Honest John

“Honest John”という表現をご存知でしょうか。

正直者、お人好し、などと訳されるのですが、日本語でも正直者と言う時、「正直者がバカを見る」のように、いささか侮蔑的な意味合いがあります。

つまり、正直過ぎて騙されやすい、利用されやすい、というような含意があります。

研究社の大英和にはこの表現が載っているのですが、American HeritageやMerriam-Websterではエントリがありませんでした。


You can be an honest John and work hard all your life. Then you get older and get sick and some jerk takes it all away from you. It's like bam! Your life is suddenly in someone else's pocket, " says Campeau.
(USA Today, 1993)


Conning Honest John

Why do so many people fall for financial scams?

In hindsight, david carter sees the deal differently. The 63-year-old has a Master’s degree in technology. A successful career meant he found a six-figure salary offer perfectly plausible. He knew from reading newspapers that tech stocks were up and the job market was hot. So when an email offered him a job with a Swiss firm at a $100,000 salary, he took it.

Mr Carter never saw a penny. Instead he owes $80,000, which he is paying off from his retirement savings. The job was too good to be true. All he had to do was use his credit card to buy iPhones and iPads. He started in June, buying them at Best Buy and Walmart and sending them from his home in Maryland to an address in California. The company paid his credit-card bill—for a few weeks. In July those payments were voided. His bank said the debts were his. The company’s website vanished. The people he had spoken to stopped answering the phone.
(The Economist; December 8, 2018)


あまり褒め言葉にはならない呼称ということでは、"plain Jane"と似たものがあります。