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。

temerity

 Fifty years ago this spring, the sewing machinists at Ford’s Dagenham plant famously downed tools and in doing so changed history. But contrary to popular belief, the strike that nudged Barbara Castle into creating the Equal Pay Act didn’t start over equal pay.
 It was originally a demand for recognition, for the women who stitched Ford’s car seats to be acknowledged for what they really were. A regrading exercise had classified the men on the factory floor as skilled workers entitled to higher rates, but lumped the women in with janitors as unskilled labour. It was the casual dismissal of what they did that rankled. …

 But choice is a loaded word in this context. Choosing to have children carries a hefty pay penalty, especially if you then go part-time – but there is no immutable law that says it must do. The gap could be further narrowed if there wasn’t a lingering resistance in many companies to making part-time jobs available at senior levels, and to advertising jobs as flexible where there’s no good reason not to. Employers have a choice, too, over whether to sideline or punish women for having the temerity to take maternity leave. (Skip the rest)

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/02/gender-equality-work-respect-money


 今回取り上げる語は、temerity / təmérəṭi / です。まず意味を確認します。LDOCEをみると、”when someone says or does something in a way that shows a lack of respect for other people and is likely to offend them” とあり、Cambridge Dictionary をみると、”a willingness to do or say something that shocks or upsets other people” と定義されていました。また、『ウィズダム英和辞典』(三省堂)をみると、「[かたく] 無鉄砲、向こう見ず、厚顔」とあります。
 次に語源を確認します。OEDをみると、”Late Middle English: from Latin temeritas, from temere ‘rashly’.” とありました。”rashly” は「向こう見ずな、軽率な」という意味です。(OkaUchi)

cf. foolhardy