図書館から借りる本のつなぎで読んでいる "The Power of Habit" はまだ第一章も読み終えていませんが、予約していた本が入手できたので、読むのを中断します。 その前に次の個所からの単語を覚えます。
"I made for myself a million dollars on Pepsodent," Hopkins wrote a few years later after the product appeared on shelves. The key, he said, was that he had "learned the right human psychology." That psychology was grounded in two basic rules:
First, find a simple and obvious cue.
Second, clearly define the rewards.
...
And those same principles have been used to create thousands of other habits--often without people realizing how closely they are hewing to Hopkins's formula.
"hew" は斧で叩く、切るの意味があると思いますが、上の引用文での意味は違いますね。早速辞書を見ます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: (hew to) North American: Conform or adhere to: some artists took photographs that hewed to more traditional ideas of art
・Macmillan Dictionary: American: to continue to use or do something, and not change to something new: hew to: Matthews said he would hew to his plan to provide national health care.
私の好きな辞書Vocabulary.comに次の説明がありました。
It's said that Paul Bunyan hewed the Grand Canyon by dragging his giant mythical axe behind him. But usually things are hewn with a little more purpose -- with each chop and cut designed to shape, sculpt, or craft a final product. Take the axe out of the picture though, and this word takes on a different meaning. If you're trying to adhere to rules, stick to a budget, or conform to a certain tradition, you can use hew, too.
The Power of Habitを読んでいますが、非常に興味深い話が書かれていました。
５１歳の時にAlcoaのCEOとして就任したPaul O'Neillの演説の最重要点は次のことでした。
"... I intend to make Alcoa the safest company in America. I intend to go for zero injuries."
会社の成績が落ち込んでいる時だったのでこれは意外な就任演説です。興味深いのはThe Power of Habitの著者がこの後に続ける一般的な米国の新CEOの演説の事です。
A new CEO would start with an introduction, make a faux self-deprecating joke--something about how he slept his way through Harvard Business School--then promise to boost profits and lower costs. Next would come an excoriation of taxes, business regulations, and sometimes, with a fever that suggested firsthand experience in divorce court, lawyers.
Finally, the speech would end with a blizzard of buzzwords--"synergy," "rightsizing,"and "co-opetition"--at which point everyone could return to their offices, reassurred that capitalism was safe for another day.
社員になった訳ではありませんが４半世紀前に某米国企業の日本市場の代理人としての仕事をしていたので、その企業の全世界の販売責任者を集めて開かれる恒例のカンファレンスに何度か参加した経験があるので上の話は良く分かります。米国系の日本支社に勤めている人も上のコメントにはうなづく人が多いのではと思います。
昨日葛西臨海公園で行われたナイトマラソンに参加しました。昨年の１０月に初めてこのナイトマラソンで走った時は自己最悪記録の１時間１0秒したが、昨日は６年前と同じ自分の普通の記録、５５分で走れました。これで次回７月のレースにも参加する気がでてきました。
"The Power of Habit" を読んでいます。
Eugene Paulyは脳に障害があり、新しいことが全く記憶できなり、数分あるいは数秒前に起きた事、聞いたことも直ぐに忘れてしまう状態でした。
A few weeks later, his daughter came to visit. "What's the plan?" Eugene asked when she arrived. She took him outside in a wheelchair, onto the hospital's lawn. "It's a beautiful day," Eugene said. "Pretty nice weather, huh?" She told him about her kids and they played with a dog. She thought he might be able to come home soon. The sun was going down. She started to get ready to take him inside.
Eugene looked at her.
"I'm lucky to have a daughter like you," he said. She was caught off-guard. She couldn't remember the last time he had said something so sweet.
"was caught off-guard" の意味は "guard" がガードが甘いなどと日本語にもなっているので分かりますが、ここでは動詞の "catch" が受身で使われていますが、"off-guard" には普通どの様な動詞が使われるのでしょうか？ "off-guard" を辞書で確認します。
・Collins Dictionary: not expecting a surprise or danger that suddenly occurs ⇒ The question caught her completely off-guard.
・American Heritage Dictionary: Off one's guard; unprepared: a quiz that caught the class off-guard.
・Wiktionary: Alternative spelling of off guard: Not vigilant; unprepared; inattentive. His sudden appearance at the office caught her completely off guard.
