eat humble pie
Daily Mail Onlineからです。イングランドの往年の名選手、ゲーリー・リネカー氏の発言が問題となっています。宗教上の問題は非常に扱いにくい問題なので難しいですね。
Gary Lineker forced to eat humble pie after he accuses praying Muslims of 'eating grass' during Al Jazeera commentary
Gary Lineker has been forced to apologise after accidentally ridiculing two Muslim footballers during a match commentary on TV.
When the players celebrated a goal by dropping to their knees and bowing their heads in the Islamic prayer position, Lineker said it looked as though they ‘ate grass’.
The gesture is often used by Muslim players to celebrate.
He was commentating on Al Jazeera TV, which is mainly aimed at audiences in the Middle East and has a huge Islamic audience.
今回取り上げるのはeat humble pieです。 humble pieは「動物の像物で作ったパイ」の事で(『ジーニアス英和辞典』第4版、大修館書店)、昔使用人に食べさせていたパイの事で決して、階級の高い人間が口にする事はなかったそうです。そんなパイを食べることからeat humble pieは「甘んじて屈辱を受ける；素直に謝るという」意味(ibid)があります。Urban Dictionaryも調べてみると、"to eat humble pie is to apologize and/or face humiliation. originated from the dish "umbles pie" which peasants ate in medieval times (umbles are the innards of deer/cow/boar/whatever else was lying around)"とありました。どうやら語源としてはumbleとhumbleの言葉遊びという説もあるようです。(EnDough)
