ビジネスマンに捧ぐ～　英語学習に役立つ！PEGL事務局ブログ -7ページ目

In the News #29 - Confusing Headlines

オンライン英会話講師のCurtis講師が提供する
ニュースの英語を解説する" In the News"シリーズ
第29回の本日は"Confusing Headlines"です。

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In the News #29 - Confusing Headlines

On Oct. 15, 2010, in the Japan Times, we had the following headline:
Acom, Promise clients chasing overcharged interest payments

Newspaper editors have a difficult job. Often they need to create headlines for various stories, but they are either limited on space, or the story is very difficult to explain in just a few words. “Obama wins U.S. election” and “Geothermal technology promoted” are fairly easy to understand, and we can expect that the stories following these headlines will either deal with the result of an election for the next U.S. president, or a description of alternative energy technology.

But, in the above headline it is almost impossible to tell what the article is about, and even after reading the article we may not completely understand the meaning of the headline, even for native English speakers.

First, the newspaper story regards problems supposedly caused by two consumer lending companies, Promise, Co., and Acom, Co. Both companies have been accused of “coercive lending”. That is, they charged excessive interest on loans of money to consumer clients. The Japanese government has “cracked down” on such lending practices, meaning that banks and loan services will be punished by the government if they charge excessive interest in the future.

As part of the crack down, both Acom and Promise have been ordered by the government to give back to the consumers some of the money charged in interest. That is, Acom and Promise “overcharged” consumers through excessive interest charges on their loans and now they have to return that money to their clients. Usually, when we talk about returning money to a customer, we use “reimburse”, “repay” or “return the money”.

The next complication is that one more lending institution, Takefuji, Co., filed for bankruptcy in September. By declaring bankruptcy, Takefuji is able to avoid reimbursing their clients for millions of dollars in overcharged interest payments. Because the clients of Takefuji will not get some of their money back, the clients of Acom and Promise are afraid that these two companies will also declare bankruptcy, and are demanding their reimbursements immediately. Since the clients are pushing to get their money right away, the Japan Times editors felt that “chasing after the money” was the right phrase to use for their headline.

We could take the headline, “Acom, Promise clients chasing overcharged interest payments”,

And change it to, “Clients of Acom and Promise companies struggle to get reimbursed for payments on overcharged interest”. Unfortunately, this sentence is too long to use as a headline. Additionally, having “Promise” and “clients” together makes it look like “Acom promises clients” something. To avoid confusion, we should switch the order of the company names. An alternative headline would be, “Promise, Acom clients pursue interest overcharge reimbursements”.

As you read the newspapers this week, try to find more examples of headlines that are confusing or misrepresent the associated stories.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nb20101015n2.html

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In the News #28 - Tipped Tapped

オンライン英会話講師のCurtis講師が提供する
ニュースの英語を解説する" In the News"シリーズ
第28回の本日は"Tipped Tapped"です。

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In the News #28 - Tipped Tapped

On Oct. 15, 2010, in the Japan Times, we had the following headline:
Short route tipped for Tokyo-Osaka maglev

In today’s article, we are told that the Central Japan Railway Company is planning on announcing which of the three proposed routes between Tokyo and Osaka will be selected for their new magnetic-levitation bullet train line. Of the three routes, the shortest route is the one preferred by CJR.

In the past, in the western military, it was common for soldiers to be selected for missions or promotions by having a senior officer walking behind them and tapping them on the shoulder. From this action, we use “I was tapped” to mean “I was selected” for something. Examples include ‘The boss tapped me to run the new sales project” and “The President tapped Hilary Clinton to be the new Secretary of State”.

In this above usage, the verb “tap” is a synonym for “select” or “appoint”. “Tap” is not currently used often in everyday speech, although it was more common in the past. We see it now mostly in news stories regarding actors being chosen for specific movie roles, or politicians being picked for top government positions. (I.e. – “Tom Cruise tapped for Mission: Impossible 4 movie.”)

“Tip” on the other hand is not normally used to mean “select”. Generally, “tip” refers to “tip something at an angle”, or “to provide insider information”. A third usage, in western countries, is to give a restaurant worker, or taxi driver, a small amount of money as a “thank you” gift.

