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。

mud-flinging

mud-flingingは文字通り、「泥(mud)を投げる(fling)」ですが(cf. sling)、politicalが付いて比喩的に用いられるときには「中傷合戦、誹謗中傷する選挙活動」となります。大統領選挙でおなじみになったnegative campaignやsmear campaignなどもほぼ同じ意味です。(UG)

Voters fed up with 'gutter politics'

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda is set to dissolve the House of Representatives on Nov. 16 for a snap election and lower house lawmakers are scrambling to prepare for campaigning, but many voters are getting tired of political mud-flinging and are at a loss as to which candidate and political party they should cast their ballots for.

Sachiko Saito, a 48-year-old part-time worker, who lives in a rented housing unit in Minamisoma, Fukushima Prefecture, said, she turned off her TV while Noda was having a one-on-one debate in the Diet with political party leaders over a snap election because she thought it was "ridiculous." "After all, politicians are thinking only about themselves," she complained.

The woman, who had run a funeral home in Minamisoma's Odaka district in Fukushima Prefecture before the crisis broke out at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant, said, "I want them to live here even for a short while and experience the hardship we have here. All politicians say 'it is for the sake of disaster victims' but I wonder if they understand the real situation here." Twenty months have passed since the outbreak of the nuclear crisis, but it remains unclear when she will be able to resume her business in the Odaka district for which an evacuation order was lifted last April.

http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20121115p2a00m0na009000c.html