例文で使われている動詞は "catch" だけでした。次の辞書には "off-guard" の項目はなく、"off guard" で次の説明がありました。
・Oxford English Dictionary: Unprepared for some surprise or difficulty: the government was caught off guard by the unexpected announcement
"catch someone off-guard" は慣用句として覚えた方が良いようです。
・McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs: Fig. to catch a person at a time of carelessness. Tom caught Ann off guard and frightened her. She caught me off my guard, and my hesitation told her I was lying.
ビジネスマンに対する女性を示す言葉としてビジネスウーマンを英語で使ってはいけないと、昔何かの本で読んでいますが、その事を連想させる単語が "Cycle of the Werewolf" に出て来ました。
He has come in this night as he has on other nights, telling his battered wife Donna Lee that he is on business, but his business is a B-girl named Rita Tennison who has given him a lively case of herpes which Milt has already passed on to Donna Lee, who has never so much as looked at another man in all the years they have been married.
この "B-girl" の "B" は何の略語でしょうか？
・American Heritage Dictionary: A woman who is employed by a bar to encourage customers to spend money freely.
・Wiktionary: Probably abbreviated from bar girl. A woman employed to talk to customers in a bar and encourage them to buy drinks
"bar girl" の略語なのでしょうね。ブレークダンスを踊る女性の意味もあるとも書かれていまがここでは違うでしょう。
"Cycle of the Werewolf" で皆が寝静ずんだ後に、少年は外で花火をあげようと企んでいます。
So then he begins the waiting for the rest of the house to go to bed. It takes a long time. The TV runs on and on in the living room, the canned laughtracks often augumented by Katie's shrill giggles.
"canned laughtracks" が分からないので調べます。
・Wikipedia: A laugh track (or laughter track) is a separate soundtrack for a recorded comedy show containing the sound of audience laughter. In some productions, the laughter is a live audience response; in the U.S., the term usually implies artificial laughter (canned laughter or fake laughter) made to be inserted into the show.
なるほど、"recorded" ではなく "canned" となっていたので分からなかったのですね。
"Just keep mum about where you got them," Uncle Al said. "A nod's as good as a wink to a blind horse, right?"
"Right, right," Marty babbled, although he had no idea what nods, winks, and blind horses had to do with fireworks. "But are you sure you don't want them, Uncle Al?"
花火をあげた事は内緒だと叔父言っておりますが、その後の "A nod's as good as a wink to a blind horse" は馬の耳に念仏を連想しますが、Marty少年と同様私にも分かりません。 早速辞書を見ます。
・McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs: Prov. You cannot get people to take a hint if they are determined not to. Jill: I keep hinting to the boss that I deserve a raise, but he doesn't seem to get the point. Jane: I'm not surprised. A nod's as good as a wink to a blind horse.
これだと馬の耳に念仏と同じですが、小説の文脈からこの意味だと合わないと思います。そこで更に調べると "The Phrase Finder" に次の説明がありました。（全文を引用すると長いので一部だけを引用します。興味のある方は http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/nod-is-as-good-as-a-wink.html で全文が見れます。）
To a person who is ready to understand or undertake something, any subtle signalling of it is sufficient. The context is usually of some undertaking that is borderline illegal or of sexual innuendo.
馬の耳に念仏と全く反対の意味になりますね。これだと、叔父は秘密にしなければならない理由を詳しく説明しなくても分かるよねと少年に言っていると解釈できます。同じ諺が正反対の意味を持つ例でしょう。言葉は難しい。でも面白い。
Stephen Kingの小説 "Cycle of the Werewolf" を読み始めました。Stephen Kingの名前は聞いたことはありますが、小説を読むのは初めてです。挿絵が沢山入っていて少年向けの話の様です。よくあることですが、知っている単語だが意味が分からない単語、つまり多義語なのでしょう、"bark" が次のように出て来ました。
In the dark, she fumbles for a dishtowel with which to clean up the spilled coffee and barks her shin on a footstool. She cries out. In the dark, her husband laughs heartily. He finds his wife's pain more amusing than anything, except maybe the jokes they have in The Reader's Digest. Those jokes--Humor in Uniform, Life in These United States-- really tickle his funnybone.
