tenure 復習
ケネディ駐日米大使は１８日夜、３年２カ月の日本駐在を終え、成田発の日航機で離日しました。
Caroline Kennedy leaves Japan after 3 years as U.S. ambassador
Caroline Kennedy stepped down Wednesday after three years as U.S. ambassador to Japan, where she was welcomed like a celebrity and worked to deepen the U.S.-Japan relationship despite regular flare-ups over American military bases on the southern island of Okinawa.
Appointed by President Barack Obama in 2013, she had been expected to leave with the coming change in U.S. leadership. President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team has also said that all envoys who were political appointees must step down by Inauguration Day on Friday. Trump has not named a new ambassador yet.
Kennedy ruffled some feathers early in her tenure by tweeting her opposition to Japan’s dolphin hunt, shortly after her embassy issued a statement expressing “disappointment” that Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had visited a shrine that memorializes World War II war criminals, among others.
“tenure” /ténjɚ/ を取りあげます。『ジーニアス英和辞典』によると「役職の任期」「終身在職」という意味で、語源はラテン語のtenereで保持という意味があります。LDOCEでは“the period of time when someone has an important job”という定義があてはまるかと思いました。ten, tain がつく単語は「保持する、持つ」 という意味合いを持つものが多いこともわかりました。例えば、sustainable 「維持・継続可能な」、retention 「保有、記憶」といったような例が挙げられます。トランプ次期大統領はまだ次の駐日大使を指名していませんが、誰になるのか注目が高まるのではないかと思います。(lua)
