３月６日の英文添削「日本語での解釈例」への挑戦として以下のものを書いてみました。講師のどなたかに添削して頂き結果を後日投稿します。これを機会によい英文が書けるようになりたいと思います。

A trucker saw an elderly couple carefully split a burger and fries at Burger King.  He took pity on them, and offered to buy the wife her own meal.  But the husband declined the offer, saying, “It’s all right.  We share everything.”

A few minutes later the trucker noticed that the wife hadn’t taken a bite.  He suspected that she was keeping her share untouched in case her husband needed more than his share of food.  So, he repeated the same offer, but the husband declined it again, saying, “We share everything.”

“How come she hasn’t taken a bite, then?”, wondered the trucker.  Unable to contain his curiosity any longer, the trucker took a different approach, and directly asked the wife why she was not eating.  The wife’s answer was a totally unexpected one.  She said she was waiting for the teeth.

It was then that the trucker realized how shallow his understanding of the husband’s words had been.  What the elderly couple was sharing was, he now knew, not merely the burger and the fried potatoes.  First, the husband eats his share of the burger and the fried potatoes.  When finished, he removes his false teeth and hands them to his wife.  Then the wife puts them on, and begins to eat her share of the burger and the fried potatoes.  This was what the husband meant by repeatedly saying, “We share everything.” to the trucker.