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。

lying in obscurity 復習

今日は先生から頂いた、アメリカの詩人Walt Whitman の健康法についての記事からです。

Poet Walt Whitman health tips unearthed

A trove of journalism by the great US poet Walt Whitman is being published online after lying in obscurity more than 150 years.

The 13-part series, Manly Health and Training, was written under a pseudonym for a New York newspaper in 1858.

It contains a multitude of tips on topics such as diet, sex, and hygiene.

The 47,000-word series, which survived only in a few libraries, was discovered in a digitised newspaper database by a graduate student last year.

It is now being published by the online journal The Walt Whitman Quarterly Review.

US commentators point out that some of Whitman's health advice sounds surprisingly modern.

"Let the main part of the diet be meat, to the exclusion of all else," one entry reads - a exhortation that both The New York Times and Time Magazine say would be endorsed by today's paleo-diet advocates.

Whitman also recommended the general use of the comfortable shoes "now specially worn by base-ball players" - trainers, as we would call them today.
He also warned against the ravages of desk jobs. "To you, clerk, literary man, sedentary person, man of fortune, idler, the same advice. Up!"

Whitman is regarded as one of America's literary giants, but for many years he scraped a living as a journalist, and achieved success as a poet late in life.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-36177820

記事の中で気になった表現は、"lying in obscurity"です。

まず、ご存知のように、"lie ( in )"には「横たわっている、ある」という意味があります。

次に、"obscurity" の意味を『ジーニアス英和辞典』(大修館)第4版で調べると、1.「無名、卑賤(ひせん)」2.「あいまい、不明瞭、難解」3.「暗さ、薄暗さ」とありました。
ここでは2の意味が当てはまります。

つまり"lying in obscurity"で、「(誰にも気づかれずに)ひっそりと眠っていた」となります。(Akim)

in obscurityは過去の記事にもたくさん出ております。
Blown call - 田邉祐司ゼミ 常時英心:言葉の森から