rawness

Reader's Digest 10月号の記事 'Old-Time Doctor Remedies that Work' からの引用です。
Blisters
Try: Petroleus Jelly
The rawness from blisters can be painful enough, but chafing can iritate them further. Clean a blister with soap and water, and then reduce friction by applying petroleum jelly to the inflated area and keeping it covered with a bandage.
以前（2/5/2009）形容詞の "raw" を取り上げましたが名詞形は "rawness" となるのですね。一応辞書の説明を見ます。一応辞書の説明を見ます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: (of a part of the body) red and painful, especially as the result of skin abrasion.: he scrubbed his hands until they were raw

・Vocabulary.com: a pain that is felt (as when the area is touched): after taking a cold, rawness of the larynx and trachea come on

Self-Driving Vehicles

23日は世田谷区、25日は江東区と続けていずれも10kmのレースを走りました。何とかどちらも1時間で完走できました。
さて、Reader's Digest 10月号のLife in these United Statesからの記事です。
自動車販売店の挿絵があり、新しい車 'New Self-Driving Vehicles' が展示されています。
販売員の宣伝文句：
"And if you fall behind on payments, it drives back to the dealership."
そういう自動運転ですか。誰が買うの？

do a number on

Reader's Digest 10月号の記事 'Who Knew? 13 Ways Your Cell Phone Affects Your Body and Mind"からの引用です。
Your phone can do a number on your eyes. About 60 percent of Americans experience digital eye strain sympptoms, such as dryness, irritation, blurred vision, eye fatigue, and headaches. Try blinking often, increasing font size, and taking a break from screens every 20 minutes.
"do a number on your eyes" はこの後の文からすると悪い影響を与える内容ですが、"do a number on" は慣用句の様なので辞書を見ます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: Treat someone badly, typically by deceiving, humiliating, or criticizing them in a calculated and thorough way.: I think all those hallucinogens you took back in the 70's really did a number on you.
・McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs: to damage or harm someone or something.: The teacher did a number on the whole class by giving them a pop quiz. Tom did a number on Mary when he went out with Ann.
・Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary: hurt, damage or criticize somebody/something seriously: Sun and pollution can really do a number on your skin.

Green is Blue

先日George Orwellの造語BLACKWHITEを紹介しましたが、それを思い出させるReader's Digest 10月号のAll in A Day's Workの記事です。
SCENE: A graphic artist consulting with a client.
Client: I'm not too sure about the blue ...
Me: Actually, that's green.
Client: Who's the client?
Me: You.
Client: And what color is it?
Me: ... Blue?
Client: Right. Now let me see what other shades of blue we have.

We settled on pine tree "blue."
日本語では緑色の信号も青信号と言うし、上のシーンは「お客様は神様です」と言う日本語のフレーズを地で行く会話ですね。まるで日本での話の様だ。

productive cough

Reader's Digest 10月号に掲載の広告の一部を引用します。
Treating your COPD and still struggling?
Chronic productive cough?
Repeated antibiotic use for chest infections?
"productive cough" とはどんな咳でしょうか？　"productive" からは生産性を直ぐに連想するのですが。 辞書を見ます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: (medicine)(of a cough) that raises mucus from the respiratory tract.: He had a sick contact with an upper respiratory infection and productive cough for the past two weeks.

・Wiktionary: (medicine) Of a cough, producing mucus or sputum from the respiratory tract.

・online medical dictionary: Producing or forming, said especially of an inflammation that produces new tissue or of a cough that brings forth sputum or mucus.
なるほど、医学用語で痰を伴う咳ですね。

Total Eight Characters

Reader's Digest 6月号の記事 'Laugh Lines' からの引用です。
I needed a password eight characters long, so I picked Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
ずいぶん長いパスワードで入力が大変だ。安全性は "eight characters" あるので確かに高いかも。

gentian

Karel CapekのThe Gardner's Yearを読んでいます。
To produce a new species, that is the secret dream of every passionate gardener! Good Lord, if I only could produce a yellow forget-me-not, or a forget-me-not-blue poppy, or a white gentian!
難しい植物名は無視していますが、この "gentian" は知っている植物なので覚えたい。辞書の説明を見ます。

・Oxford English Dictionary: A plant of temperate and mountainous regions, typically with violet or vivid blue trumpet-shaped flowers. Many kinds are cultivated as ornamentals, especially as arctic alpines, and some are of medicinal use.: In summer, the meadow is in full bloom; in fall, asters and gentians shine, and the trees put on quite a display.

