常時英心:言葉の森から 1.0

約10年間,はてなダイアリーで英語表現の落穂拾いを行ってきました。現在はAmeba Blogに2.0を開設し,継続中です。こちらはしばらくアーカイブとして維持します。

contradict

野田第3次内閣、海外ではやはり「あの人」に注目が集まっています。

contradictは「矛盾」の意味の名詞 contradictionがよく知られています。しかし、動詞contradictもなかなかのクセ者です。contradictはその語源通り("speak against")、「面と向かって(…が)正しくないと言明する 」、「人(の言葉)に反対する,逆らう」という意味があります。
30年くらい前にdebateをやっていたときに、I hate to contradict you (in public) but...「お言葉を返すようですが...」という言い回しを覚えて、盛んに議論をふっかけていた(恥ずかしき)若き日のことを思い出します。ああ、青春!(UG)

In cabinet revamp, Japan's Noda brings in woman with China ties


Tokyo (CNN) -- Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda of Japan reorganized his cabinet ministers on Monday, bringing in a woman with strong links to China amid a smoldering dispute between the two nations over a group of remote islands.
Noda named Makiko Tanaka, whose father oversaw the normalization of relations with China 40 years ago, as education minister -- one of string of new appointments.

中略

Chinese passion, fury fuels anti-Japan attacks

The appointment Monday of Tanaka to the cabinet may be interpreted as an effort to soothe those tensions by Noda. Her father, Kakuei Tanaka, was prime minister in 1972 when Tokyo and Beijing resumed diplomatic relations decades after Japan's occupation of large swathes of eastern China in the 1930s and 40s.

She was nonetheless a controversial figure during her time as foreign minister at the start of this century for the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), the political opponents of Noda's Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ).

Koizumi sacked her in 2002, saying a public dispute between her and her top aides was effectively preventing critical budget bills from passing through parliament.

She once reportedly called the Foreign Ministry a "den of devils, an evil place where conspiracies are plotted." Her outspokenness earned her bureaucratic enemies but gained her popularity with the Japanese public.

How a remote rock split China and Japan
She also contradicted Koizumi's government policy on relations between China and Taiwan and on a controversial history textbook approved by Tokyo that critics in Asia said whitewashed Japanese war crimes.

It is unclear what influence she will have on diplomatic relations in her role as education minister. Koichiro Gemba will remain as foreign minister under the reshuffle.

The others changes to Noda's cabinet included the appointment of Koriki Jojima, a senior DPJ lawmaker, as finance minister.

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/10/01/world/asia/japan-cabinet-reshuffle/index.html?hpt=hp_t3