「おたく」の英単語をもうひとつ (anorak)

trainspotter, otaku と、「おたく」を表す英単語について書いてきたが、残る anorak についてオンライン辞書の定義と例文を見て、とりあえずの締めとしよう。

- UK DISAPPROVING
a boring person who is too interested in the unimportant details of a hobby and finds it difficult to meet and spend time with other people:
"There are enough facts and figures in this book to keep even the most obsessive anorak fascinated for hours."
(Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary)

- U.K. obsessive enthusiast: a boring, unfashionable, or studious person, especially somebody who is excessively devoted to a hobby or interest ( humorous )
"You can be into something without becoming a total anorak about it."
(Encarta World English Dictionary)

- Term used interchangeably with geek, techie, or nerd. It derives from the stereotype that all technical people resemble the stereotypical anorak-wearing trainspotter; in other words, that they are obsessive, slightly antisocial, and overly knowledgeable about matters that interest very few other people.
(Hutchinson Encyclopaedia)

やはり衣服のアノラックに由来するようだ。Encarta は humorous としているが、Cambridge では disapproving としている。ここには書かなかったが、電子辞書の Oxford Dictionary of English にも derogatory とある。現在、どちらのニュアンスでもっぱら使われているのだろうか。人によっても受け取り方がさまざまあるということだろうか。すぐに質問ができるようなイギリス人は私の周囲にはいないのが残念だ。

この単語も、Wikipedia に面白い記述があった。

- In Britain, people who wear anoraks in their social life are often stereotyped as trainspotters or persons with unimaginatively and dull pastimes/hobbies.

- The closest American slang is nerd which is applied to bookish students. Anorak is not generally applied to students; and the anorak is more of a trivia freak than an overly-studious worker. A geek is a person typically expert at, and intensely focused on, technical equipment, particularly computers; again this is not really an anorak - the anorak offers us overly-detailed discussion and arcane trivia on "hobbyist" topics.

( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anorak_%28slang%29 )

さて、「おたく」に関わるいろいろな言葉を集めたサイトがある。"Urban Geek" の Urban Geekosphere という項にある辞書がそれだ。
http://www.urbangeek.net/

単に暇つぶしとして見ても楽しめる、なかなか面白いサイトではないかと思う。日本語もかなり収録されている。

タグ：=英語のトリビア