hot dog

Robert B.Parkerの "Painted Ladies" からの最後の引用です。
With my feet on my desk and the Globe open before me, I phoned Susan.
"I see in the paper," I said, "that there's an Evening of Verse being held at a church in Cambrdge."
"Hot dog," Susan said.
"One of the performers is Rosalind Wellington."
"No kidding," Susan said.

"Hot dog" は間投詞として使われているようですが、辞書で確認します。

・Oxford English Dictionary: informal North American Used to express delight or enthusiastic approval.: ‘Hot dog! I've finally found something I can do that you can't’

・Cambridge English Dictionary: something that you say when you are very pleased about something: You won your race? Hot dog!

これから実家に帰り、正月はそちらで過ごしますが、休みの間にホットドッグやBig Macを食べることはないでしょう。 では皆様良いお年をお迎えください。

shack up

Robert B.Parkerの "Painted Ladies"を読んでいます。
"It's a bitch, is what it's like," she said. "I mean, for sixteen years my mother lied through her teeth that he was dead. You know, she never even told me he sent money. You know that they were never married?"
"She told you they were?"
"Yeah, and that he died after I was conceived," she said. "Fact is, for crissake, she was shacking up with some guy who had no intention of marrying her, and when she got knocked up, he left."
"Tough on her, I guess," I said.

スラングが頻出する小説なので、"shacking up" も "knocked up" と同様にスラングと思います。"shack" は掘っ建て小屋の意味があるので、"shacking up" は家と関係のある意味ではないかと推測します。辞書で意味を確認します。
・Collins Dictionary: If you say that someone has shacked up with someone else or that two people have shacked up together, you disapprove of the fact that they have started living together as lovers. The Government was keen for people to get married rather than shack up. :
・Cambridge English Dictionary: to start living in the same house as sexual partners, without being married: I hear Tony and Helen have shacked up together.
同じ家に棲むことから来ていましたね。

duck soup

Robert B.Parkerの "Painted Ladies"を読んでいます。
When she was gone I took a small gym bag of tools and went to her front door. She hadn't locked it with a key when she came out, so if it was locked, it would be a spring bolt and not a deadbolt. I took out a little flashlight and looked at the door latch. The door didn't close snugly, and I could see the tongue of the spring bolt. Made duck soup look difficult.

"duck soup" は昔同義語の "piece of cake, cake, cinch, low-hanging fruit" などと一緒に覚えましたが、今回語源が気になったので調べて見ましたが、下記のサイトの情報(抜粋)からして、語源は不明の様です。


World Wide Words: It’s a weird phrase. Nobody has the slightest idea where it came from or what it refers to. The cartoon is no help, as it shows a man in a Police Court, juggling a bottle, pitcher, plate and salt shaker, with the caption “Duck Soup”. Nobody has managed to make much sense of it. It’s not even certain that TAD Dorgan actually meant by the phrase that it was something easy — it might just as well refer to something that looks easy, but is actually difficult.

Could the image be of a sitting duck, one that was on the water and easy for a hunter to shoot? Could it be that duck soup was especially easy to prepare? (I’m told that isn’t so.) Might it even refer to a pond with ducks floating on it, which figuratively was already duck soup? All these have been tentatively put forward by various writers who were feverishly exercising their imaginations in the absence of solid fact.

Vocabulary.com: There are a lot of figurative ways to say something's simple besides duck soup: easy as pie, piece of cake, and a breeze are just a few. Less easy is figuring out exactly where duck soup came from. It seems to have appeared in the early 1900's in a series of newspaper cartoons, but experts wonder about its origins — and how making duck soup could possibly be considered as easy as falling off a log.

line of fire

Robert B.Parkerの "Painted Ladies"を読んでいます。
"So you'll have to go someplace for a few days at least," Belson said. "I can slide you out the back way in case anyone is trying to rail you."
"If someone's trying to tail me," I said, "let's go out the front door and let him, and maybe we can catch him."
"Nobody's gonna tail us without one of us spotting the tail."
"Not possible," I said. "And if he makes a move at me, you can throw yourself into the line of fire."
"That is absolutely one of my favorite parts of police work," Belson said.

"throw yourself into the line of fire" の個所の意味を調べます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: The expected path of gunfire or a missile.: ‘residents within line of fire were evacuated from their homes’

・Collins Dictionary: If you are in the line of fire, you are in a position where someone is aiming their gun at you. If you move into their line of fire, you move into a position between them and the thing they were aiming at.
アクション小説、映画には頻出の表現でしょうね。

liar liar pants on fire

Robert B.Parkerの "Painted Ladies"を読んでいます。
The other girls hadn't mentioned the painting. It wasn't secret. But you needed to be interested to remenber that the infernal device had been the painting, or something everyone thought was the painting.
"I'm going to be late," Missy said. "I wish you wouldn't bother me about this anymore."
"I'm sure I won't need to," I said.
She scooted off into the science building. I watched her go.　"Liar, liar, pants on fire".

