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。

they are the provenance of independent toy store

UG先生が紹介されていたNYTの記事に(勝手に)挑戦してみました。
http://d.hatena.ne.jp/A30/20121210/1355092683

問題の箇所はthey are the provenance of independent toy storeの部分。文脈からtheyはToys “R” Us のような大型チェーン店では取り扱われていないthese sorts of diversionsを指していることがわかります。ここでいうthese sorts of diversionsは冒頭からの流れとsmall-batch toys aimed at the parent for whom it is never too early to begin LSAT drillsという説明から判断して,いわゆる「知育玩具」のことです。
さらにprovenanceを辞書で調べると「起源, 出自, 由来」(『プログレッシブ英和中辞典』小学館)とありましたが,ここでは「起源」=「these sorts of diversions を取り扱っている」と考えられます。
以上から,they are the provenance of independent toy storeは「それらの知育玩具は個人経営のおもちゃ屋で販売されている」と解釈してみました。(Koyamamoto)

The Great Divide, Now in the Toy Aisle

Earlier this year, at the 109th Annual American International Toy Fair, held at the Javits Convention Center as one of the culture’s most convincing cases for childlessness, a former investment banker named Jill Todd displayed “The Tuneables,” an interactive DVD series she had created through her company, the Music Intelligence Project. The daughter of two musicologists, Ms. Todd developed the project in conjunction with her parents as an instructional system in melody, rhythm and tone — the fundamentals of music leveraged as a means to enhance cognitive function. Nearby, but easily obscured by the acres of primary-color plastic, was a booth for a company called Fat Brain Toys, whose games and puzzles in logic and sequencing came with an impressive lineage, some of them designed by the celebrated inventor Ivan Moscovich, a Holocaust survivor.

Walking into one of the three branches of Toys “R” Us now in the Bronx, you would find nothing from either of these ventures. Just as we are unlikely to unearth dilled artisanal long beans from the farms of northern Vermont, we are unlikely to find these sorts of diversions — small-batch toys aimed at the parent for whom it is never too early to begin LSAT drills — in large retail chains. Instead, they are the provenance of independent toy stores that maintain a presence almost exclusively in the city’s most affluent neighborhoods.