● Back Numbers 053〜056
今回は、ちょっとイレギュラーですが、時事的な話題を絡めて、最近流行の「固有名詞の『ロゴ化』についてバーナード先生の意見が展開されています。ライブドアは"livedoor"と小文字で書かれますが、これが文頭に来たときは、最初の"l"はどうすればよいのでしょう? |
No. 053 "Livedoor" or "livedoor"? ----固有名詞の「ロゴ化」について |
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How should we write the name of this company? Its logo seems to be written "livedoor". But does that mean that when we write it in a running English text that we should ignore the usual rules of English capital letters, and write "livedoor"? If we decide that we should write "livedoor", presumably we should also write it like this at the beginning of a sentence. This would seem a bit strange. And what about "i-Pod"? How should we write this at the beginning of a sentence? If you read Time magazine, you will find that the magazine refers to itself as "TIME". Should we all follow this? Funny ways of writing names are becoming more and more common. There is an accounting company called "PricewaterhouseCoopers". There are three personal names embedded in this company"s name: Price + Waterhouse + Cooper. Should we remember that the name of the company is "PricewaterhouseCoopers", rather than "PriceWaterhouseCoopers", or "PriceWaterhousecoopers", or "Pricewaterhousecoopers", or perhaps "PriceWaterhouse-Coopers", or even "priceWaterhouseCoopers", etc, etc.? These ways of writing names have flourished with the spread of computerization. There seem to be hundreds of these now, such as "DataViz", etc. If you dig into your computer, you will have no difficulty finding them. As far as I know, there are no English-language rules for how to write these names. But it does seem unreasonable to expect ordinary people, not connected with the company or product, to remember how to write the name. What these companies are trying to do, it seems to me, is to push their logos down consumers" throats. My view is that these ways of writing names are logos. I do not myself feel that I have to remember to write "DataViz", rather than "Data Viz" or "Dataviz". I am willing to learn and follow the rules for writing English, including the rules of capitalization. However, I am not willing to learn logos! P.S. After I finished writing this Column, Mr Horie was arrested, and news stories about Livedoor became very common. I notice that some newspapers write "livedoor", and others write "Livedoor". |
● Words & Phrases ●
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(帝京大学教授 Christopher Barnard) |
次回掲載予定2月20日 |
「エビちゃん」のCMですっかり有名になったマクドナルドの"I am lovin' it." でも、たしか動詞のloveは進行形にはできなかったはずなのに... どうしてこんなふうに言えるのでしょう? |
No. 054 Can we say, "I am loving it"? ----"love"は進行形にできるのか? |
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McDonald's (the hamburger chain) has been running an advertising campaign with the words, "I am lovin' (=loving) it". Is this correct English? It is usual to learn at school that a lot of verbs that are "mental" in some way cannot be used in the 〜ing form. For example we cannot usually say the following: (×)I am loving/liking it. Some of these verbs have equivalents which are more closely connected to action and behaviour. For example: * "Love" and "like" are mental, but "enjoy" can be action/behaviour. Therefore we can say, "I am enjoying this film", but we cannot say (×)"I am loving/liking this film". What McDonald"s has done with this advertisement is to change a mental verb ("love") into a type of action/behaviour verb ("loving"). In a sense, eating hamburgers, and enjoying the taste, becomes part of our daily action and behaviour. The feeling is, "I am not just enjoying this hamburger, I am actually loving it". In conclusion, I would say that this is an imaginative, vivid use of English, and we cannot say that it is incorrect grammar. |
● Words & Phrases ●
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(帝京大学教授 Christopher Barnard) |
次回掲載予定2月27日 |
みなさんは、「相互動詞」と呼ばれる動詞のグループがあることをご存知でしたか? このグループに属する動詞はある一定のパターンを伴って用いられるのですが、これを意識的に理解することでみなさんの英語使用能力はさらにレベルアップできるでしょう。今回はそのパターンと分類の紹介です。 |
No.055 What are "reciprocal verbs" ? (Part 1) ----「相互動詞」とは何か?(その1) |
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What I am calling reciprocal verbs have the following two patterns: 1. John talked with Mary. And some of them have this pattern: 3. John and Mary talked together. A list of reciprocal verbs is given below. Since they are reciprocal verbs, they can all occur with the patterns of sentences 1 and 2, and some of them can also be used with the pattern of sentence 3. SOCIETY (all can be used with the patterns of sentences 1, 2, and 3) speak PLACE (all can be used with the patterns of sentences 1, 2, and 3) grow up SUPPORT (all can be used with the patterns of sentences 1 and 2, but not the pattern of sentence 3) sympathize(同情する) OPINION (all can be used with the patterns of sentences 1 and 2, but not the pattern of sentence 3) communicate SEXY (all can be used with the patterns of sentences 1 and 2, but not the pattern of sentence 3) flirt (おもしろ半分に気を引く) As you can see, I have divided the above verbs into meaning groups. In the next Column, I will discuss why SUPPORT, OPINION, and SEXY cannot be used with the "together" pattern, as in sentence 3 above.
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● Words & Phrases ●
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(帝京大学教授 Christopher Barnard) |
次回掲載予定3月6日 |
「相互動詞」についての二回目です。意味グループにより、パターンの違いが起こる理由について解説しています。これらは、日本人が混同しやすい語法上の問題点のひとつでもあるようです。 |
No. 056 What are "reciprocal verbs" ? (Part2) ----「相互動詞」とは何か?(その2) |
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In the last Column, I introduced the idea of reciprocal verbs, and gave quite a long list of these verbs. I said that those verbs in meaning groups SOCIETY and PLACE can take the following three patterns: 1. John talked with Mary. However, those in meaning groups SUPPORT, OPINION, and SEXY can only take the first two of these patterns: 1. John sympathized with Mary. The reason for this is that the relationship between the people (eg. John and Mary) in the SOCIETY and PLACE groups is very different from the relationship between the people (John and Mary) in the SUPPORT, OPINION, and SEXY groups. In the SUPPORT, OPINION, and SEXY groups there is an interaction between John and Mary that is a backwards-and-forwards/give-and-take interaction. For example, "flirt" (in the SEXY group) is certainly a give-and-take interaction. When we have this backwards-and-forwards/give-and-take interaction, we cannot use the pattern as in sentence 3 (the "together" pattern). This is quite natural, since "together" is a side-by-side relationship, not a backwards-and-forwards/give-and-take relationship. We can summarize this Column and the previous Column. (A) side-by-side relationship ("together"): 1. John and Mary danced. (B)backwards-and-forwards relationship (no "together"): 1. John and Mary flirted.
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● Words & Phrases ●
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(帝京大学教授 Christopher Barnard) |
次回掲載予定3月13日 |