"sea change" からは海の満引きとか、最近では温暖化が原因による海面の上昇を思い起こしますが、"sea change" はシェークスピアが "The Tempest" で「海の変化」により骨はサンゴに、目は真珠に変えられていると使用したのが最初のようで、現在は態度の180度転換、政策の根本的な変更の意味でよく使われている表現です。 出典は忘れましたが、最近読んだ記事に "Sea change" ではなく "C change" が正しい英語だと思っていたネイティブの投書とそれに対する回答があり、興味深い内容なので次に引用します。
Q. When I first heard the term "C change," it made good sense to me, the letter "C" symbolically showing a 180-degree change of direction. Lately, I've seen the term "sea change," the meaning of which I can't figure. Can you enlighten me, and if the water version is correct, what does it mean? -- Peter Wilkinson, New Haven, Conn.
A. I rather like the notion of this term as "C change," a letter's curvature indicating direction or shape, as in "U-turn," "S-curve," "C-clamp" or "T-bone."
But, alas, to paraphrase the first chapter of Moby Dick, "It's a watery world we live in, lads." This term, correctly rendered as "sea change," is indeed a liquid asset. But, given its overuse by politicians, pundits and professors to describe any shift in mood or policy, this asset is rapidly depreciating.
The first recorded use of the term comes from a rather macabre but magical poem sung by Ariel in Shakespeare's "The Tempest": "Full fathom five thy father lies;/Of his bones are coral made;/Those are pearls that were his eyes:/Nothing of him that doth fade/But doth suffer a sea-change/Into something rich and strange."
The ocean will do that to you, especially if you give it enough time. But when did people begin using "sea change" to mean a profound transformation? One of the earliest such uses occurred in Julian Hawthorne's 1877 novel "The Great White Wall" (not to be confused with Herman Melville's great white whale): " . . . a sea-change happened here which really deserves to be called strange."
What really deserves to be called strange is that, until writing this column, I had always assumed "sea change" referred to a fundamental transformation of the sea itself -- from a glass-like lake, for example, to a churning maelstrom. But now I learn it refers to something being transformed by the sea. For me, this sea change in the origin of "sea change" is hard to fathom.
ところで、"C-change" は CEO, CFO, CIO の交代の意味でも使われているようです。
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