sleight of hand #2
ブラジル・マナウス刑務所で相次ぐ受刑者らの衝突は, さらに激しさ増しています。
The red ink behind Brazil’s bloody prison massacre
Even by Brazilian standards, the New Year’s savagery that befell the Compaj maximum security prison in Manaus, in the Amazon region — dozens of inmates murdered, many of them beheaded, dismembered and incinerated in a 17-hour rampage starting Jan. 1 — was shocking.
中略
The rage in Manaus has kicked Brazilian authorities into high alert. Supreme Court President Carmen Lucia has called for a thorough prison census, while the justice minister has promised to accelerate yet another national security plan. Getting security spending priorities right would help. In 2015, the Supreme Court ordered the government to unfreeze funds earmarked for the National Penitentiary Fund.President Michel Temer answered last month with a sleight of hand — an executive order to garnish 30 percent of prison spending, diverting it instead to the generic rubric of national security. That may be a worthy cause in itself, perhaps, but it’s not going to help Brazil fix its blackest holes.
以下省略
http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0003446018
今回取り上げる表現は “sleight of hand” （sleightは/slάɪt/）です。
『リーダーズ英和中辞典』(研究社)で調べると, 第一に「手先の早わざ」とありました。ここから, 「巧妙なごまかし」や「狡猾さ」なども表すそうです。
The Free Dictionary.com には, “a deceptive or misleading act” と定義されていました。
さらに, “sleight” の語源を確認したところ, 「悪賢い, いたずらな」を指す “sly” から派生した表現であることがわかりました。(Merriam-Webster.com)(Cayu)
