Opinion Believe me, English is exciting By John Gathright	フレームで見る  英文をプリントする  脚注をプリントする
英語はとっても面白い！ 象形文字である漢字に比べてABCは退屈…。 子供たちにそんな文句を言われてしまった筆者。 だが、実は、英語はすごく面白い言葉なのだ___ 。

"Dad, I hate English," my eight-year-old son sighed. "English is SOOOOOOO boring. 'Mountain' doesn't look like a real mountain. The Japanese kanji for 'mountain' does. English just has ABCs .... No pictures like kanji; just letters, words and sayings. It's no fun!"

For me, this was a new concept. When I was growing up I never thought of words as pictures. Words were words and that was it. We learned them so we could read and write. They were not romantic or fun.

Since I started writing for a living, I have learned to love the romance, adventure and fun hidden inside simple words and sayings. But how do I share this passion with my two elementary-school boys?

A godsend to my predicament came when I was cleaning out my closet. An old, forgotten Word Origin Book started me and my boys on an adventurous journey. Now, they love learning new words and phrases. The other day in the bath, I had a chance to gross the kids out and have some great fun.

In England during the 1500s, ordinary people only took baths once a year. They took them in a big tub filled with hot water. The father took the first bath in the clean water, then the sons, then the women, and finally the babies. By the time the babies had their bath, the water was so dirty you could actually lose a baby in it. That is why we have the saying "don't throw the baby out with the bath water."

Both of my sons thought this was great: "Wow, Daddy, yuck!"

Have you ever heard the saying "it is raining cats and dogs"? In the 1500s, the houses had straw roofs where animals like cats and dogs would make their homes to keep warm. But when it rained particularly hard, the animals would slip and fall off the roof, so it was raining cats and dogs.

Many people had dirt floors in their houses back then. Only the rich had wooden or stone floors. So we have the expression "dirt poor." Furthermore, the well-off people were the only ones who could afford to have lots of bacon or pork, and they would show the meat off by hanging it in the kitchen. When guests would come for a special occasion they would cut off a piece for each of the guests, and they would all sit around chewing the fat while they talked. So we have the expression "chewing the fat."My kids said, "Daddy, that is gross! Tell us more!"

Have you ever heard the saying "saved by the bell"? Well, in old England they were running out of places to bury people, so the local people started digging up old coffins to reuse the graves for new ones.

Out of respect to the previous occupants, they would empty the original coffins and put the bones in a bone-house, then reuse the grave. On opening the coffins, they found as many as one out of 25 coffins had scratch marks and evidence that the occupants weren't quite dead when buried.

The people, realizing their mistakes, devised a plan. They would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground, and then tie it to a bell. Someone would then sit in the spooky graveyard all night to listen for the bell. Now we use the phrase "working the graveyard shift" and "saved by the bell."

ABC may not be the most interesting alphabet in the world, but my boys are convinced that English words and phrases are.

Shukan ST: Dec. 13, 2002

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