雑学

Google.com is one of the world’s most frequently visited websites. It was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, two Stanford University graduate students, in 1998. Since then, Google has gone on to become the Internet’s most popular search engine. However, hand in hand with this success has come a fair amount of suspicion and distrust.

graduate student：大学院生
hand in hand：相伴って
suspicion：疑い、疑念
distrust：不信用、疑惑

Internet users love Google. It is fast (often delivering search results in less than a second), and it organizes search results clearly. Over the years, Google has grown to add services such as image searches, video searches, and Gmail, Google’s version of e-mail. You can even download a toolbar that lets you perform a Google search without visiting the website. The best part is, all of these services are free!

deliver：(成果などを)出す

Website owners also love Google. The company’s “Google bots” roam the Internet continuously, cataloging the sites they visit. That means even the smallest of websites has a chance to appear in a Google search result. For e-commerce sites, Google is often critical to their business, and appearing high on a list of search results can help a company make a fortune. Appearing low on a list (or even worse, not appearing at all) can cause serious damage to a company’s profits.

roam：歩き回る
catalog：(物事を)分類する
be critical to X：Xにとって決定的である
fortune：財産、富

Clearly, Google is a very powerful website, and its business practices have attracted a lot of criticism. One of the company’s main revenue streams is paid advertising. Critics charge that Google gives its advertisers suggestions so that they can make changes to help their websites appear higher up on a search.

attract criticism：批判を呼ぶ
revenue stream：収入源
critic：批評家
charge：非難する

People are also worried about privacy. For example, a copy of every user e-mail sent on Gmail is kept on a Google server. Also, when you install the Google toolbar,it lets Google track every website you visit. Google says it is simply trying to help you perform searches, but critics fear that this sensitive information could fall into the wrong hands.

fear：恐れる、心配する
fall into the wrong hands：悪者の手に渡る

As Google expands, it has to be careful to maintain the public’s trust. It also must work hard to convince people that it treats all websites fairly. For an old, established company, that would be a tall order. For a young company like Google, it is a huge challenge.

as：～するにつれ
convince：納得させる
established：確立した
tall order：難しい注文
(ref.) no small order：難しい注文

Most companies and businesspeople say they want to make the world a better, cleaner, and safer place. Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop, actually built her business around these values. Using all-natural products, while supporting many social and environmental causes, she grew the cosmetics company into a worldwide success ... with a heart.

cause：主義、理想

Before Roddick opened the first Body Shop in 1976, the British native traveled widely. Spending time in rural areas, she saw with her own eyes how people lived and how they dealt with the problems they faced. She was also introduced to many interesting locally grown products.

deal with X：Xに対処する
be introduced to X：Xを知る

Her first store in England sold only a handful of personal-care items, which used ingredients such as aloe vera and cocoa butter. Such ingredients, which are now fairly well known, were uncommon at the time. The store did well, and Roddick opened her second store just six months later. The Body Shop continued to grow by selling franchises, first in Europe and then elsewhere, eventually totaling more than 2,000 stores worldwide.

a handful of：少数の、少量の
ingredient：材料
franchise：営業権

Roddick built a number of core ethical principles into The Body Shop. For instance, the company opposed testing products on animals, supported human rights, and encouraged community trade. This last point was a key part of Roddick’s way of doing business. She went out of her way to support poor communities by buying products and ingredients from them. These include self-massagers from India and sesame-seed oil from Nicaragua.

ethical：倫理上の
oppose：反対する
community trade：コミュニティトレード(コミュニティと持続的な関係を築き、良質な原料や製品を公正な価格で取引する貿易の仕組み)
go out of one’s way to X：わざわざXする
(ref.) take the trouble to X：苦労してXする
sesame-seed：ゴマの実

Led by Roddick, The Body Shop also supported a number of causes. Back in 1986, it contributed to Greenpeace’s Save the Whales campaign. Also, using the power of its customer base, the company has carried out large petition drives. In 1996, its collected four million signatures for the Against Animal Testing campaign. The effort was successful, leading to a total ban on animal testing in the U.K.

contribute to X：Xに貢献する
customer base：顧客基盤
petition drive：署名運動

In March 2006, The Body Shop was bought by L’Oreal. Some people were worried that the new owners would change the way The Body Shop was run. But Roddick, who died the next year, remained confident that the “green” company she created would stay true to its values.

remain confident that X：引き続きXへの自信を示す

The legend of Andrew Carnegie is complex. On the one hand, the steel king is remembered as a powerful businessman — at one time the world’s richest man. On the other hand, he gave away 90 percent of his fortune, making him one of history’s greatest philanthropists.

