2016.10.07
Sorry to come back to Sam Allardyce but I was thinking that people should have been more wary of him. There was a big hint that he might be the kind of guy who thought he was entitled to more and convinced he could get away with things.
It’s widely understood that it’s a bad sign when people refer to themselves (in the English language) in the third person. It implies that they have a grandiose sense of self-importance. (It amused me to learn that in Japanese it is an indicator of childishness.)
I tend to think that people who do it are talking as if they were narrators of a film about them, or articulating the words they would like (and expect) to see in their biographies.
I can imagine, for example, Donald Trump saying: “When Donald Trump says he’s going to do something, Donald Trump does it”. Or Zlatan Ibrahimovich saying: “The missing component in that team is Zlatan. Every team is better with Zlatan. But Zlatan will not play for every team.”
Allardyce had a habit not just of referring to himself in the third person but calling himself by the laudatory nickname “Big Sam”, given to him by fans of Bolton. That really should have set off alarm bells.
Colonel Colin, in any case, never trusted him.
1970年、ロンドン東部のロムフォード生まれ。オックスフォード大学で古代史と近代史を専攻。92年来日し、『ニューズウィーク日本版』記者、英紙『デイリーテレグラフ』東京特派員を経て、フリージャーナリストに。著書に『「ニッポン社会」入門』、『新「ニッポン社会」入門』、『驚きの英国史』、『マインド・ザ・ギャップ！ 日本とイギリスの＜すきま＞』など。最新刊は『なぜオックスフォードが世界一の大学なのか』（小社刊）