Monthly Archives: March 2010

26 Mar

Brownnose

Doesn’t this one sounds like my nose? I mean Asian people’s nose because our skin color is brown or yellow.

But, this one has very different meaning. What would happen if you get your face really closer to someone’s ass? I mean close enough your nose can touch someone’s anus and that person did not properly clean his anus after he/she went to bathroom to drop a deuce. It doesn’t look good, right? Well, apparently, your nose will get something from doing it and it should be brown color. Or maybe black or yellow depends on what that person ate before he went to bathroom. I will stop here. It is getting too dirty and distracted from the point 🙂

“So, do you get the idea here? What? Still not get it? OK…OK.. I will give you a definition.” This means “to support every opinion or decision of another person, especially your superior.” The other expression you can use is “suck up to” or “flatter.” I heard this expression from my company’s all-hands meeting. There was a time that the company’s President gave a presentation (That day was his birthday and not everyone knew that.) and, right after that, another person also was going to make his presentation. When he got the microphone, he started with mentioning the President’s birthday, saying “Congratulations! Today is your birthday!” Then, the last person who gave a presentation said, “Oh, brownnosing!” It was kind of joking but I did not know what it means and asked my friends to figure the meaning out. Well, today’s lesson is “In the long term, brownnosing would not work. If we want to be successful at work, we gotta be sincere and honest.” Oh…. but, it could work for your wife. So, try to brownnose your wife when she is angry at you. She will forgive you. It is kind of wisdom for life.

25 Mar

animals in phrases 2

Who taught: Carol, Jean and Andrew

Today! The day after I wrote about “animals in phrase” post, my friends, Carol, Jean and Andrew all came to me, “We have one that has animal in it. Do you know what does hung like a horse mean?” Of course, I did not know. You know, I am very innocent. (If you have read previous posts, you would have figured it out already. If you did not, now is a good time for you to go through all of my previous posts, especially green t-shirts one.) My first interpretation was…hmm…. I forgot. Oh! I think I said “Does it mean like totally stuck in a situation? For example, a web browser got stuck and hung!” Well, I was totally wrong. No surprise at all! And, there was Santosh right beside me. Andrew said, “I can say it to him like Santosh is hung like a horse.” And he also asked to Santosh, “If I say it, would you like it?” Santosh responded, “Yes!” I was so confused. I asked more context and they told me, “You can use this expression only to men” At that moment, I realized this is something related with sexual stuff. “Guys, what is it? Something dirty, right?” They all nodded. Sigh! I should have known that. Hopefully, you would get the meaning of the expression by looking at the translation of the Korean equivalent below. If not, search for it by yourself!

By the way, are you guys sure I cannot use this for women? What is the counter expression for women? And also, shouldn’t the expression be used like “Santosh’s is hung like a horse” instead of “Santosh is hung like a horse” because the object is not the person but the one that the person has?

Korean equivalent : 왕자지 (Wang Ja Ji) (In English, “king penis”)  -> I cannot believe I am writing down this here. But since there is one that exists in Korean and fun to learn different languages…. Anyways, let’s talk about more phrases which have animals in it! What else do you have?

24 Mar

just my two cents

Who taught: Mark, Shawn, Christian, Pete

When : in conference calls or meetings

As working as an applications engineer, having many conference calls or meetings is part of my daily life. There are a few expressions I have heard or used in the calls or meetings.

1. just my two cents

The other day, Mark came to my desk to let me know one expression he just heard from his conf call. “T-Bone, do you know what does my two cents mean?” Well, I had no idea. My first interpretation was ….”something cheap I have… like my speaker??” But, it means like “just my opinion.” Especially, if anyone want to throw his/her opinion very tentatively, he/she can use the expression.

“I think we should have happy hour every month in the company! But, it is just my two cents!”

I am curious about the origin. Is it originated from gamling? What if I use like “I am just putting my cent in” or “It is just my one cent!” Is it weird?

