NY帰り、はみだし社員の英語お勉強日記

メモリーカードが壊れていて、録音が正しくてきていませんでした（悲）。


Paper Chase Day (2) Wednesday, November 30

1) hate to get rid of　　　処分するのを嫌がる
In stead of saying you "hate to get rid of" something, you could
substitute the phrase "can't bare to part with" something.

2) You've got to be joking. それは冗談でしょう。
In a case like this, when you think someone's joking or trying to
make you believe something that isn't really true. You could say,
"You've got to be joking," like Green does, but, there's a couple other
phrases. You could say, "Are you pulling my leg?" or more simply,
"Unbelievable," or very casually, "Oh, go on!"

3) toss out ～を捨てる、放り出す
Takahashi talks about "tossing out the most paper." "Toss out" is a
phrase of verb that means throw something away or get rid of
something, put it in the trash can. Sometimes for the same
meaning though people will drop the "out" and just say I tossed it.
But "toss" alone is also its own verb. It's a kind of lightly
throwing things. You could "toss a ball up in the air," up and down,
up and down. People toss a coin to choose teams or who gets to go
first, a kind of decision making, mechanism. And you can also toss
salad. In that case, you take different kinds of leaf lettuce and
break it up into bite size pieces and then in English, people don't
usually say "mix it." Mixing is a heavier action that you use for butters
and things like that with a spoon. Because salad leaves are very
light weight, to kind of toss them into the air, so that all the
different types get mixed up nicely.

4) date back to the creation of the world 大昔にさかのぼる
The phrase "date back to the creation of the world," just means it's
very very old. Another phrase that people use sometimes to say
something is very old is to say, "It's as old as dirt."

5) ditch （ 動）捨てる、　（名）どぶ
"Ditch" means "get rid of," but it's very slangy sounding. Actually,
ditch is a noun and a verb. As a noun, it's a long narrow trench in
the ground. I think you probably hear it use much more in a slang
meaning. In this case, Greene is just talking about throwing away or
discarding something, but you can also use it to talk about getting
away from a person. Especially if it is with some friend or
companion that you don't want to be with right now, you can also,
"ditch the police," if they're following you. That's escape from
them following you. You can also use it to talk about skipping
classes or not going to school or playing hooky.

ditch a girlfriend = ガールフレンドを捨てる

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Vocabulary Building
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6) cull 選別する、間引く
"Cull" is kind of an interesting word. When it's used as a verb, it
can be neutral, it just means picking things out of a group for some
reason. It can also be used negatively. If you're picking them out,
because they're defective. But as a noun, it almost always refers to
things that have been rejected and so they're usually worse quality
or not functioning properly things like that.


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7) Thanks for listening.