【語注】
memoir 伝記
queue 列を作る、列
duke 公爵、君主
idiom 熟語
pregnant 妊娠した、意味深な
advantage 利点、有利
Prince Harry’s autobiography, Spare, has gone on sale. He writes about his struggles growing up as a member of the Royal Family. Harry describes dealing with his mother’s death, his anger with the media and the treatment of his wife, Meghan. Now I would like to introduce three new words - from ‘horses’s mouth’, flood, have their cake and eat it.
1.Harry’s memoir Spare hits bookshelves at midnight as fans queue to read duke’s story from ‘horse’s mouth’.
Harry’s book is a story which people want to hear. “It’s got a horse, It’s got a mouth”, which are an idiom, not actual horses or mouths involved. If you hear something directly from the horse’s mouth, it means you hear it from the original source. So the headline is saying that fans are waiting in these bookshop to hear this story told by Harry himself -it’s from the horse’s mouth, which is from the original source. People want to get directly a source by an interview or a book, not gossip through news or media. And also we can “from horse’s mouth” the following example. These could be a rumor at your place of work. It’s like maybe someone’s pregnant, someone is leaving. And then that person tells you directly, you hear it directly or straight from the horse’s mouth.
2.Readers flood bookshops in midnight rush to purchase Prince Harry’s Spare
The headline is saying that readers flooded bookshops. Flood means too much water. If lots of water enters a building in an uncontrolled way, we can say it floods the building. And instead of water, it’s people. If lots of people enter a building, we can say they flood it.That is to say, it means that the bookshops are so full because there are lots of people, who want to buy and read this book. And we can use another situations. Light can flood a room which means that the room is filled with the light. When I suddenly receive lots and lots complaints, I can say “Complaints flood in.”
3.Prince Harry book leaks papers have their cake and eat it.
It’s not actually about cake. If you want to have your cake and eat it, you want to gain two advantages from the one thing, but it’s not possible. You have to choose. Firstly, they got to write about Harry an they got to criticize him, we use this phrase in a negative sense. So if you have a cake, you can’t keep the cake and also eat it. For example, If I want to save money and at the same time buy something expensive... you can’t do it! You can’t have your cake and eat it!
