続 今日の英語

はてなダイアリーで地味に続けていた「今日の英語」の続き。日常出会った気になる英語表現を、オンライン辞書の例文などとともにメモしています。

It's water under the bridge.

(もう過ぎたことだわ。)
 だいぶ昔の英会話レッスンにて。過去傷つけられた人に謝罪をされないとしても、それはもう終わったことだから、いつまでも引きずっていても仕方がない、という会話の流れで先生が出した表現。

  • be water under the bridge というイディオム。橋の下を流れる川の水は、留まることなく過ぎ去ってしまうという発想から、「過ぎたことは仕方がない/もう終わったことだ」(if a problem or an unpleasant situation is water under the bridge, it happened a long time ago and no one is upset about it now/used to say that what happened in the past should be forgotten/something is in the past and no longer important.)。
  • all water under the bridge と、all と一緒に使われることも多い。
    • "Aren't you still angry about what he said?" -- "No, that was a long time ago. It's all water under the bridge."
    • We certainly had our disagreements in the past, but that's all water under the bridge now.
    • My brother and I fought when we were children, but that's water under the bridge.
    • All that is now just water under the bridge.
    • I wish people would stop talking about my problems with the law. It all happened a long time ago and it's water under the bridge as far as I'm concerned.
    • My mother tried to apologize for being cruel to me when I was a teenager, but I told her it was water under the bridge and she could forget about it.
  • 前にメモした"What's done is done"(04/5/8)も同じような意味。