昨日、本日と読んだ記事の中から学んだ言葉など（エコノミストより）とコメント。文章は記事からの引用。ジーニアスとLongmanを利用。
[ A very Japanese revolution ]
・pork-barrel （議員が選挙区で人気を得るために政府から出させる）
地方開発事業（補助金）
昔金貨を豚の塩漬け樽に入れたことから。
“Beginning in the 1970s, high spending on public works turned politics into a pork-barrel affair.”
これは楽しい言葉だー。
[ How the internet killed the phone business ]
・bring O to O’s knees
O（人）を屈服させる
・bring sb/sth to their knees
1)to defeat a country or group of people in a war
2)to have such a bad effect on an organization,
activity etc that it cannot continue
“It swept aside an older mainframe-based style of computing, and eventually brought IBM, one of the world’s mightiest firms at the time, to its knees.”
なーるほど、kneeね。
Voipの可能性についての記事。
そう言えばVoipはYahooのADSLのおまけでタダでついてきて、
アメリカへ思う存分電話ができたので、昨年は大いに役立った。
[ Japan’s election ]
・saddle sb with
To give someone a difficult or boring job
・much as ～だけれども【同】however much
“Although other countries have seen bubbles collapse, Japan had two particular disadvantages. First, it was saddled with masochistic central bankers who insisted that deflation would be good for Japan, much as bleeding was once considered the best treatment for the sick.”
[ Now the rebuilding begins ]
・levee [levi] 土手、堤防
“Although infrastructure expenses will be paid directly by the federal government (rebuilding or strengthening levees, for instance, is the job of the Army Corps of Engineers), the White House is already giving hints that it wants the post-Katrina assistance to showcase its preferred kind of government: “
変わったスペリングだ。
[ The battle of the chancellorship ]
・be at stake if something that you value very much is
at stake, you will lose it if a plan or
action is not successful.
これ、何回調べても覚えない言葉。今度で最後にしたいものである。
・muddle through
（もたもたしながらも）一応目的を達する、
どうにか切り抜ける
To achieve something even though you do
not have a clear plan or use the best
methods or equipment.
・peter out 次第に少なく（小さく、弱く）なってなくなる
To gradually become smaller or happen less
often and then come to an end.
“It is hard to exaggerate how much is at stake in the German election on September 18th. Will Germany spend the next four years tackling further reforms, embracing change and globalization not as threats but as opportunities? Or will it continue to muddle through, running the risk that reforms peter out, and even of a lurch towards economic nationalism? “
・Not to be outdone,
他人に負けないように
In order not to let someone else do better
than you
“Not to be outdone, the CDU (Christian Democrats) staged a coronation mass for Ms Merkel, with an ersatz Queen band warming up the crowd.”
選挙はMerkel氏が勝ったけれど、初のドイツ女性首相となるのだろうか？
どういう政党組み合わせの与党になるのだろう？もう決まったのかな？
あーあ、ここに出ている言葉や単語、全部知っていたらどんなに読むのがラクだろう。しかし、ボキャ貧克服に楽な道はなさそうである。
