Do you like to kill people? Check A for Yes, B for No an C for Maybe... －人を殺すのが好きですか？A：はい、B：いいえ、C：もしかしたら・・・－

I recently finished reading a book by British humorist Jon Ronson called “The Psychopath Test”.  It has been making me think about types of personality and the reasons why some people are more prone to violence than others, and why some people are more successful in life than others. 

If you don’t know what the word “psychopath” means, then you might start by thinking of the Alfred Hitchcock film, “Psycho”.  In that film, a disturbed young man dressed up as his own dead mother and murdered pretty girls who stayed at his hotel.

At least this gives you somewhere to start, suggesting that a psychopath is mentally disordered and that there is a connection with violence.

But in other important ways, this starting point is misleading.  A psychopath doesn’t have to be violent.  Not all mental health professionals agree on how to define a psychopath.  But according to one important test, psychopaths are characterised by a “selfish, callous and remorseless use of others” and by having an unstable, anti-social lifestyle.  Put very simply, they don’t feel guilty about hurting other people and act in a way that can be very damaging to the society around them.

Obviously, if this is correct, then such people are much more likely than average to commit criminal or anti-social offenses.  So if there were a simple test which could be performed on people to see if they were psychopaths or not, it could be very useful...  If someone committed a crime and was found not to be a psychopath, he might be released after being punished in the hope that he would not reoffend.  If someone committed exactly the same crime but was found also to be a psychopath, he might not be released because the chance of him reoffending would be higher.

Jon Ronson’s book, “The Psychopath Test” – do you still remember the book? – talks about how this test is actually used in the real world.  People tested are asked a number of questions in 20 categories and are given a score of 0, 1 or 2 in each category.  If their total score is then 25 or above (or sometimes 30 or above) then they are classified as a psychopath.

One interesting claim made by the man who devised the test is that less than 1 per cent of the general population are psychopaths, but that 20 per cent of the people in prison are psychopaths.

An even more interesting claim was that 4 per cent of top business leaders may be psychopaths.  So, not feeling guilty about hurting other people, and using other people selfishly for your own benefit, could be an advantage in business.  Aren’t you succeeding in life like you ought to?  Maybe it’s because you are too healthy!  

Vocabulary:

a humorist – A writer who specialises in humour, or in being funny

to be prone to something – to tend towards something.  For example, drivers who are sleepy are prone to accidents.

to be disturbed – to be in a distressed or abnormal state of mind

to be disordered – to be abnormal; broken etc.

to be misleading – to lead people to make false conclusions; to cause confusion or misunderstanding

to be callous – to be unfeeling or cruel

to be remorseless – without guilt ; without feeling sorry

an offense – a crime or breach of the rules

to reoffend –  to repeat criminal behaviour; to commit a crime multiple times

to devise something – to invent something or to think of it

the general population – average people; everyone, not one group of people 

 

Three basic questions about the British election －イギリスの選挙についての3つの素朴な質問ー

It has been a couple of weeks since the general election in Britain, which returned a majority Conservative government.  The Prime Minister David Cameron will continue in his role.

From the perspective of a foreigner to Britain, what questions need to be answered in order to understand the recent election in Britain, and the election system generally?  Well, below are three basic questions that I thought might shed some light. 

1 – What is a general election?

A general election is the time when the whole country (the UK) votes to decide which politicians will represent their area in the House of Commons.  The party with the largest number of representatives in the House of Commons, called Members of Parliament (MPs) will then usually form a government.  It should not be confused with other elections, such as local elections, European Parliament elections or regional elections such as Scottish Parliament elections. 

2 – Who are the major parties and who won?

The largest party is currently the Conservative Party, sometimes nicknamed the Tories.  As the name suggests, they are traditionally conservative in outlook.  In the last election, they secured a majority of the seats in the House of Commons, or just over half.  That means that they can form a government without the help of any other parties.

The second largest party is currently the Labour Party.  As the name suggests, they have traditional ties with labour, or workers.  As the second-largest party, they are called the opposition.

There are a number of smaller parties, such as the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), which wants to remove Britain from the European Union and reduce immigration into Britain.  There is the Scottish National Party (the SNP), which is the largest party in Scotland and wants Scotland to become independent from the UK.  In the last election, they won 56 out of 59 seats in Scotland.  The Liberal Democrats and the Green Party have support across the UK, and there are a number of smaller regional parties. 

3 – How are representatives, or MPs, chosen?

Britain’s general elections are decided by the “first past the post” system.  That means that in each area, all of the votes are added up and whichever politician has the highest number of votes is elected.  All of the votes for losing candidates or their party are then not counted.  It is called “first past the post” because it is like a horse race.  Imagine that 10 horses are racing towards a finishing line where there is a post.  Whichever horse comes first is the winner.  All of the other horses are losers and get nothing.

The system can seem a little unfair at times.  It stresses stability over fairness.  For example, UKIP candidates received more votes in the general election than SNP candidates.  But UKIP won only one seat and the SNP won 56.  That is because UKIP voters were divided across many areas.  They got about 12 per cent of the vote overall, but they only once got enough votes in a single area to be the largest party.  The SNP’s votes all came in one region: Scotland.  Because their votes were concentrated in a narrow region, they were often able to win the most votes in a single election district.  So, with around half the total number of votes, they have 55 more MPs. 

