常時英心:言葉の森から 1.0

約10年間,はてなダイアリーで英語表現の落穂拾いを行ってきました。現在はAmeba Blogに2.0を開設し,継続中です。こちらはしばらくアーカイブとして維持します。

stick-up

拳銃ではなく、枝をもった強盗がお店に押し入りました。

This is a stick up! Two men rob a convenience store using a TREE BRANCH as a weapon

A shopkeeper was threatened with a tree branch as two thugs robbed his Sydney convenience store before he chased them off with a fruit knife.
Alan Toh, 66, said he feared for his life when the two men waved the large branch at him and demanded money from his cash register at about 7.30pm on Saturday.
The father-of-four hit his panic button but it wasn't working and was forced to hand over $800 and his mobile phone.
The whole terrifying ordeal was captured on new CCTV cameras Mr Toh had installed six months ago after three other hold-ups.
But when the robbers weren't looking he grabbed a fruit knife from behind the counter and chased them from his shop on McBurney Road in Cabramatta.
'I turned around I take this knife and they see the knife and run away,' he told Nine News as he showed off the small cutting tool that scared his attackers away.
The grandfather has run the shop for 20 years after he came to Australia from Vietnam in 1990 in search of a better life.
No one was injured in the robbery but police said Mr Toh could have been badly hurt.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3829254/This-stick-Two-men-hold-convenience-store-using-TREE-BRANCH-weapon.html

今回気になった表現はstick-upです。

LDOCEでは“a hold-up”、つまり「強盗」と定義されていました。

ジーニアス英和辞典』(第五版、大修館書店)によると主にアメリカで使われる表現で「ピストル強盗」を指すそうです。
さらに“This is a stick-up!”というフレーズで「強盗だ。おとなしくしろ」という意味になります。店などに押し入った際、棒を振り上げて言っているイメージがわいてきます。

今回押し入った強盗はピストルではなく、木の枝を持っていたので、まさに文字通りです。(flyingbird)

cf. stick'em up