画像引用：A telegraph operator typing a telegram from a telephone subscriber at… News Photo – Getty Images
https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/telegraph-operator-typing-a-telegram-from-a-telephone-subscriber-at-picture-id613473858?s=2048×2048

９月９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 member of the National Board of the YWCA, traveling in the West, found some of her plans changed and decided to return to her home in Chicago.

She left the train at Reno to send a telegram to her husband.  The message she handed to the young woman operator was, “HAVE SUDDENLY CHANGED PLANS, RETURNING HOME AT ONCE.  LOVE.”  It was an ordinary message describing her situation at that moment.

But she received an unexpected reaction from the woman operator.  She read it thoughtfully and then said, “I hope you won’t mind my saying it, madam, but it does do me a lot of good to send a message like this once in a while.”

Reno, Nevada, is a town of Casino, but it is also a town of divorce.  It is because this town, as the only one in the US, accepts the divorce registration without the consent of the spouse, on condition that the applicant has stayed in Nevada State for not less than 6 weeks.  As a result, it attracts many people who want a quick divorce.  But some of them change their minds during the 6 weeks of their stay, or even on their arrival to Reno after a long trip from their home, and stop the divorce.  The operator interpreted the message as, “I have changed my mind.  I’m returning to you.  I love you.”, and misunderstood that the woman in front of her was the one who had just stopped her divorce.  She wanted to share with the woman happiness of sending out the message that her family had managed to stop falling apart at the last minute.