I had met him sooner, I might have been able to do something to actually stop the chain of events that occurred. But hindsight is always twenty-twenty.
"twenty-twenty" は視力が正常なことを示していて、米国の眼鏡屋で "20/20" を含んだ掲示を見た覚えがあります。

・Oxford English Dictionary: Denoting vision of normal sharpness.: I guess my twenty-twenty eyesight went out with the lights.

・Collins Dictionary: being of normal acuity: usually written 20/20: With twenty-twenty hindsight I realise that I too should have leapt off the chair at that point and no damage would have been done.
・Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary: marked by facilely accurate discernment, judgment, or assessment: hindsight is twenty-twenty
当然の事ながら、判断力、評価力、洞察などは、"hindsight" と一緒に使われれば、優れているのは当たりまえですね。

burpee

Reader's Digest 2月号の記事 'Wake Up Your Brain' からの引用です。
Last spring, I started a new exercise class. As someone who dislikes doing jumping jacks, burpees, and push-ups, I found the workouts surprisingly enjoyable, at least for a while. But after several months, my hobby began to feel like watching the same episode of a sitcom on repeat.
"burpees" はどんな運動でしょうか？
・Oxford English Dictionary: A physical exercise consisting of a squat thrust made from and ending in a standing position.: he burpee is a calisthenic exercise performed to increase strength and explosiveness.

・Urban Dictionary: The most badass exercise on the market, targets every muscle and improves explosiveness. Common among inmates.

Consists of doing a push up, going into a squat, jumping as high as you can, dropping back into a squat then into a pushup. A pull up can be added after the jump if a bar is available.

語源は人名からだそうです。
Wiktionary: After US physiologist Royal Huddleston Burpee

A Long-Ago Spark Is Rekindled

近所の保育園児からコロナ感染が出た事を知りました。段々とコロナが近づいている気配がして来ました。しかたなく、外出時には嫌いなマスクをしています。
さて、Reader's Digest 2月号の記事 'Laughter The Best Medicine' からの引用です。
A widower and a widow attend their 70th class reunion, and a long-ago spark is rekindled.
At the end of the night, he asks, "Will you marry me?"
"Yes, yes, I will!" she says enthusiastically.
The next morning, the widower wakes up troubles. Did she say yes or no? Confused, he calls her and asks, "Did you say yes, or no to marrying me?"
"I said yes! And I'm glad you called, because I couldn't remember who asked me."
笑いは免疫力を高めると信じている私です。

flummox

今日取り上げる単語はReader's Digest 2月号の二つの別々の記事に出てきました。
最初は 'All in a Day's Work' からの引用です。
The restaurant industry can flummox rookies and seasoned pros alike. Consider:
A table ordered a Dr Pepper and a Coke. The server brought their drinks over, then, in front of the customers, took a sip from each drink to see which was which.
次の記事は 'Accidents Moments That Changed History' からの引用です。
He started slipping soldiers across the East River under cover of the night and into the morning, when a heavy fog miraculously descended and continued to conceal his army's movements from the British.
By the time the fog lifted, the British were flummoxed. George Washington's entire army had retreated onto Manhattan, along with all their supplies.
では "flummox" を辞書で調べます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: usually be flummoxed: Perplex (someone) greatly; bewilder.: he was completely flummoxed by the question
・Collins Dictionary: someone is flummoxed by something, they are confused by it and do not know what to do or say.: The two leaders were flummoxed by the suggestion.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: to confuse someone so much that they do not know what to do: I have to say that last question flummoxed me.

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