"The Story of My Life" からの引用です。
I wrote timidly, fearfully, but resolutely, urged on by my teacher, who knew that if I persevered, I should find my mental foothold again and get a grip on my faculties. Up to the time of the "Frost King" episode, I had lived the unconscious life of a little child; now my thoughts were turned inward, and I beheld things invisible. Gradually I emerged from the penumbra of that experience with a mind made clearer by trial and with a truer knowledge of life.
ヘレン・ケラーは難しそうな単語は余り使いませんが、上の文に出てきた "penumbra" は私にとっては難しそうに見える単語なので辞書を引きます。
・American Heritage Dictionary:
A partial shadow, as in an eclipse, between regions of complete shadow and complete illumination.
An area in which something exists to a lesser or uncertain degree: "The First Amendment has a penumbra where privacy is protected from governmental intrusion"
・Examples from Wordnik:
And a penumbra is a different kettle of fish entirely -- the metaphor was used by Justice Douglas in Griswold v. Connecticut and partakes more of substantive due process than anything else.
It does enter a region of space called the penumbra, in which the Earth partially blocks the Sun.
"penumbra" はケプラーが１６０４年に作った言葉で、pen + umbra = almost + shadow を知ると憶えやすそうです。
Note: Wordnik の例文にある "a different kettle of fish" は以前採り上げた "a fine/pretty kettle of fish" の変形と思います。 Ref. http://blog.alc.co.jp/blog/3302827/archive/2009/9/1 )
I wrote timidly, fearfully, but resolutely, urged on by my teacher, who knew that if I persevered, I should find my mental foothold again and get a grip on my faculties. Up to the time of the "Frost King" episode, I had lived the unconscious life of a little child; now my thoughts were turned inward, and I beheld things invisible. Gradually I emerged from the penumbra of that experience with a mind made clearer by trial and with a truer knowledge of life.
ヘレン・ケラーは難しそうな単語は余り使いませんが、上の文に出てきた "penumbra" は私にとっては難しそうに見える単語なので辞書を引きます。
・American Heritage Dictionary:
A partial shadow, as in an eclipse, between regions of complete shadow and complete illumination.
An area in which something exists to a lesser or uncertain degree: "The First Amendment has a penumbra where privacy is protected from governmental intrusion"
・Examples from Wordnik:
And a penumbra is a different kettle of fish entirely -- the metaphor was used by Justice Douglas in Griswold v. Connecticut and partakes more of substantive due process than anything else.
It does enter a region of space called the penumbra, in which the Earth partially blocks the Sun.
"penumbra" はケプラーが１６０４年に作った言葉で、pen + umbra = almost + shadow を知ると憶えやすそうです。
Note: Wordnik の例文にある "a different kettle of fish" は以前採り上げた "a fine/pretty kettle of fish" の変形と思います。 Ref. http://blog.alc.co.jp/blog/3302827/archive/2009/9/1 )
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