最後に出てきた "Liar, liar, pants on fire" の意味は何でしょう？　Missyが嘘をついていると言っているのはわかりますが。　辞書を見ます。　"pants on fire" で調べると：

・Wiktionary: Clipping of liar liar pants on fire.
そこで "Liar, liar, pants on fire" で見ると、
(childish) used to taunt a liar
・Urban Dictionary: to lie so badly that, theoretically your pants will burst into flames. popularized by the kindergarten chant, "liar liar pants on fire!".
・Wikipedia: "Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire!", a playground song about lying

なるほど、子供が相手の言うことをなじる時に使うのですね。

pre-torn designer jeans

Robert B.Parkerの "Painted Ladies"を読んでいます。
"Don't have a name. But there was a blond girl, tall, very artsy-looking in a sort of fake way," Tracy said. "You know. Long, smooth hair, high boots; too-long cashmere sweaters; pre-torn designer jeans. She spent a lot of time in his office."

破れたジーンズをはいている若者を時々見かけますが、この様なジーンズを "pre-torn designer jeans" と言うのですね。 私も使い古して自然と破れたジーンズ("torn jeans")をはいたことがありますが、年寄が破れたズボンをはくとホームレスに見えるから止めなさいと妻に叱られました。

not suffer fools

Robert B.Parkerの "Painted Ladies"を読んでいます。
Coming toward us was a yellow Lab with a massive head and a broad chest. He was wagging his tail majestically as he trotted toward us, as if he was one hell of a dog and proud of it. He stopped about a foot in front of Pearl, and they looked at each other. They sniffed each othere. They circled each other, sniffing as they want. Pearl didn't suffer fools gladly, so I stayed close. In case. Then Pearl stretched her front paws out and dropped her chest and raised her hind end. The Lab did the same.

"suffer fools" の個所を辞書で調べます。

・Collins Dictionary: If you do not suffer fools gladly, you are not patient with people who you think are stupid. She doesn't suffer fools gladly and, in her view, most people are fools.
・American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language: To put up wit; tolerate: She does not suffer fools easily
・Farlex Dictionary of Idioms: To refuse to deal with or tolerate ignorant people or behavior.: My father was a shrewd, well respected businessman who didn't suffer fools gladly.

否定形で使う場合が多いようです。

kiss my ass

Robert B.Parkerの "Painted Ladies"を読むことにしました。Robert B.Parkerの作品は7年前に "Wilderness" を読んでいるので、２作品目です。

A group of pigeons was pecking at some popcorn that had been thrown on the ground for them. Pearl chased them off and ate the popcorn. A mature woman in a leopard-skin coat stood up from the bench where the pigeons had gathered and walked toward us.
"Madam," she said, "control your dog. That popcorn is intended for the pigeons."
Susan smiled.
"Survival of the fittest," she said.
The woman frowned.
She said, "Don't be flippant, young woman."
"Yikes," I murmured.
Susan turned slowly toward the woman.
"Oh, kiss my ass," Susan said.
The woman took a half step back. Her face reddened.
She opened her mouth, and closed it, and turned and marched away.

"kiss my ass" これは明らかに俗語で余り品の良い表現とは思えませんが、どの様な使い方なのか辞書で確認します。
・Wiktionary:
　(vulgar, idiomatic) Go away!; an expression of disdain or dismissal.
　(vulgar, idiomatic) Rejection or refusal to perform a requested action.
　When he asked me to help him fix the bike, I told him to kiss my ass.
・Farlex Dictionary of Idioms: A rude refusal to do something someone has requested.: You want me to start working on Saturdays, too? Well kiss my ass, I don't need this job!

映画などでもこういう品のない表現をよく耳にしますが、普通の人もこの様な言い方を日常的にしているのでしょうか？

LGBT / SDGs

今日取り上げる表現もReader's　Digest 10月号の記事 "Life in These United States" からの引用です。

My mom used to think LGBT was Internet slang for "Let's get breakfast together."

米国人でも昔の人間には現代用語が分からないのですね。
"LGBT" も "lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender" の略と言われるより、 "Let's get breakfast together." の方が理解し易い。lesbian と gay は知っていますが、bisexual と transgender はお手上げです。

それにしてもインターネット上にはスラング、略語、新語が溢れていますね。最近よく見かける略語で対応する日本語も示されている場合も多いのですが、私は今でも意味がよく分からないのにSDGsがあります。

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) or Global Goals are a collection of 17 interlinked global goals designed to be a "blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all".

１７も目標があるので私にはよく理解できないのですね。

steer or heifer

Reader's　Digest 10月号の記事 "Life in These United States" からの引用です。

Outside the ladies' and men's rooms of a Texas steak house, I found a confused and anxious young woman who sighed with relief when she saw me.
"Oh, I'm so glad you're here," she said. "I was afraid to enter. I didn't knwo if I was a steer or a heifer."

状況からすると "steer" と "heifer" のどちらが女性用、男性用か分からず困っているのですね。
・Oxford English Dictionary:
steer: A male domestic bovine animal that has been castrated and is raised for beef.
heifer: A young female cow that has not borne a calf.
テキサスらしいと言うのでしょうか！