前回のPop Phraseでも触れた "get a life" と言うフレーズは大分昔ですが "Saturday Night Live"(これはコメディー番組ですがsitcomではありません。NHKのサラリーマンNEOのようなスタイルのコメディです。)でポピュラーになった台詞で、NEET にピッタリの言葉です。 長くなりますが、英辞郎、英英辞書、Wikipedia の説明を以下に引用します。
【1】 (自分の人生のために)何かを始めろ、元気を出せ、もっと人生を楽しめ、楽しい人生を過ごせ、出直せ、一人前になれ、何かをつかめ◆命令形で使われる。◆「自分の価値観・自由・独立心を持ち、人に頼らず、夢に向かって生きろ!」と一言で言いたいとき、あるいは、相手が落ち込んでいたり、暗い人生を送っているときに「元気を出して楽しい人生を過ごせよ!」と励ましてあげるときの表現。
・ Get a life! You're 30 years old! You should have started a career by now. しっかりしろよ。おまえはもう30歳だぞ。今頃はちゃんとした仕事を持っていてもいいころなんだぞ。
【2】 いいかげんにしろ◆命令形で使われる。
【3】 《野球》(打者がアウトにならなくて)命拾いする
【4】 〈命令形で〉ほっといてくれ
American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms の説明
Acquire some interests or relationships of one's own. For example, Stop sitting around and complaining. ? get a life.
<abuse> Standard way of suggesting that someone has succumbed to terminal geekdom. Often heard on Usenet, especially as a way of suggesting that the target is taking some obscure issue of theology too seriously. This exhortation was popularised by William Shatner on a "Saturday Night Live" episode in a speech that ended "Get a life!", but some respondents believe it to have been in use before then. It was certainly in wide use among hackers for at least five years before achieving mainstream currency in early 1992.
最後に Wikipedia による解説
Get a life is an American English idiom. Used as a command, the phrase generally instructs its addressee to go out and make their way in the world, without being supported by outside sources such as parents or benefactors. It may also be directed at someone who is perceived as boring or single-minded like geeks, to suggest they acquire some other, more practical interests or hobbies and get dates, find a job, move to their own house etc. It is also used when people don't know about something that another person considers popular or normal, such as a certain TV show or board game that this person assumes everyone else knows about.
The term was popularized by William Shatner's appearance in a 1987 episode of Saturday Night Live, in which he tells a group of trekkies to "get a life." However, evidence of the term's use in the vernacular extends at least back into the 1970s, perhaps as part of a mainstream backlash against hippies.
Get a Life is the name of a television sitcom that aired on the Fox Network from September 23, 1990 to March 8, 1992. The show starred Chris Elliott as a 30-year-old paperboy named Chris Peterson. Peterson lived in an apartment above his parents' garage (Elliot's parents were played by Elinor Donahue and his real life father, comedian Bob Elliott). The opening credits depicted Chris Peterson delivering newspapers on his bike to the show's theme song, "Stand" by R.E.M.
The show was unconventional for a primetime sitcom, and many times the storylines of the episodes were surreal. For example, Elliott's character actually dies in eleven episodes. The causes of death included being crushed by a giant boulder, old age, tonsillitis, stab wounds, gunshot wounds, and simply exploding. For this reason, it was a struggle for Elliott and Mirkin to get the show on the air. Many of the executiv! es at the Fox Network hated the show and thought it was too disturbing and that Elliott's character was too insane.
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