Monthly Archives: October 2010

28 Oct

shove it

shove it (source: www.celebpub.com)

A few days ago, Jessy and I were watching TV and heard one expression that we all do not understand. (Not a surprise! 🙂 ) By just hearing it, it sounded not really good at all. I think it was the NBC nightly news with Brian Williams. FYI, news is one of the things I really try to watch every day because they speak English very clearly and also I can learn a lot of political aspects of the United States. Anyway, one of the news that Brian mentioned was about a politician who tried to get an endorsement from Barack Obama, the president of the United States for his campaign. But, he was not able to get it.

He then got angry and told the president, “Shove it!” That was one of the news. Jessy and I started to look up the word, shove, to make sure what that means. The word, shove, means “push roughly.” For example, you are in a hurry and try to go though a big crowd to get to a place. What you are going to try is pushing people roughly so that you can get through them. In doing so, you are shoving. Then, what can “shove it” mean? Now, let’s imagine that you have something in front of you which is “it.” What will happen if you push it roughly? It will be moving away from you, right?

Moving on, what if you say this one to someone who is saying something? Then, his/her remark becomes an object that is being shoved. I believe you now get the idea of this expression. It is almost like “shut up” but I think this sounds even worse. But, to be honest, I still cannot get the correct feeling of this expression.

So, I will ask my American friends to answer my question. Which one is harsher, ‘shut up’ or ‘shove it’?

26 Oct

Really? vs for real?

Who taught : Jessy

Carnegie Mellon University (source: scholarpreps.com)

Walking around the CMU campus, I hear various languages, including English, Korean, Chinese, Hindi, Spanish, Japanese, etc. Not a surprise at all because there are so many international students here at CMU! But, there is also a very interesting thing I noticed among English speakers. As you all know, there are different races, White, Black, Hispanic, Asian, etc, in the U.S. When I was in Korea, I had barely seen any other races other than Asian. In this case, it is of course Korean.

According to Wikipedia, the U.S. population’s distribution by races in 2009 is as follows;

1. White : 75%

2. Hispanic : 16%

3. Black : 12.5%

4. Asian : 4.5%

As I mentioned, there is a difference between black people and white people when it comes to English. I am sure there are so many things. (If you know any, feel free to add a comment.) But, today, I would like to talk about one very simple expression.

When a person says something that is hard to believe, what would you say? I usually say, “Really?” And, most of my white American friends say the same thing. But, black people almost never use that expression. They say, “For real?” Well, there is not much difference in terms of meaning. Either way, you should be fine. But, it is very interesting to see this kind of difference. This morning, I went to a convenience store where the clerk was a black guy. He was having a conversation with a black woman and she said something hard to believe, then he quickly responded to her, saying “For real?”

This event reminded me of a conversation I had with Jessy a few days ago. Jessy and I was watching a TV show and I noticed that a black guy on the show said the expression, “For real?” As I heard that, I said to Jessy, “Did you notice that black people use ‘for real’ instead of ‘really’?” Jessy told me, “That is always the case with them. Didn’t you know that?” (FYI, Jessy has many black friends so that she knows a lot of expressions they use.)

Jessy also has a Korean friend who runs a business for which he hired a lot of black employees. As a result, he speaks English with the black people all the time. Now, he always says “For real?” instead of “Really?” So, where or with whom you speak English matters. Interesting, huh? (Don’t get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with ‘for real’ or ‘really’. It is just a difference and I think it is interesting.)

24 Oct

what pepper?

Who taught : Cannot reveal

bell peppers (source : www.defeatdiabetes.org)

Working with many different clients as an engineer, I have found that the names of servers in different companies are very interesting. For example, a company decides to use peppers for server names, such as habanero, datil, etc.

When it comes to pepper, there are many different ones, including chilli pepper, bell pepper, banana pepper and, of course, black pepper. In Korea, people are  so familiar with hot chilli pepper. There are so many foods which have chilli peppers in it. Kimchi is a good example. I have never eaten any other peppers before I came to the United States. (But, I now love grilled peppers.) For that reason, I used to say just “pepper” in English, thinking of it as chilli pepper. There was one time I had to explain what Kimchi is to my American friend and I said, “It is basically fermented cabbage with bunch of different vegetables, such as pepper, and it is pretty spicy.” Then, he said, “Why?” I said, “It has pepper in it. That is why.” He said, “Oh… You mean hot chilli pepper? When you said just pepper, I thought you are talking about bell pepper.”

