silver-tongued
先日亡くなられたモハメド・アリさんの葬儀に関する記事です。
A Stirring Farewell to Muhammad Ali, Just as He Scripted It
President Obama, in Washington for his daughter’s high school graduation, sent a letter that said Ali’s example had inspired him to think how far he might one day go himself.
“Ali was a radical, even in the most radical of times,” Mr. Obama wrote, in a letter read by his senior adviser Valerie Jarrett. “A loud, and proud, and unabashedly black voice in a Jim Crow world. His jabs knocked some sense into us, pushing us to expand our imagination.”
Billy Crystal, a young and struggling comedian when he became friends with Ali, said the boxer had invited him to go for a training run one morning at a country club. Mr. Crystal said he explained that the club excluded Jews. Ali, he said, was incensed to learn this, saying, “I’m a black Muslim, and they let me run.”
Ali never ran at that club again, Mr. Crystal said. He remembered, as well, that the silver-tongued Ali had lost his speech to illness in recent years, but that he continued to be a powerful force on humanitarian missions.
(一部抜粋)
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/11/sports/muhammad-ali-funeral.html
今回取り上げる単語は、silver-tonguedです。直訳すると「銀色の舌」となりますが、いったいどのような意味なのでしょうか。
Oxford Dictionary of English (Second Edition Reserved, Oxford University Press)によると、silver tongueで”a tendency to be eloquent and persuasive in speaking”となっておりsilver-tonguedは形容詞となったものだそうです。
『ジーニアス英和辞典』(第五版、大修館)で調べたところ、「説得力のある,雄弁な」と載っておりました。
彼の残した数々の功績や名言は、いつまでも人々の心に生き続けることでしょう。(Gomez)