Examples for using “tip”:

“The dinner cost $25, and I added a $5 tip for the waiter for the meal.”
“The garbage can was tipped over, and all of the trash fell out on the street.”
“An unnamed government agent gave me a tip on who the police are investigating for the crime.”

Notice that “’tipped” does not normally have the meaning of “appointed”. It is possible that over time some western English speakers have taken to using “tapped” in their conversations, but for some reason they have switched to using “tipped” instead.

We say that any language that people speak today is “a living language”. That is, the language changes over time as certain words become more or less popular, or certain phrases take on regional usage patterns. One more driving factor for changes in language is that people misuse words, giving them meanings they didn’t have before (for example “imply” and “infer”, which originally had opposite meanings but are now often used interchangeably). The impact of this misuage is multiplied when carried out by newspaper reporters and editors. It is possible that in a few years, people will use “Tom Cruise was tipped to be the lead star in Mission: Impossible 5”, and “tapped” will be discontinued entirely.

Probably, the more correct headline for today is:

Short route tapped for Tokyo-Osaka maglev

Or, better yet:

Short route preferred for Tokyo-Osaka maglev

As you read the newspapers this week, try to find more examples of stories using “tapped” and “tipped”.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nb20101015a2.html

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In the News #27 – Extra Mile

オンライン英会話講師のCurtis講師が提供する
ニュースの英語を解説する" In the News"シリーズ
第27回の本日は"Extra Mile"です。

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In the News #27 – Extra Mile

On Oct. 6, 2010, in the Japan Times, we had the following headline:
Toyota goes extra mile on brake safety

In the modern age, it is common for people to travel by car or truck to go from one point to another. Usually, we want to follow a straight line to minimize our effort and driving time. Sometimes, though, a friend will ask us to take them to a third location, such as a store or a school, that is not part of our regular straight-line path. In this situation we may have to travel several extra miles “out of our way” for them; meaning that we “have to go the extra mile” for them.

Figuratively, “going the extra mile means “to do a favor for someone” or “to make an extra effort” for them. Many companies, especially moving companies and travel agencies, like to use this phrase as their slogan – “We go that extra mile for you”. Meaning “we will try harder to make you satisfied with our service”.

Therefore, the above headline could be rewritten as “Toyota tries extra hard to improve the safety of their car brakes”. In the newspaper article, the writer mentions that Toyota is adding a special circuit to stop the car when the driver steps on both the accelerator and brake pedals. They are also adding “black box” circuits for analyzing why a car crash occurred, when “black boxes” are not yet required by U.S. law. (The “black box” is more formally called “an event recorder”.)

In addition, 5.6 million cars have been recalled for repairs to fix the sticky accelerator pedal problem.

All of these efforts are presented in the article as being in excess of what is required by the company to make their cars safer in the face customer complaints about possible accident-causing problems.

Normally, using the phrase “going the extra mile” in the headline would be unremarkable. However, we also have “brake safety”. And when we apply the brakes to the car, we want the car to stop right away. That is, we don’t want the brakes to go “the extra mile”, we want them to ”stop now”. Maybe a more appropriate headline would have been “Toyota Concentrates on Making Cars Safer”.

As you read the newspapers this week, try to find more examples of stories using “extra mile”.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nb20101006a2.html

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大前学長Amazonの「殿堂入り」に

先日、オンラインストア「Amazon.co.jp」を運営するアマゾンジャパン株式会社が、
サービス開始10周年を記念して、これまでの注文状況や読者のカスタマーレビューで人気が高かった
著者を表彰するイベントを開きました。

