maverick 復習
今月１２日、タレントの大橋巨泉さんが亡くなりました。
Kyosen Ohashi, the charming TV star who led a charmed life
Kyosen Ohashi, one of Japan's most popular TV personalities from the mid-1960s until he went into semi-retirement in 1990, has died. He was 82.
Ohashi, whose real name was Katsumi, died on July 12, it was learned July 20.
Along with his long entertainment career, he rode his fame to winning an Upper House seat in 2001.
Ohashi's career as a popular TV show host can be traced to 1966 when he presented "11 PM." Breaking the rules of TV broadcasting at that time, Ohashi included such topics as gambling and sex in the late-night show, leading the way for other programs that followed a similar formula.
He also coined several popular phrases used in TV commercials that quickly took the nation by storm.
Ohashi later served as host of popular quiz programs involving celebrity guests.
True to his maverick style, Ohashi also went against the Japanese tendency to work seemingly forever and announced in 1990, when he was only 56, that he was going into semi-retirement. He quit all his regular TV programs and only appeared occasionally as a guest on TV and radio programs.
Ohashi led a relaxing life in which he spent summers in Canada, winters in New Zealand and Australia, and the other seasons of the year at his home in Japan.
He owned "OK" gift shops overseas and wrote about his life of luxury in "Kyosen, Jinsei no Sentaku" (Kyosen, choice of life), which became a best-seller.
Ohashi was persuaded by Naoto Kan, who was then secretary-general of the Democratic Party of Japan, to run in the 2001 Upper House election. He was elected with 410,000 votes, the most by a DPJ candidate in the proportional representation section, but differences over political views led him to resign his Diet seat only six months after his election.
His health problems first emerged in 2005 when he was diagnosed with stomach cancer. In 2013, cancer was found in his oropharynx.
http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201607200038.html
今回取り上げる表現は、“maverick”です。“maverick”を『ウィズダム英和辞典』(第３版、三省堂)で引いたところ、「一匹狼、異端者」とありました。
LDOCEでは、“an unusual person who has different ideas an ways of behaving from other people, and is often very successful”と定義されていました。他者とは異なる一匹狼、異端者ではあるが、大いに成功している人を表現する単語のようです。
この単語の語源は、“Samuel Maverick”という人名にあります。この人物は１９世紀テキサスで政治家や弁護士、農場領主など様々な分野で活躍した人物です。当時、自分の所有している牛にそのしるしとして焼印を押すことが決まりになっていましたが、このMaverickはこれを拒否しました。そのエピソードから、「他社とは異なる考えを持った人」という意味で“maverick”が使われるようになったようです。(Blue Sky)
今回の表現は以前にも取り上げられております。
