Vladimir Nabokovの "Lolita" を読んでいます。
At my first interview with headmistress Pratt, she approved of my child’s “nice blue eyes” (blue! Lolita!) and of my own friendship with that “French genius” (a genius! Gaston!)and then, having turned Dolly over to a Miss Cormorant, she wrinkled her brow in a kind of recueillement and said:
“We are not so much concerned, Mr. Humbird, with having our students become bookworms or be able to reel off all the capitals of Europe which nobody knows anyway, or learn by heart the dates of forgotten battles. What we are concerned with is the adjustment of the child to group life. This is why we stress the four D’s: Dramatics, Dance, Debating and Dating. We are confronted by certain facts. Your delightful Dolly will presently enter an age group where dates, dating, date dress, date book, date etiquette, mean as much to her as, say, business, business connections, business success, mean to you, or as much as [smiling] the happiness of my girls means to me.
辞書にはない難しい単語 "recueillement" がありますが、それは無視して、その次の文にある "reel off" ですが、文脈からすると、そらんじる意味の様です。 辞書で確認します。
・Oxford English Dictionary: to say or repeat something quickly without having to stop or think about it: She immediately reeled off several names.
・Collins Dictionary: If you reel off information, you repeat it from memory quickly and easily.: She reeled off the titles of a dozen or so of the novels.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: to say a long list of things quickly and without stopping: The old man reeled off the names of his 22 grandchildren.
この手の勉強は昔の入試では必須でした。 今はインターネットがあるので記憶に頼る勉強の必要性は減っているでしょうね。 とは言っても、記憶力が全く不要になった訳ではありませんが。
At my first interview with headmistress Pratt, she approved of my child’s “nice blue eyes” (blue! Lolita!) and of my own friendship with that “French genius” (a genius! Gaston!)and then, having turned Dolly over to a Miss Cormorant, she wrinkled her brow in a kind of recueillement and said:
“We are not so much concerned, Mr. Humbird, with having our students become bookworms or be able to reel off all the capitals of Europe which nobody knows anyway, or learn by heart the dates of forgotten battles. What we are concerned with is the adjustment of the child to group life. This is why we stress the four D’s: Dramatics, Dance, Debating and Dating. We are confronted by certain facts. Your delightful Dolly will presently enter an age group where dates, dating, date dress, date book, date etiquette, mean as much to her as, say, business, business connections, business success, mean to you, or as much as [smiling] the happiness of my girls means to me.
辞書にはない難しい単語 "recueillement" がありますが、それは無視して、その次の文にある "reel off" ですが、文脈からすると、そらんじる意味の様です。 辞書で確認します。
・Oxford English Dictionary: to say or repeat something quickly without having to stop or think about it: She immediately reeled off several names.
・Collins Dictionary: If you reel off information, you repeat it from memory quickly and easily.: She reeled off the titles of a dozen or so of the novels.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: to say a long list of things quickly and without stopping: The old man reeled off the names of his 22 grandchildren.
この手の勉強は昔の入試では必須でした。 今はインターネットがあるので記憶に頼る勉強の必要性は減っているでしょうね。 とは言っても、記憶力が全く不要になった訳ではありませんが。
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