keep in the black 復習
おでんと聞くと温かいおでんが浮かびますが、冷たいおでんもあるそうです。
My 2nd Life / Retiree’s oden shop a cozy gathering spot
Oden-ya Egao is located on the first floor of a building near the north entrance of JR Mitaka Station in Mitaka, Tokyo. It is a small diner with an L-shaped counter and seats for only nine customers.
Ikuko Ishihara, 69, manages the diner alone. She smiled as she offered a summer specialty she is proud of, a dish of hiyashi oden. Oden usually consists of savory items simmered in broth and served hot, but hiyashi oden is served cold. On a glass dish were a slice of daikon radish, a boiled egg, some tomato and some jellied broth. Just looking at it made me feel cool.
The diner opened in May 2014. In the summer of that year, Ishihara began serving the dish, which she created herself. “Repeat customers say they consider the dish a summer treat and can’t wait for it,” she said.
中略
At Mitaka Minotake Kigyo Juku, she learned that she could use a government subsidy to finance her business and decided to apply for it. She also received a \2 million grant from the Small and Medium Enterprise Agency, and used \2 million from her savings.
She pays about \90,000 a month rent for the diner. Sales in the wintertime are around \400,000 a month. However, as sales go down in summer, Ishihara has been making various efforts to keep in the black. Serving hiyashi oden dishes is part of that.
以下省略
http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0003124378
今回取り上げる表現は “keep in the black” です。記事の内容から「黒字営業を維持する」という意味ではないかと思われました。『ライトハウス英和辞典』（第5版 研究社）でblackの項目を見てみますと、 “be in the black” で「（営業が）黒字だ、もうかっている」という意味が見つかりました。反対語は “be in the red” です。LDOCEでは “to have money in your bank account [≠ be in the red]” と説明されておりました。「もうかっている」という日本語を英語にしようと思うと「たくさんお金を稼いでいる」といったように動詞中心で考えてしまいそうになりますが、be in the blackとすればシンプルな言い方でもうかっている状態を表すことができるのだなと思いました。（aqua）
lucrative 復習 - 田邉祐司ゼミ 常時英心：言葉の森から