If you go grocery shopping here in the U.S., there is a vegetable section and you would be surprised by the fact that most of the peppers are bell peppers, not chilli peppers. Even though spicy foods are getting popular here, a lof of American people do not really buy chilli peppers. Thus, if you say just pepper, they would think you are talking about bell pepper or sweet pepper. Most of times, if you want to talk about hot chilli peppers, you need to be very specific. For example, jalapeno, habanero, datil, etc. If not, they would think you are talking about bell peppers.

Speaking of pepper, there is a saying in Korea. 작은 고추가 맵다. (Jak Eun Gochu Ga Map Da.) Literal translation into English is “Small chilli peppers are spicier.” Can you guess what it means? Let me guess! Do you think this has something to do with male reproductive part? You need to get your mind out of the gutter. I do not think this has any sexual implication. This means, “Small people could be more talented and perform well.” I was trying to find an English expression which would have similar meaning. One friend, who wants to stay anonymous, told me, “Good things come in small packages.” But he also mentioned that this has sexual implication. My American friends! Is this expression always being used in a sexual context or not? I am curious.

19 Oct

Have you ever eaten humble pie?

Who taught: Jessy and Carl

source (listsoplenty.com)

Humble pie! Sounds yummy? As a matter of fact, it is a pie. I mean there is a recipe and you can make and eat it. But, have I eaten it? No. I have never seen it. The original recipe says it should be filled with liver, heart and other offal, mostly of cow but often deer. Now, it does not sound like yummy any more, does it?

In medieval times, people called this “umble pie.” The word, umble, originated from the French nomble which means “deer innards.” Since it has all of the inner parts of beef or deer, not the meat, you can figure out that it is not a food that higher-class people would eat. That is true. Humble pie was considered as inferior food. (source: wikipedia)

Writing this, I started to doubt that this food would still exist with the original recipe. People here in the U.S. would not eat it. Does anyone know that this pie is still out there?

The point is this is not just a food anymore. It is an expression! Let’s close eyes and think about we are all back to the past, medieval times. You are in front of me and looking at my eating humble pie. What would you think? You would be like, “This poor Terry! How could you eat that dirty humble pie.” And, I would be like, “What the…. I am eating this stupid pie in front of him. It is so humiliating.”

That is exactly the feeling you would have if you use this expression. The meaning of the expression is;

To eat humble pie is to apologize and face humiliation for a serious error.

In conclusion, you do not want to eat humble pie as little as possible in your life. So, if someone ask the question, “have you ever eaten humble pie?,” your answer should be, “No!” or “Maybe once!” But there is a time you have no choice but to eat humble pie. For that case, I found one article for you, “how to eat humble pie!”

17 Oct

one pound burger and slider

1 pound burger (source: sports.webshots.com)

This afternoon, Jessy and I went to a restaurant, called Fuddruckers, with friends for lunch. They are specialized in hamburgers, claiming that they serve world’s greatest hamburgers. One thing I noticed was that it is possible to order different sizes of hamburgers. You know what is the biggest size they have? It is one pound. I will get back to you about how big one pound hamburger is. Instead, let me talk about pound again! If you go to a grocery market in the United States, they sell a lot of stuff, including fruits, meats and cheeses, based on weight. The unit of weight here in the U.S. is pound whereas it is either kg or Geun(ę·Ľ) in Korea. Now… you would expect that they will write like “$10/pound.” In reality, you would have a hard time to find “pound” as a unit of measure written on anything in any of the grocery markets in the U.S. Instead, you will see “lb.” For example, in the fruites section, they would put a sign like, “$2/1 lb” in front of grapes. I was wondering why they use “lb” instead of “pound.” Based on the information on Wikipedia, it is originated from Roman word, libra. The word pound is originated from its Germatic adoption of latin phrase, Libra pondo. So, when it comes to writing, they use “lb” but when it is the time to speak, then they say pound.

Now, how big is the one pound hamburger? It is huge. For your information, 1 pound is 0.45 kg. When Korean people go to a restaurant to have meat together, 2 – 3 people share 1 Geun (0.6 kg), which is around 1.3 pound. But when you talk about 1 pound here, it is only the weight of meat but hamburgers have bread, vegetables and sauce. Combined, it would weigh probably around 1.2 pound. I am not sure how many people can finish that burger. I think my friend Phil can. Phil, can you? Have you tried? Now, on the other hand, there is a very small and tiny burger, originally created by White Castle restaurant chain. It is called, slider. I do not know why they called it slider in the first place but it is really tiny so that you can actually put the whole thing into your mouth and finish. Some of the restaurants here in PA have slider on their menus. So, if you found slider on your menus next time you are in a restaurant in the U.S., you should try it. But please remember to ask them how many of them are going to be in your plate. Chances are your order would include 4-5 sliders which are almost the same as a half pound hamburger.