そのイベントにて、大前研一学長が
和書部門の「殿堂入り」として紹介されました。

▼Amazon10周年特別ページ
http://www.amazon.co.jp/b/?ie=UTF8&node=2151050051

学長は188冊の著作を刊行しているのですが、

皆様はそのうち何冊読まれましたか？

また、ただいま、大前学長の新刊も予約受付中です！

慧眼　＜問題を解決する思考＞ (大前研一通信　特別保存版　Part.Ⅳ)/大前研一: ￥1,575; Amazon.co.jp

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内容紹介（Amazonより抜粋）

======================================
ビジネス・ブレークスルー（BBT）大学、

及び大学院などで使われている思考トレーニングでもある

大前流教育メソッド：RTOCS（リアルタイムオンラインケーススタディ）の事例の他、

財政破綻、国債暴落、年金問題など、

日本の抱える難題に対する大前流の分析、処方箋を解説。

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是非お手に取ってみてください

事務局・山口

In the News #26 - Fire Up

オンライン英会話講師のCurtis講師が提供する
ニュースの英語を解説する" In the News"シリーズ
第26回の本日は"Fire Up"です。

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In the News #26 - Fire Up

On Oct. 6, 2010, in the Japan Times, we had the following headline:
Kansai Electric fires up first solar station

“Fire up” has the meaning of “start up”. However, as the phrase implies, it has the nuance of “to use fire to get something to do work”. Examples include “to fire up the furnace” and “to fire up the engine”. In the second example, gasoline engines use burning fuel to make the engine pistons move, and when we first start the engine it is cold and needs time to heat up before it can run smoothly. So, “fire up” includes the meaning of “to get something to start for the first time so that it runs smoothly afterwards”.

A related phrase is “fire off”, which means “to shoot”. As in “to fire off a rocket” or “to fire off a warning shot”. Notice that “fire up” and “fire off” have two completely different meanings and should not be confused with each other.

It’s reasonable to use “fire up” when we want to say that a nuclear power station, a coal-burning power plant, or a steam-driven generator is being tested for the first time. These forms of energy generators use heat of some kind to create electricity and that heat needs to be ignited somehow. When we fire up a power plant, we get its main heat source to start burning.

Because the power generator remains running continuously after being started, we can also use “brought online”. An example is “the latest power plant in New York was brought online last week”. “Brought online” also means that the power plant is actually supplying power to people’s houses and company buildings.

The problem is that a solar station doesn’t directly use heat to generate electricity. Instead, the solar panels convert radiation from the sun to electricity directly. There’s no fire involved in making the solar panels operate. There’s nothing to “fire up” on a solar panel. Really, the more correct phrase should have been “Kansai Electric activates first solar station”, or “Kansai Electric brings first solar station online”. The newspaper article states that at the beginning the power station is running at partial capacity to supply power to 900 households, and is expected to be at full capacity 1 year from now, with 3000 households. “Brought online” would have been the more correct phrase.

As you read the newspapers this week, try to find more examples of stories using “fire up”.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nb20101006a4.html

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In the News #25 - Cook Up

オンライン英会話講師のCurtis講師が提供する
ニュースの英語を解説する" In the News"シリーズ
第25回の本日は"Cook Up"です。

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In the News #25 - Cook Up

On Oct. 5, 2010, in the Daily Yomiuri, we had the following headline:
Maeda's boss 'cooked up' cover-up

When we see the word “cook”, we automatically think of “to prepare food”. So we can easily assume that the above headline could be rewritten as “Maeda’s boss prepared cover-up”.

The wiktionary.org entry for “to cook the books” says that this phrase originated at least in the 1600’s in England, as a metaphor for falsifying accounting records. In America companies are only supposed to have one official set of accounting records for tracking sales and costs. However, some companies would “keep two sets of books”, that is one set of accounting records were “cooked up” to be shown to the federal government for tax reporting, and the other set contained the true information regarding costs and profits.

Because “cooking the books” is the verb form to mean “falsifying the accounting records”, when we decide how to make the false data, we “cook up” that data. From this usage, “cook up” has also taken on the meaning of “to develop a new idea”. Often, companies will create advertising that uses the lines “see what we’ve cooked up now” and “guess what we’ve cooked up for you”, meaning “please look at our new products”. Here, “what we’ve cooked up for you” takes on the nuances of “to create” and “to prepare food” both at the same time.