・Collins Dictionary: any of a large genus (Gentiana) of plants of the gentian family, with blue, white, red, or yellow flowers URL: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/gentian
リンドウの仲間ですね。

earwig

Karel CapekのThe Gardner's Yearを読んでいます。
Besides, we gardeners have already enemies enough: sparrrows and blackbirds, children, snails, earwigs and plantlice; I ask you, should we declare war on caterpillars?
Should we set the white butterflies against us?
園芸家の敵として子供も挙げられているので "earwigs" がどんな動物か、あるいは昆虫か見当がつきません。辞書を見ます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: A small elongated insect with a pair of terminal appendages that resemble pincers. The females typically care for their eggs and young until they are grown.: Even earwigs can be useful because they eat aphids, codling moth eggs and the red spider mite.’

・Collins Dictionary: An earwig is a small, thin, brown insect that has a pair of claws at the back end of its body.

・Cambridge English Dictionary: a small insect with two pincers (= curved pointed parts) at the back end of its body
最後に引用した辞書は "earwigs" の写真付きです。URL: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/earwig
ハサミ虫ですね。Capekは "earwigs" を園芸家の敵の一つに挙げていますが、辞書によると益虫の様です。

wagtail

Karel CapekのThe Gardner's Yearを読んでいます。
But because the gardner is outwardly constructed as imperfectly as other people, all he can do is to show of what he is capable: to balance on tiptoe on one foot, to float in the air like a Russian dancer, to straddle four yards wide, to step as lightly as a butterfly or a wagtail, to squeeze into a square inch of ground, to maintain equilibrium against all the laws of gravity, to reach everywhere and avoid everything, and still try to keep some sort of respectaility so that people will not laugh at him.
The Gardner's Yearには植物名だけではなく、動物や昆虫なども沢山出てきます。上の引用文に出てきた "wagtail" は字面から私は犬を連想しますが、犬ではないでしょう。どんな動物か辞書を見ます。
説明文だけではなく "wagtail" の写真も掲載している次の辞書と事典から引用します。
・Collins Dictionary: A wagtail is a type of small bird which moves its tail quickly up and down as it walks.　URL: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/wagtail
・Wikipedia: The wagtails are a genus, Motacilla, of passerine birds in the family Motacillidae. The forest wagtail belongs to the monotypic genus Dendronanthus which is closely related to Motacilla and sometimes included herein. The common name and genus names are derived from their characteristic tail pumping behaviour. Together with the pipits and longclaws they form the family Motacillidae.

The willie wagtail (Rhipidura leucophrys) of Australia is an unrelated bird similar in coloration and shape to the Japanese wagtail. It belongs to the fantails. URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wagtail
セキレイですね。確かにセキレイを見たことがある人には英名の "wagtail" は納得です。

germ/germination

ＮＨＫのＴＶドラマ、植物男子ベランダーの中で主人公の男ベランダーが密かに思いを寄せる花屋の女性が読んでいた本、園芸家の12ヵ月が気になり、英語版のThe Gardner's Yearを読むことにしました。（著者のKarel Capekはチェコ人なので原作は英語ではない様だ。）
当然ですが、色々な植物の名前が出てきます。日本語でもなかなか花の名前を直ぐに忘れてしまうので余りにも難しそうな花の名は無視して読んでいます。植物名等の名詞以外は余り難しい単語は出てきませんが、次に引用する個所に出てきた言葉は知っている単語ですが、私の知っている意味とは別の意味を持っている様です。
APRIL, that is the right and blessed month for the gardner. Let lovers go to Jericho with their praises of May; in May trees and flowers only flower, but in April they bud; this sprouting shooting, these germs, shoots, and sprout, are the greatest wonder of Nature, and I shall not tell you one word more about them; sit on your heels and poke with your finger in the puffy soil, holding your breath, for your finger is touching a full and fragile bud.
"germs" というと直ぐにばい菌を連想しますが、ここの"germs" は文脈からすると、shoots, sprout, budの仲間の様です。辞書を見ます。

・Oxford English Dictionary: A portion of an organism capable of developing into a new one or part of one. The embryo in a cereal grain or other plant seed.

・Cambridge English Dictionary: the origin of something that develops, esp. a cell from which grain grows or the beginning of an idea: Alejandro’s suggestion was the germ of an idea.
動詞形の "germinate" があるようで、上の引用文の後に "germinate" の名詞形 "germination" が次の様に出てきます。
Besides germination April is also the month for planting.