今日の単語は ２つ　Ingenious と Ingenuous

Ingenious & Ingenuous

Ingenious【音節】in・ge・nious 【発音記号】ɪndʒíːnjəs

Ingenuous 【音節】in・gen・u・ous　【発音記号】ɪndʒénjuəs

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１．いつもは１日1単語なのですが、今日は似ている単語２つをまとめてとりあげます。

John is incredibly ingenious! He can create amazing gadgets using rubbish.

It has to be said it was quite ingenuous of him to ask a complete stranger to take care of his luggage.

2. 意味は全く異なるようですね。英英辞典での意味を見てみましょう。

Ingenious: Someone skilled at inventing new ways to do something, to solve problems, Ideas or things original, new

Ingenuous: honest, sincere, and trusting, sometimes in a way that seems silly

3. 英和辞典の説明も確認しましょう

Ingenious: 利口な、発明の才に富む、器用な、創意工夫に富む、巧妙な、独創的な

Ingenuous: 率直な、正直な、無邪気な、純真な、うぶな、あどけない、無邪気で、純真で

4. Ingenious と Ingenuous は似て非なる単語とわかりました。

ingenious はポジティブですね。creative, innovative, imaginative, inventive, intelligent が類義語です。

ingenuous はどちらかと言うと、最近の表現なら「あの人は天然だ」というニュアンスがありますので、使う時は注意したいですね。frank, childlike, green, guideless, candid, naive, natural, plain などが類義語にあがっています。

5.　ニュースから例文を見てみましょう

Let’s get digital: The ingenious new technology that promises to take the strain out of housework。（from Mail online)

6 Ingenious designs for our “age of crisis” (from CNN style)

ウェブでingenuous の例文を探すと、たくさんの「誤り」がでてきました。ingenious を使うべき文脈で ingenuous が使われていることが散見されました。

ネイティブの人達も間違えるのかなと思っていたところ、このような本の紹介を見つけました。The Economist の Books & Art のページからです。冒頭だけですが、とても興味深いです。ネイティブにとっても　ingenious と ingenuous は紛らわしい代表みたいな単語のようですよ。

ENGLISH-speakers are sure their language is especially perplexing. But while it has its quirks, so does every other language (aside from planned ones like Esperanto). In one way, though, English really is confusing. A small new book, “That Doesn’t Mean What You Think It Means”, by Ross and Kathryn Petras, helps readers distinguish many words that are confusingly similar. Some are nearly homophones with different spellings and completely different meanings, like elicit and illicit. Some are near homophones with distinct but related meanings, like emigrate and immigrate. And some are similar-looking words with opposite meanings, like adjure and abjure. What kind of language is this?　　It is not the English kind so much as the Latin kind. About 28% of the words in the “Shorter Oxford Dictionary” come from that language. This huge layer of vocabulary was either borrowed directly, borrowed from Latin via French or coined in English from Latin roots. Educated people are expected to know these words, which means a lifetime of trying to keep things like ingenious and ingenuous distinct.

今日の単語は
Ingenious と Ingenuous
でした

1週間前の単語は Solicit でした

今日の単語 Solicit – ほぼ、日めくり英単語 (himekurieitango.com)