chalk sth up, ambivalence

TOKYO, Jan 1 (Reuters) - Japan was expected to chalk up a record-high number of deaths in 2008, a government report showed on Thursday, underlining the unprecedented pace at which the ageing country's population is shrinking.

The health ministry report, based on preliminary figures of births and deaths registered at Japanese municipal offices, estimated there were 51,000 more deaths than births in 2008.

The number of deaths rose an estimated 35,000 to 1,143,000, the highest since data started to be compiled in 1947, the report said.



Whatever. The show advertises itself as the first survey of paparazzi in this country, and that makes sense. Chalk up Germany’s ambivalence toward homegrown celebrity to what Ulf Poschardt, the founding editor of the German version of Vanity Fair magazine and now an editor at the newspaper Welt am Sonntag, the other day called “aggressive egalitarianism.”

Definition

ambivalent Hide phonetics
adjective
having two opposing feelings at the same time, or being uncertain about how you feel:
I felt very ambivalent about leaving home.
He has fairly ambivalent feelings towards his father.
an ambivalent attitude to exercise

ambivalence Hide phonetics
noun [U]
her ambivalence towards men

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chalk sth up phrasal verb [M]
to achieve something, such as a victory, or to score points in a game:
Today's victory is the fifth that the Irish team has chalked up this year.
It was doubtful whether the Conservatives could chalk up a fourth successive election victory, but they did.