以下は笑い話で一読後ニヤリとしていればよい類のものですがこれをまじめに英語で解釈してみませんか?英会話の話題としてもご利用ください。
In Inverness-Shire, Scotland, near a tiny hamlet named Blarmafoldach, stands a stone cairn erected 200 years ago to commemorate a battle between the Macdonalds and the Campbells. Today, as then, a passing Macdonald adds a stone to honor his clan’s victory, but a Campbell dourly knocks one off.
Knowing I was to visit that part of Scotland recently, my friend Jean Macdonald Porter gave me a small stone from her rock garden, and asked me to add it to the cairn and to bring back a photo of it. The road out to the cairn was wild and rough, but I took along as companion and photographer a friendly girl from my hotel.
At the cairn she snapped the picture as I placed my stone on it. Then she handed me the camera. “Now,” she said, “to borrow your vernacular, I’ve got news for you. My mother was a Campbell!” And triumphantly she knocked off the topmost stone.
(トークラインのご利用者様にお送りしている7月6日付のHANDOUTの一部で、The Reader’s Digestからの転載です)