backed-up traffic 復習
山口県の山陽自動車道で起こった7台を巻き込む玉突き事故で、母親とその子ども2名の死亡が確認されました。
Mother and two children killed in seven-car pileup in Yamaguchi
YAMAGUCHI – A woman and her two children were killed in a car pileup involving seven vehicles in Kudamatsu, Yamaguchi Prefecture, on Tuesday as traffic jams caused havoc on the nation’s roads.
According to the prefectural police and firefighters, a truck slammed into backed-up traffic on the outbound lane of the Sanyo Expressway at around 9:40 p.m. on Tuesday, not long after a roadblock from a previous crash had been removed. The accident killed a 37-year-old mother, Asami Nakai, from the city of Yamaguchi, her 13-year-old son Shugo and her 9-year-old daughter Maon.
今回取り上げるのは、“backed-up”という表現です。この表現を見ると、「(データなどの)バックアップ」や「(人の)支援」といった意味を思い浮かべますが、この記事ではこれらとは異なる意味で用いられていると分かります。そこで句動詞“back up”をLDOCEで調べてみると、“if traffic backs up, it forms a long line of vehicles that cannot move”とあり、また『ジーニアス英和辞典』(大修館書店)では、「(交通が)渋滞する」と記載されており、今回は“backed-up”という形容詞の形で使われています。(ninetails)