This gives us the phrases:
Cook the books
Cooking the books
To cook up a new idea
See what we’ve cooked up

In the above headline, “Maeda’s boss ‘cooked up’ cover-up”, “cooked up” has the negative meaning of “to fabricate”, “to plot” or “to do something to mislead others”. So, our initial assumption was correct. We could reword this headline to read “Maeda’s boss planned cover-up”. Next, we need to ask “why did the editors decide to use ‘cook up’?” The phrase “cook up” does not appear anywhere else in the article. We have to assume that “cook up” was selected to match the appearance of the phrase “cover-up”. That is, for “alliteration”, only. (Alliteration is defined as a series of the same sounds appearing at the beginning of several words or phrases.)

As you read the newspapers this week, try to find more examples of stories using “cooking up”.

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T101004004150.htm
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cook_the_books

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In the News #24 - Hook

オンライン英会話講師のCurtis講師が提供する
ニュースの英語を解説する" In the News"シリーズ
第24回の本日は"Hook"です。

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In the News #24 - Hook

On Oct. 3, 2010, in the Daily Yomiuri, we had the following headline:
Local govts seek to hook interest in fish

Not all attempts to be funny will work. When an editor picks a headline for a story, they may try to make a word play related the subject of the story. Because today’s story is about regional governments in Japan trying to get children to be more interested in eating fish caught in those areas, the editors wanted to use “hook” in the headline. The problem is that in the U.S. we don’t normally say “hook interest in”. So, this is a forced joke. Forced jokes are not funny.

It is more natural to say “raise interest in”, “get people interested in”, “generate interest in” and even “hook people on”. This last example does come from fishing. For certain types of fish, we use a nylon fishing line, with a metal hook tied on one end. We place a worm on the hook, and a lead weight on the line to force the line to sink into the water (which is why we call the weight a “sinker”). We may also put a small plastic ball, called a “bobber”, on the line to keep the fish hook from going to the bottom of the lake.

When the fish eats the worm, the hook grabs into its mouth. We then say that we “hooked the fish”. It’s from this phrase that we get “I hooked a new customer”, meaning “I sold our product to a new customer”. It’s also the phrase that the Yomiuri editors should have used in the headline – “Local govts seek to hook children on fish”.

For writers, the most interesting, or attention-catching part of their creation is also called “the hook”. The hook in a script is the plot twist that attracts audiences to see the film; in music it is the combination of notes, or the one lyric people keep singing after the song is finished; and in novels it is the first line of the story that compels the reader to keep reading. In all cases, the hook is what causes the customer to pay money to buy the product.

In some cases, hook has a negative meaning. That is, when a salesperson lies to the customer and the customer believes the lie. One example is,

John: I hear you convinced Company A to buy the 2-year warrantee for their new computers.
Rick: Yeah, I told them that without the warrantee they may end up spending more than twice the price of a new machine on repairs. They swallowed it hook, line and sinker.

In this example, if a fish is extremely hungry, it may swallow not only the worm with the fish hook, but at least one meter of nylon line plus the lead sinker. We call this “swallowing the hook, line and sinker” or “buying it hook, line and sinker”. Either way, it’s another phrase for “gullible” or “easily misled”.

In summary, the Daily Yomiuri article regards marketing efforts to hook children on the idea of eating local fish. The hope is that the fish are nutritious and good-tasting for the children, and that they are not swallowing a bad publicity stunt hook, line and sinker.

As you read the newspapers this week, try to find more examples of stories using “hook” and “hook, line and sinker”.

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T101002002738.htm

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Married Women and Mothers in the Workplace

オンライン英会話講師のJennifer講師が書く
Women in the Workplace Series

9回目の今回は「Married Women and Mothers in the Workplace」です！

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Women in the Workplace Series 9 – Married Women and Mothers in the Workplace

It is said that in Japan there can sometimes be discrimination in the workplace against women who are married or getting married. Though it is widely believed that this is not the case in the United States, each company is different and therefore it is difficult to say whether or not this is a universal practice in either case. I have often heard of a cultural understanding in Japan that once a woman gets married and/or has a child she is expected (or desires) to leave her job and become a housewife and fulfill her motherly role. Some women do not return to their jobs, while some do. In the United States, in the case of marriage, women usually go back to work right after the honeymoon and in the case of childbirth many go back to work as soon as they are physically strong enough.

