2020年1月29日 星期三

weary, combative, forlorn hope of blue-bloods with a plutocratic, rearguard, City-Weary, world-weary

On her latest opinion piece for the FT, science commentator Anjana Ahuja says that all factors considered, it is perverse to see the coronavirus outbreak as anything other than a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC).

On the fifth day of Notables, the Co-op gave to me, one beautifully crafted memoir that sing, sing, sings—thoroughly. Pauli Murray's SONG IN A WEARY THROAT (W. W. Norton & Company) is one of the great civil rights autobiographies of the twentieth century and experiencing her voice is worth far more than gold rings. http://ow.ly/bIUx30n1dvI


  Celebrating the life and work of Charlotte Brontë on the 200th anniversary of her birth. Brontë was born in Thornton, West Yorkshire, England on this day in 1816.

"Novelists should never allow themselves to weary of the study of real life."
--from THE PROFESSOR (1857)
After being swept up in the furore over government spying on their customers, some of America's biggest tech companies are finally mounting a rearguard action. On December 9th a group of eight prominent firms including Google, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft launched an initiative to urge an international ban on the bulk collection of data by governments http://econ.st/1brSIan

 

World Joins U.S. in Remembering 9/11

Commemorations from Indonesia to Israel bore a tinge of weariness.

'Pity the Billionaire'

By THOMAS FRANK
Reviewed by MICHAEL KINSLEY


Thomas Frank argues that conservative politicians and President Obama are governing to please the plutocrats.

Face of the Blues for Generations

Mr. King’s world-weary voice and wailing guitar lifted him from the cotton fields of Mississippi to a global stage and the apex of American blues. He died Thursday at 89.


A Traditional Cretan Village Welcomes City-Weary Travellers

In the modern world of phones and the internet, it might seem impossible to
completely escape on a truly relaxing, technology-free holiday.

The DW-WORLD Article




weary 
adjective
1 very tired, especially after working hard for a long time:
I think he's a little weary after his long journey.
Here, sit down and rest your weary legs.

2 weary of bored with something because you have experienced too much of it:
I've been going out with the same people to the same clubs for years and I've just grown weary of it.

weary 
verb FORMAL
1 [T] to make someone feel tired:
Children weary me all day with their constant inquiries and demands.

2 [I] to start to feel that something or someone is boring:
Some people never seem to weary of eating the same type of food every day.

wearily Show phonetics
adverb
I dragged myself wearily out of bed at five o'clock this morning.

weariness Show phonetics
noun [U]

wearying Show phonetics
adjective
tiring:
a long wearying journey




world-weary

adjective

Feeling or indicating feelings of wearinessboredom, or cynicism as a result of long experience of life:tired and slightly world-weary voice

world-weary 
adjective
Someone who is world-weary is not enthusiastic about anything, often because they have had too much experience of a particular way of life:
Fifteen years in the teaching profession had left him world-weary and cynical.

world-weariness 
noun [U]

weary
[形](-ri・er, -ri・est)
1 (肉体的・精神的に)疲れきった, (…で)へとへとになった, うっとうしい((from ...)). ⇒TIRED[類語]
weary eyes
疲れ果てた目
a weary head
疲労困ぱいした頭
He was weary from too much reading.
読書のしすぎで疲れていた.
2 (…に)あきあきしている, うんざりしている((of ...))
I am weary of the same old excuse.
いつもの同じ言い訳にはうんざりだ(▼tired ofより形式ばった言い方).
3 ((文))疲れさせる
weary work
難儀な仕事.
4 じれったくさせる;あきあきさせる, 退屈な
a weary tone of voice
じれったくなる口調.
weary Willie
((俗))なまけ者.
━━[動](-ried, 〜・ing)((形式))(他)
1 〈人を〉(…で)疲れさせる((with ...))
The strenuous exercise wearied me.
激しい運動で疲れた.
2 〈人を〉(…で)いらいらさせる, じらす((with ...));(…に)うんざり[あきあき]させる((of ...))
be wearied by a boring companion
退屈な相手に閉口する.
━━(自)
1 (…に)退屈する;うんざりする((of ...)).
2 疲れる.

Forlorn hope


n.
  1. An arduous or nearly hopeless undertaking.
  2. An advance guard of troops sent on a hazardous mission.
[By folk etymology from Dutch verloren hoop, advance guard : verloren, past participle of verliezen, to lose + hoop, troop.]