steel：鉄鋼
philanthropist：慈善家

Carnegie was born in Scotland in 1835 into a working-class family. As machines replaced workers in the textile business, his father was laid off. Poor, yet hopeful for a better future, the family immigrated to America when Andrew was 13. It was a 50-day trip in miserable conditions.

working-class：労働者階級
replace：取って代わる
textile：織物
lay off：解雇する
immigrate：移住する
miserable：みじめな

In America, a classroom education was not an option for Andrew. He had to work to help pay the bills. But he was smart and hardworking, and he moved on to better and better jobs, from factory worker to factory master.

pay the bills：諸生活費を支払う
hardworking：勤勉な
move on to X：Xへ移る
master：雇い主

At the Pennsylvania Railroad, where Carnegie worked for 12 years, he quickly climbed the corporate ladder. He then opened his own business in 1865, building iron bridges. Later, he turned to making steel, and his riches multiplied even faster. Eventually, in 1901, Carnegie sold his steel company to J.P. Morgan for a massive profit.

climb the corporate ladder：出世の階段を昇る
multiply：倍増する
massive：大量の

But Carnegie was not only concerned with money. From his parents, he had learned to believe in the equality of all people. He also believed in the power of education. As a boy, Carnegie had a chance to use a small library, and as an adult he continued to educate himself through reading.

be concerned with X：Xを気にしている

One might say that Carnegie wanted the world to read. During his lifetime, he donated money to open more than 2,800 public libraries, including one in his hometown in Scotland. He also gave to universities and supported peace-building efforts. His largest gift, of $125 million, formed the Carnegie Corporation, which supported schools and scientific research.

lifetime：一生
donete：寄付する
Carnegie Corporation：カーネギー財団

Without question, Carnegie was a complex man. His fortune was made from modern factories and industries 一 the type that had put his father out of work. History does not look kindly on the way Carnegie treated his workers. And yet he gave and gave, supporting the common person through his generosity. For that, history remembers Andrew Carnegie fondly.

without question：疑いなく
generosity：寛大さ
fondly：愛情を込めて

If you recently went shopping at IKEA for a Billy (a bookshelf) or a Detolf (a glass cabinet), you had a lot of company. Over the last 60 years, the retail legend with unique product names has probably sold more furniture than any other company. Millions of customers worldwide have filled their homes with IKEA products, turning the Swedish chain into a multibillion-dollar giant.

turn X into Y：XがYに変わる
multibillion-dollar：数十億ドル

IKEA’s roots were far more humble. Founded in 1943 by Ingvar Kamprad, a 17-year-old Swede, the company started as a mail-order business. One might expect such a young entrepreneur to grow tired of the ins and outs of a daily business, but not Ingvar. Within four years, he went from selling pens ，watches, and other odds and ends to hiring local craftspeople to build furniture for IKEA.

humble：謙虚な、つつましい
entrepreneur：起業家、アントレプレナー
grow tired of X：Xに飽きる
ins and outs：詳細
odds and ends：さまざまなもの
craftspeople：職人

The 1950s were a momentous period for the company. Kamprad opened his first showroom in 1953. Two years later, the company started designing its own furniture. Shortly after that, IKEA began selling items in “flat packages.” That is, the products came in several pieces, packed in a box, and customers assembled the items at home. According to the company, this idea came from an IKEA employee who had to take apart a table to make it fit into a car.

momentous：重大な
assemble：組み立てる
take apart：分解する

Besides do-it-yourself furniture and “one-way” store layouts (IKEA stores are intentionally designed to make you walk through every section before arriving at the cash register), IKEA is known for its emphasis on children. It sells many products designed specifically for use by boys and girls. The company is also a big supporter of children’s rights, helping in efforts to eliminate child labor in developing countries.

do-it-yourself：DIYの
intentionally：意図的に
in an effort to X：Xしようと努力して
eliminate：排除する

With sales of $28.9 billion in 2007, IKEA is firing on all cylinders. It now has more than 250 stores in over 30 countries. As the world buys Billys and Detolfs by the thousands, Ingvar Kamprad (already one of the world’s richest people) will continue to have a reason to smile. If there isn’t an IKEA near you yet, that could change soon, as the retail legend grows and grows.

fire on all cylinders：ばく進する、全力で物事に成功する
(ref.) go home burning rubber：大急ぎで帰宅する
(ref.) grease the wheels：事を順調に進める、事をスムーズに運ぶ