Who taught: Andrew and Ari

Today, I invited Andrew and Ari to my place. They had “authentic” Korean ramen noodle and Kimchi dumplings. It was really nice time. I really enjoy haning out with good friends. In our conversation, there was a time that we were talking about how women can change after having a baby. For example, breast-feeding in public places. In that context, Andrew said, “no more butterflies in the stomach!” Now we started talking about some other similar ones where we can find animals in it.

1. butterflies in the stomach : You can use this exprssion when you are nervous. For example, you have a big presentation to make in front of a lot of people, you can say “I have butterflies in my stomach.” If you are not nervous, then well… You are lucky!

I found very interesting reason why the expression is used from the wikipedia.

Some believe that this is caused by the release of adrenaline when one is nervous, pulling blood away from the stomach and sending it to the muscles. This reduced blood flow, in turn, causes the stomach to temporarily shut down, and possibly the reason for reduced appetite during love sickness.

I think it is very brilliant! Whoever made up this expression for the firt time, he is awesome. Using butterflies for describing the feeling of the blood flow is great. He must have thought about butterflies flying in your stomach, I think.

2. frog in my throat : If you have something in your throat like phlegm so that your voice is strange temporarily, you can use this expression. “I have got frog in my thorat!” I looked up the origin of this expression. And it seems like this is really American expression. Someone claims that he has not been able to find this expression used in any other English speaking countries. This expression is unique from the previous one in a sense that this is based on the sound of frog whereas the butterflies one is related with feeling.

The one thing I would like to mention is that you should know the difference between this expression and “sore throat” Sore throat is basically a type of symtom caused by inflammation of the throat. So basically, you are sick in your throat when you have sore throat.

3. cat got your tongue : This one makes me picture a drawing in my mind. Really a cat catches my tougue. Man, that will really make me impossible to speak. So, as you can guess, this is the expression you can use when someone is not speaking. I found a very interesting story from the Internet. It says this expresion is originated from a children book.

“What is wrong? Cat’s got your tongue?”

I do remember we have an expession with the same meaning with this one in Korean. 꿀 먹은 벙어리! (Ggul-muk-un-bung-u-ri!) Hmm, how should I translate this one in English??? I would say, “you’ve got honey in your mouth!” So, the origin of this expression! I think it is not because honey is sticky. In the old times, honey was one of the expensive things in Korea. So, if you eat honey by stealing from others, you do not want to speak because if you speak people would know that you had honey. Funny, isn’t it?

4. clam up : This is also almost similar expression to “Cat got your tongue!” Think about clam which closed its mouth! You will not be able to open it up. Jessica told me she heard this expression from the TV show, Friends. There is a scene where Monica, Chandler and Phebee are talking about bad thing of Rachel. And suddenly, Rachel gets into the room and Phebee wants to continue to talk about Rachel but Monica and Chandler do not even want to talk about the things any more. At that moment, Phebee says “Now, you guys clam up!” I like this expression! Short and really perfert descriptions of people’s behavior!

I guess there must be a lot more expressions with animals in it. Could you guys teach me more?