Wednesday, 27 February 2019

Don’t let your mouth run away with you -調子に乗って、しゃべりすぎるな-

When we first got together, she promised, “I will give everything I have and do everything I can to bring you an exciting and successful relationship.”
But she left me after two and a half years.
When we first lay in bed, she said, “I have loved you all my life and to be given this fantastic opportunity and to be with such a truly great man is a dream come true.”
But now she lies with another.
Someone from her hometown said, “I grew up with her.  She is known around here as ‘Mochi’.  We used to play with her in the car park or behind the school.  I was in her class at secondary school and when the teacher asked what she wanted to do when she grew up, she just said that she wanted to marry William.”
And yet she has just remarried.  At the wedding she said that she would give everything, give her life, for her new husband.
A short time after we got together, when I was worried by her flirtation with another man, she complained, “It just shows you how distrustful the world is now – the gossip and speculation that goes on.  I’ve just landed my dream man – the man I’ve loved all my life.”
Yet now her friends say that she was never happy in our relationship.  How could she have been when I didn’t buy her all the things she wanted?
When some people speculated that she might be happier with another man, she said, “There is not a place I could be in this world right now where I’d be happier in my married life and personal life.”
When I think back now, there were a few hints that she wouldn’t stay forever.  Six months into our relationship, when everything was going well, she said, “For me, whatever I do with the rest of my life, to marry William is the ultimate.  I’m hopefully going to be attractive for the next 15 to 20 years but to have married William and been with him is an incredible honour.”
And, “I don’t see William as a stepping stone.  I want to be here as long as I can.”
During the marriage, a journalist said, “William is lucky to have this girl as wife.  She gives the marriage purpose, belief, conviction.”
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Be careful what you say.  Don’t let your mouth run away with you.  If you make promises you cannot keep then your words will later seem hollow and people will feel betrayed.
The quotes above are mostly real, but I changed them slightly – from football management to marriage.  I am a big fan of Celtic, a Scottish football club.  Our manager has just left us suddenly in the middle of a season to double his wages by managing an English club, Leicester.
The manager was very successful and would have been remembered as a hero if he had waited until the end of the season to leave. What is even worse about his betrayal is the number of times he said that Celtic was the club he had loved all his life, how he couldn’t be happier anywhere else, and so on.
Be careful what you say.  Don’t let your mouth run away with you.  If you make promises you cannot keep then your words will later seem hollow and people will feel betrayed.

Vocabulary:
to get together – of a relationship, to form a partnership; to start to date
flirtation – behaviour that demonstrates a playful sexual attraction toward someone
the ultimate – the best or final
a stepping stone – one stage on a path leading somewhere else
hollow – without substance
to betray – to be seriously disloyal to; to cheat someone’s trust 


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