***

Hey!  Wake up!  Who told you you could go to sleep?  You might need this information someday, and there will be a test.  Now tell me the nickname of the largest party in the UK... 

 

Vocabulary:

to shed some light (on something) – to make something clearer, or easier to understand

the House of Commons – Britain’s most important parliament.  The Prime Minister and more than 600 other politicians sit here, and can propose and pass new laws or changes to the law

a candidate – Someone who tries to be selected for something such as a job; a politician who stands in an election

Heads or tails? －表か裏か－

In my last blog post, I noted that English has a lot of words with a similar meaning.  I used the words throw, fling, hurl and toss as an example, and suggested we might make things easier for English students if we threw some of these words away.

But we would also lose a number of useful idioms and expressions.  Let’s take a look at four of these... 

1 – to throw a spanner in the works

Imagine a delicate piece of machinery.  It has many small, moving parts which connect together to make it operate correctly.  Now imagine an angry worker coming along and throwing a spanner (a heavy metal tool used to unscrew bolts) into the machine.  What would happen?

If something or someone throws a spanner in the works, then they cause a sudden and major problem to an operation, plan, process etc.  For example, “Our company was planning to release our new product this year, but the tax rise has thrown a spanner in the works.  It might be too expensive to release it as planned.”

 

2 – a fling

A fling, used as a noun, is a brief love affair.  For example, “I’m just looking for a fling.  I don’t want a serious relationship.”  Probably, the reason we use the word “fling” is that your lover is quickly flung away when the affair comes to an end. 

 

3 – to hurl abuse at someone

To hurl something means to throw it with great force.  In the Olympics, you might hurl a javelin, for example.

So, if you shout angry or negative remarks at someone, “throwing” your comments with great force, then we say you are hurling abuse.

For example, “When the scandal-hit politician emerged to talk to the media, his speech was interrupted by protesters, who hurled abuse at him.” 

 

4 – to toss a coin

If someone has to randomly decide between two options, or fairly choose who will start a game etc., then a quick and easy way to do this is to toss a coin.  In Britain, the Queen’s head will be on one side of the coin.  That side is called “heads”.  The other side is called “tails.  One person calls heads or tails and the other person tosses the coin, to see which lands facing upwards.

Some people might just like throwing the Queen’s head around...

 

Shall we fling some of these words away? －これらの単語はいくつか放り出しましょうか？－

I remember when I first came to Japan bringing a phrasebook with me and trying to memorise some phrases which would be useful.  Unfortunately, the language was overly polite or formal and the phrases I learned did not match the way most people talked to me.  For example, I learned the word “ressha”, meaning train.  I got very annoyed when I found that people almost always called trains “densha” instead.  Why was the Japanese language forcing me to waste my time learning two words for the same thing?

Students of English, of course, have a hard time in this respect too.  You might have learned “to reserve a room” and be confused when a hotel receptionist uses the form “to book a room” instead.  There are many examples of cases where English uses multiple words with a very similar meaning.  You can throw a ball, or fling it, or toss it, or hurl it.  You might ask where the toilets are, or the lavatories, or the restrooms, or the gents, or the loos, or the Johns... and so on.

But don’t all languages have a similar number of words?  Wouldn’t you experience the same frustrations studying, say, Swedish?  Apparently not.  Swedish will tend to have only one word for many things where English or Japanese have several.  A toilet is just a toilet.  A Swedish dictionary of commonly used words is therefore much thinner than an English or Japanese dictionary of commonly used words.

English has so many words because it survived close contact with a number of other languages, and borrows from many different sources.  One word might come from Latin roots, another from Old English, another from Norse, and another from French.  Britain was invaded a number of times, notably by the Norse, and the French-speaking Normans.  Rather than being completely overwhelmed so that English died and was replaced by the invaders’ mother tongue, both languages survived side by side for centuries.  Often the words from both languages were kept and survive into modern English.

Japanese is similarly rich in vocabulary because it incorporates old Japanese words, words made by combining characters imported from China, and recent loan words imported from English or other languages.

This richness of vocabulary allows for shades of meaning.  If you fling a ball, it sounds like the action is more violent or forceful than merely throwing it.  If you ask where the lavatory is, people might assume that you are from a higher class than someone who asks where the Johns are.

But all this richness in meaning is tough for someone trying to learn the language.  Maybe it’s time we flung, hurled, or tossed some of these words away.  Or we could all study Swedish instead?

 

Vocabulary:

a frustration – a difficulty; something which makes you annoyed

Latin – an ancient language spoken in the Western half of the Roman Empire

Norse – People from Scandinavia who traded, invaded and settled in many surrounding countries in Mediaeval Europe.  Norse can also refer to the language group that those people spoke.

the Normans – descendents of Viking or Norse settlers who moved to Normandy in France, and adopted French in favour of their native language

to be overwhelmed – to be greatly affected or dominated

to incorporate something – to take in or contain something

a shade of meaning – a subtle difference in meaning, like a shade or subtle difference in colour