Lack of hope must have been a commonplace feeling amongst the English in the 19th century as they coined a variety of phrases to express it - 'not a hope in Hell', 'some hopes', 'what a hope' etc. To that list we might add 'forlorn hope'; but that would be an incorrect addition as it turns out.
'Forlorn' derives from 'forlese', which just means 'lose', so 'forlorn hope' just means 'lost hope', which is the way it was understood in the 19th century, as it is now. That's not how it was in the 16th century, when a forlorn hope wasn't a world-weary feeling but a robust and gung-ho band of soldiers.
Each troop in the British Army had a hand-picked group of soldiers, chosen for their ferocity and indifference to risk (and occasionally by using that tried and tested army method of "I want three volunteers. That's you, you and you."). They were the army's 'attack dogs' who risked all in reckless death or glory raids on the enemy.
The Anglo-Norman terms 'avant-garde' and 'reregard', were adopted into English as 'vanguard' and 'rearguard' in the 14th century. They were the names of the forces that attacked from the front and protected the rear respectively. It seems reasonable to expect a group called the 'avant-garde' to be the first into battle but before them came the 'Forlorn Hope'. These soldiers, also called the 'forlorn boys' or 'forlorn fellows', were given little hope of survival by their peers. Lord Byron summed up the mind-set of the troop in the epic poem The Siege of Corinth, 1816:
The foremost of the fierce assault.
The bands are rank'd; the chosen van
Of Tartar and of Mussulman,
The full of hope, misnamed "forlorn,"
Who hold the thought of death in scorn,
The first mention of them in print is found in Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotlande, and Irelande, 1577:
Fortie or fiftie forlorne boies.
Soon afterwards, the method of attack was described in John Dymmok's A Treatise of Ireland, circa 1600:
Before the vantguarde marched the forelorn hope consisting of 40 shott and 20 shorte weapons, with order that they should not discharge vntil they presented theire peeces to the rebel breasts in their trenches, and that sooddenly the shorte weapons should enter the trenches pell mell.
The choice of the name 'Forlorn Hope' for a group of soldiers who had little chance of survival seems straightforward and intuitive. Again, things aren't as they seem. The term was originally Dutch and the equivalent combative groups in Holland were called the 'Verloren Hoop', literally 'lost troop'. A bit of impromptu mistranslation amongst the British military turned this into 'Forlorn Hope'. The British Navy went a step further and their wildmen were known as the 'Flowing Hope'. Added to the 'Forlorn Hope' was the 'Rearlorn Hope'. These performed the same task whenever the rearguard was called on to retreat.
Although the original meaning of 'forlorn hope' is largely lost to us now, it was still in use in 1920 when John Galsworthy wrote in The Forsyte Saga:
"And round Crum were still gathered a forlorn hope of blue-bloods with a plutocratic following".
The figurative meaning of 'forlorn hope', which describes someone in a hopeless plight but without any mention of warfare, overlapped with the original meaning for some years. In 1768, in Narrative of Travels in Patagonia, John Byron described the predicament of being forced to leave a group of his colleagues behind to certain death on an inhospitable island:
We saw them a little after, setting out upon their forlorn hope, and helping one another over a hideous tract of rocks.
As time progressed, a forlorn hope was thought of as something one experienced rather than something one belonged to. The 'rearlorn hope' took no such linguistic journey and has stayed exclusively within the army.



Cain to Reporters: "Don't Even Bother"


Updates: The GOP hopeful grows combative with press as his campaign struggles to contain the fallout.



combative[com・bat・ive]

  • レベル:社会人必須
  • 発音記号[kəmbǽtiv | kɔ'mbət-]

[形]闘争[好戦]的な, 闘志盛んな.

rearguard

Pronunciation: /ˈrɪəgɑːd/
Translate rearguard | into German | into Italian | into Spanish




noun

  • the soldiers at the rear of a body of troops, especially those protecting a retreating army: the firing from our rearguard had stopped
  • a reactionary or conservative element in an organization or community:the academies acted as powerful guardians of the rearguard
  • (in team sports) a defending player or players: he ran hard at the Scottish rearguard

Origin:

late Middle English (denoting the rear part of an army): from Old French rereguarde

plutocratic[plu・to・crat・ic]

  • 発音記号[plùːtəkrǽtik]

[形]金権政治(家)の.
plu・to・crat・i・cal・ly
[副]

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