＃10 「1日1語」<surreal>（シュール？）

Following the terror attacks that took place Sept. 11, 2001, people across the country began searching Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary for the same word. The word was not “rubble,” or “triage,” or even “terrorism,” but “surreal.”

(Why We Turn to the Word 'Surreal' Whenever Something Terrible Happens; TIME June 9, 2021)

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"surreal"は「超現実的な」「非常に奇妙で理解しがたい」という意味。

Merriam-Webster’s definition for “surreal” is an adjective meaning “marked by the intense irrational reality of a dream,” or “unbelievable.”

2020年にコロナが大流行し始めた時、アメリカ人が「ウエブスター」のオンライン辞書で最も多く検索した言葉の一つがやはり"surreal"という言葉だったとのこと。

In March 2020, when many cities were preparing for stay-at-home orders because of COVID-19, the fear and uncertainty of the moment surfaced in the dictionary’s top searches. People were looking up technical words, such as “pandemic,” “quarantine,” and “virus.” But they were also looking up philosophical ones: searches swelled for “apocalypse,” “Kafkaesque,” “martial law,” “calamity,” “pestilence,” “contagion,” “well-being,” “hysteria,” “hoarding,” “self-isolation,” “vulnerable,” “unprecedented,” “triage,” “essential,” or “poignant.” And of course: “surreal.”

それだけ"surreal"という言葉が頻繁に使われたということだが、辞書を調べたのは必ずしも言葉の意味を知るためだったというわけではないと専門家は見ている。

“People were turning to the dictionary not for facts but for what I would call philosophy,” Peter Sokolowski, editor-at-large at Merriam-Webster, said of these moments of crisis. “You’re trying to wrap your head around an idea or phenomenon, and you go to the dictionary to go back to basics.”

「辞書を引いたのは事実を知るためにではなく、"価値観”とでも言うようなものを理解するためだった。人は考えや事象を理解しようとして、辞書を引くという基本に立ち返るのだ」

　　*wrap one's head around：理解する

"surreal"と共によく検索されたその他の言葉に、コロナ禍に見舞われたアメリカ人の考えや感情の一端を垣間見ることができて興味深い。

“apocalypse,” (終末）“Kafkaesque,” （[不条理をテーマにした]カフカの）“martial law,”（戒厳令） “calamity,”（災難） “pestilence,”（疫病） “contagion,” （伝染）“well-being,” （安寧）“hysteria,” （ヒステリー）hoarding,” （買いだめ）“self-isolation,”（自己隔離）“vulnerable,”（脆弱な） “unprecedented,” （前例のない）“triage,”（トリアージ） “essential,” （不可欠な）or “poignant.”（痛恨の）

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