impetus #2

19世紀に学舎として設立された建物の大移動が行われました。その移動手段は, なんと牛の馬力による牽引だったようです。

Oxen help U.S. town move 1823 building back to original spot

BROWNINGTON, Vt. (AP) — With dozens of oxen leading the way, a historic schoolhouse has been relocated to the original spot where a prominent African-American scholar and legislator was once its schoolmaster.

For decades, the Orleans County Grammar School served as a Grange hall in Brownington, a hilltop village near the Canadian border. But town officials decided they wanted to move the 9-by-12-meter white clapboard-sided house about half a kilometer up the road to restore the village’s historic district to its 19th-century condition.

The 105-ton timber-frame school building was moved Monday up a hill by an engine on the back of a barge-like rolling platform that filled both lanes of the narrow country road. The 44 oxen, well, they were there more for show and to give the 900 or so onlookers a feel of what it might have been like to move the house back in the day.

中略

The impetus for the move came two years ago, when the town was told it could no longer get insurance for a building without indoor plumbing or a modern heating system. Residents voted to offer the building to the Orleans County Historical Society, which oversees the Brownington historic district.

以下省略

http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0003136831

本日取り上げる表現は “impetus” です。

『新英和大辞典』(第五版, 研究社)で調べると, “impetus” はもともと「[機械]運動量(momentum)」を示していたことがわかりました。そこから, 「起動力」や「勢い」, 「刺激」という意味を表すようになったそうです。

上記の意味合いだけでは, 今回の日本語訳にしっくりこなかったので, “Merriam-Webster com” で調べると, “a force that causes something (such as a process or activity) to be done or to become more active” と定義されていました。

以上より, 今回の “impetus” はタイトルの “move~ back” と共起し, 「(建物を移動する運びとなった)発端」のような意味で用いられているのではないかと思いました。(Cayu)

以前, “impetus” の記事が取り上げられていました。
impetus - 田邉祐司ゼミ 常時英心：言葉の森から