social lubricant

少し古い記事ですが、この前先生から教わった単語が入っていたので取り上げたいともいます。
ここでのsocial lubricantは「社会生活の潤滑油」となるでしょうか。また、この言い回しには「社交辞令」という意味があるそうです。
ほかにもsocialを使った表現として、直接は関係ありませんが、この記事にはsocial gluというのがあります。ここでは「人と人とをつなぐもの」「きずな」ととれるでしょうか。「飲ミュニケーション」という言い方がありますが、まさにこれですね。（Sugar）

Alcohol: Social Lubricant for 10,000 Years

As people ring in the New Year with dancing and a bit of bubbly, they can consider themselves part of an ancient human tradition.

Several new archaeological finds suggest that alcohol has been a social glue in parties, from work festivals to cultic feasts, since the dawn of civilization.

In the December issue of the journal Antiquity, archaeologists describe evidence of nearly 11,000-year-old beer brewing troughs at a cultic feasting site in Turkey called Göbekli Tepe. And archaeologists in Cyprus have unearthed the 3,500-year-old ruins of what may have been a primitive beer brewery and feasting hall at a site called Kissonerga-Skalia. The excavation, described in the November issue of the journal Levant, revealed several kilns that may have been used to dry malt before fermentation.

http://www.livescience.com/25855-stone-age-beer-brewery-discovered.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Livesciencecom+%28LiveScience.com+Science+Headline+Feed%29