アメリカ観察記断章。日本において季節の出来事は特定の料理と結びつくが（新年と御節）、アメリカだとこれは食材との結びつきと言ったほうが正しいかもしれない（感謝祭と七面鳥）。スーパーに行ってもこれぞクリスマスのための料理というものがない。もち…

""We can't go on talking to each other," said Mr. K. to a man. "Why not?" asked the latter, taken aback. "In your presence I am incapable of saying anything intelligent," complained Mr. K. "But I really don't mind," the other comforted him…

アメリカ観察記断章。やっと期末レポートの採点が終わった。丁寧な推敲もなく無頓着に書きなぐられたと思しきアメリカの学生（自分が教えているのは理系の学生だが）の文章を読んでいると、彼女ら彼らが言葉をまずなにより耳でとらえているのだなと思い知ら…

One of my students wrote (and I completely agree with this student), "I will admit that the Anteater’s Guide to Writing Rhetoric was long and boring. The book tried so hard to appeal to its’ target audience by adding in colloquial language…

"But the highest pitch of every passion is always to will its own downfall; and so it is also the supreme passion of the Reason to seek a collision, though this collision must in one way or another prove its undoing. The supreme paradox of…

"I have no faith, however, in the existence any such internal instinct [towards perfection] and I cannot see how this benevolent illusion is to be preserved. The present development of human beings requires, as it seems to me, no different…

"About all those arguments affecting human equality, I myself always have one feeling, which finds expression in a little test of my own. I shall begin to take seriously those classifications of superiority and inferiority, when I find a m…

In English the space/place pair is amazingly multifunctional and it's very easy to differentiate the abstract from the concrete, the conceptual from the actual, the geometrical from the geographical. Is there such a versatile pair concerni…

"The great difference between percepts and concepts is that percepts are continuous and concepts are discrete...No matter how small a tract of [the perceptual flux as such] be taken, it is always a much-at-once, and contains innumerable as…

アメリカ観察記断章。今年度は明らかに韓国（系）と中国（系）の学生をキャンパスのいたるところで数多く目にしている。カリフォルニアに行くことでここまで自分の耳が中国語や韓国語に晒されることになるとはまるで予想もしていなかった。しかし現実はこれ…

アメリカ観察記断章。日本において人前でいちゃつくカップルは例外的だろう。軽く抱き合うくらいならともかく、人目のある公共の場で大っぴらにキスをすることはまれであるように思う。しかしアメリカだとごく普通に見かけるし、驚きなのは、それを誰も気に…