私の知っている "bark" は名詞の樹皮と動詞の吠えるですが、どちらも上の文の意味ではないので辞書を見ます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: Scrape the skin off (one’s shin) by accidentally hitting it against something hard.: But, when you tumble over and bark your shins, you are less than enamoured by gravity.
・Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary: to rub off or abrade the skin of: barked a shin on the desk
なるほど、樹皮を剥がす動詞としての意味もあるので、人の皮膚を擦り剥いた場合の意味にもなるのですね。
次のジョークは既に１０年程前に私のブログで紹介しているのですが、度重なるブログの引っ越しでどこかに消えてしまいました。（Because I didn't save.）キリスト信者では全くありませんが、コンピュータ時代なのでこの教訓は今でも有効なので再度取り上げました。
Jesus and Satan have a discussion as to who is the better programmer. This goes on for a few hours until they come to an agreement to hold a contest, with God as the judge. They sit themselves at their computers and begin. They type furiously, lines of code streaming up the screen, for several hours straight. Seconds before the end of the competition, a bolt of lightning strikes, taking out the electricity. Moments later, the power is restored, and God announces that the contest is over.
He asks Satan to show what he has come up with. Satan is visibly upset, and cries, "I have nothing. I lost it all when the power went out."
"Very well, then," says God, "let us see if Jesus fared any better."
Jesus enters a command, and the screen comes to life in vivid display, the voices of an angelic choir pour forth from the speakers. Satan is astonished.
He stutters, "B-b-but how? I lost everything, yet Jesus' program is intact. How did he do it?"
God smiled all-knowingly, "Jesus saves."
英語としては "fare" の上の用例もしっかりと覚えたい。
・Oxford English Dictionary: Perform in a specified way in a particular situation or over a particular period of time: ‘the party fared badly in the spring elections’
私の好きなVocabulary.comは次の様に "fare" に三つの意味があると説明しています。
It's not fair that fare means three unrelated things. Get along: "Fare thee well." Cost of travel: "Train fare is ten dollars." Food: "Tatertots is typical cafeteria fare."
To remember fare's different meanings, think of how, for people living close to the bone, the question "How are you eating/faring?" is not so different from "How are you getting along/faring?" And when you pay plane fare and fly to France, you will most assuredly be eating French fare once you get there.
The Power of Habitに以前（2/17/2011）取り上げて覚えた "seminal" が次の様に出てきました。
When people join groups where change seems possible, the potential for that change to occur becomes more real. For most people who overhaul their lives, there are no seminal moments or life-altering disasters.
今日の表現もReader's Digest ２月号の記事Smart Animalsからです。
While visiting my daughter Dianna, I noticed Bonnie, her two-year-old Doberman, pacing around the lounge room back and forth in front of a power point. Then, all of a sudden, she started to bark incessantly at it.
"You had better check that power point." I said to my daughter.
"Something is not right." Dianna switched off all the power and undid the power point and found that the wiring was smouldering.
"power point" と言うと直ぐにマイクロソフトのプリゼンソフトが頭に浮かび、何で犬が "power point" のプリゼンを気にするのかと思いましたが、後まで読むと、この "power point" は電気のコンセントの事だと推測できます。コンセントで馴染みのある単語は "(electrical) outlet" とか "(wall) socket" ですが、"power point" を辞 書で確認します。 ・Cambridge English Dictionary: a device to which a piece of electrical equipment can be connected in order to provide it with electricity
・Wiktionary: A wall socket by which electricity is provided to electrical devices.
イギリス英語なので私には馴染みがなかったのですね。
ところで、この記事のタイトルは "Wired For Smell" で "Wired" を使ったのは一種の洒落ですね。"Wired" は "12/20/2010" に取り上げた単語です。興味のある方はそちらも見て下さい。
私が勤めている会社で取引のある英国のメーカーは１社だけですが、そのメーカーのマニュアルにコ ンセントに対応する単語は何を使っているか見てみたのですが、次の表現がありました。 ・It is desirable that the 3200 is connected to a supply point with low LOOP impedance as this will limit the lowest value available LOOP impedance from the 3200 using as good a quality outlet (contact wise) as possible.
"supply point" と "outlet" の英語、米語の両方を使っていました。
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