In the United States, the unflattering terms we sometimes use to describe housewives are “Suzy Homemaker” or “June Cleaver”, or sometimes even “Betty Crocker” (the latter name referring to Betty Crocker and her food products). We might refer to her as a “Stepford Wife”, which is a term that comes from the horror book and film of the same name. The term “Stepford Wife” is a derogatory term that refers to a woman who stays home as a housewife and obeys her husband’s commands like a mindless robot. (Note: “June Cleaver” was a character on “Leave it to Beaver”, a 1950’s TV series in the U.S.)

Even in countries like the United States, married women can have some difficulties in the workplace if they have children and have trouble arranging babysitting for them. Otherwise, being married in itself is not a deterrent to continuing or entering the workforce; in fact many households have both the husband and wife working. Perhaps the biggest reason for this is due to the feminist movement in the United States. Women had to fight very hard to attain the “same” rights as men and due to this they value their ability to work and generate an income all the more. It would also seem particularly prudent these days given the current rate of divorce – some women feel the need to be able to support themselves in advance.

Nevertheless, married women can still face discrimination in the workplace, more so because they are women than because they are married. For example, there still exists a wage gap between women and men in the workplace, and this is further pronounced when you compare the wages of minority (read: non-Caucasian) women to those of the majority population. Women rising in position can still face issues like the glass ceiling, which is a phrase used when we can look upward to a higher position but which we may never reach due to gender or race. Through inaction (read: doing nothing) women can also self-reinforce these situations.

Nothing is universal, even within a single culture – and so, while there is the general impression that it is very easy for women to enter and remain in the workforce in spite of marriage and/or pregnancy there are always exceptions, which should be noted. In fact, in the case of pregnant women, married or not, there have been some laws which have been put into effect to protect their rights. One is the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 and the other is the Family and Medical Leave Act. In the case of female workers in general, there is the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to prevent job discrimination based on gender. Needless to say, Americans are very keen to start a lawsuit, and so though conditions are not 100% ideal at the moment, there is at least some small comfort in knowing that there is some kind of recourse to discrimination, should someone face it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_Cleaver
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betty_Crocker
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepford_Wives
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Suzy%20Homemaker

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In the News #23 - Hone

オンライン英会話講師のCurtis講師が提供する
ニュースの英語を解説する" In the News"シリーズ
第23回の本日は"Hone"です。

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In the News #23 - Hone

On Oct. 2, 2010, in Japan Today, we had the following headline:
Kan vows to hone Japan's diplomatic skills in changing global environment

“Hone” is a tricky word. It’s pronounced like “bone”. We get this word from the action of sharpening a knife. When we run a special rock, called a whetstone, along the side of the knife blade we are sharpening or “honing” the knife. That is, we are making the edge of the knife sharper.

A second use of “hone” is “to locate a target”. A person hunting deer or bear using a rifle looks around the scope to find to the target, then through the scope and adjusts it to “hone in on the deer”. This usage of “hone in” means “to fine tune” or “get closer to”.

Often, native English speakers use both versions interchangeably to mean “improve”. Examples include “I took a 1-week training course to hone my sales skills”, and “we need to hone in on our market to increase our market share over the next year”. Here, “hone my sales skills” can be reworded as “to become a better salesperson”. “Hone in on our market” could be changed to “focus on a smaller number of favored customers”.

The above headline, “Kan vows to hone Japan’s diplomatic skills”, refers specifically to Prime Minister Kan’s plan to work with the Chinese government to resolve a number of political problems between the two countries. While the phrase implies that Japan’s politicians need to become better diplomats, the body of the article describes Mr. Kan’s wishes that Japan strengthen its economy while asking China to also treat disputes “in a calm manner”. Unfortunately, the headline doesn’t quite match the story written by the reporter. We could say that the newspaper’s reporter needs to hone his headline writing skills.

As you read the newspapers this week, try to find more examples of people honing their skills in some way.

http://www.japantoday.com/category/politics/view/kan-vows-to-hone-japans-diplomatic-skills-in-changing-global-environment

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