philistine

ちょっと物騒なタイトルですがEats, Shoots & Leavesを読むことにしました。この本はALCOMブログのPaperback Clubでピカブリオさんが紹介していたので知りました。タイトルから "," を除くと意味が変わるのに気が付きましたか？　"," と "'" の使い方を間違えている英国人が多いので何とかせねばと書いた本だそうですが、文法書ではないとしています。確かにこの本の文章は教科書的では全くなくどんどん読みたくなる文章です。まず序文からその一部を引用します。
What did become depressingly clear, however, was that my personal hunches about the state of the language were horribly correct: standards of punctuation in general in the UK are indeed approaching the point of illiteracy; self-justified philistines ("Get a life!") are truly in the driving seat of our culture; and a lot of well-educated sensitive people really have been weeping friendlessly in caves for the past few years, praying for someone--anyone--to write a book about punctuation with a panda on the cover.
"philistine" は何度か見覚えがある単語ですが、例によって忘れているので辞書を引きます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: A person who is hostile or indifferent to culture and the arts, or who has no understanding of them: ‘I am a complete philistine when it comes to paintings’
・Vocabulary.com: A philistine is a person who doesn’t think a lot and isn't interested in learning. Your uncle Marvin, who's only interested in eating, sleeping, and watching game shows, could be considered a philistine.
In the late 17th century, during a conflict in Jena, Germany, between townspeople and students, someone referred to the townspeople as “Philistines.” Since then, philistine has described someone who stands against learning and the arts. And if you don’t start reading the great Russian authors, someone might suggest that you have a philistine attitude toward literature -- the word can also be used as an adjective describing a person or thing that displays indifference to the arts and intellectual pursuits.
この単語を知らないようでは "philistine" と呼ばれてもしかたないかも。