2. on the same page

This expression is the one I used a few times. I think this one would be something you can easily catch the meaning. You and your customers have the same understanding so that there is no confusion or conflict about anything discussed in the meeting. Usually, I use this expression when there is kind of unclear requirement item from customer and try to ask a question to them to make it clear. “To make sure we are on the same page…. does this item mean blah blah blah….??”

3. ring a bell

Today, Christian and Pete had a meeting and in the middle of the meeting, they used this expression. Since Pete sits very close to my desk, they talked to me. “Terry! We have an expression for your blog. It is ‘ring a bell’.” Even I knew this one already, I have never used this one before. This is the same as “can you remember it now?” Most often usage of this expression is like “Does it ring a bell with you?” Writing this post, I looked up the Internet and I saw there is a big discussion about the preposition (with or for). So can I also say, “Does it ring a bell for you?” What is your thought on this?

Do you have your favorite expressions you use a lot in calls or meetings? Oh, I remember Stacy use “at the end of the day” a lot. I will let somebody add comment about the expression.

By the way, I have today’s acronym for you. BFD!!! It is a short for “Big F..king Deal!” Yesterday, President Obama signed the new healthcare reform bill. After that, Vice President Biden was so excited that he whispered to the President, “This is a big f..king deal!” It is caught by some media and becomes a real BFD on the Internet. I guess Biden made himself BFD. This might be their political strategy to distract the public attention to the new bill. Smart Butt!! 😉 I do not want to use the ‘Ass’ one here.

23 Mar

animals in the phrases

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?

22 Mar

Potatoes, eggs and cheeses

Where: restaurants.

Moving to foreign countries is hard in so many ways. One of the hardest parts is food. In America, if you go to a restaurant or bar, take a few minutes to look around to see what people are eating. I mean really closely and carefully. Chances are you will see potatoes, cheeses or eggs from almost any table. Or maybe you will see one of them from any person’s menu. So, today, I would like to share some of the scenarios with you so that you can have some ideas what you will go thourgh if you have to order any food in America.

1. Let’s say you order from a brunch place : Many of the menus would have eggs. The followings are the different types of eggs you can order. (scrambled, over-easy, over-hard, sunny-side up) My favourate is sunny-side up. What is yours?

2. Let’s say you order a burger from a bar : They might ask you whether if you like cheese or not. If your answer is yes, then “What kind of cheese do you want?” is the next question you would get. These are the most common cheeses you will see in American bars or restaurants. (American, Swiss, Cheddar and Provolone) Sometimes, I ask the server “What do you have?” to make sure I order one they have at the moment. My favourate is Provolone. What is yours? Oh, they also ask about your meat like “How would you like your berger?” Then it is actually the same thing when you order steaks. (Well done, medium well done, medium, medium rare or rare)

3. And, if you order any main menu in restaurants, there is usually a side. And it is mostly potato. Of course, they will ask you! Now, you should get the pattern! They will ask you like, “What kind of potato would you like?” There are french fries, home style fries, mashed potato or baked potato with sour cream. (Am I missing something?) 

If you order french fries separately as like an appetizer, they might also ask you, “Do you want cheese with it?” Then, if you say “Yes I do”, sometimes, they also ask you, “Do you want it to be on top of the fries or separate?” What? Still did not get it? They will ask you forever!

There is also sweet potato fries!! Yummy!

Sometimes, I wonder what would happen in America if there is no cheese and potato. It will be a chaos.

Oh…. I almost forgot. These days hot (spicy) food is getting famous in the U.S. So, if you go to any of Asian restaurants, they will ask you the spicy level. The question is “How spicy do you want?” It is a scale of 1 to 10. (1 is the mildest and 10 is the hottest!)

I thought about the reason of this continuous questions and selection process for ordering food. I think it is because of the culture and history of the U.S. America is the country of freedom. People love to choose and would like to have the freedom of selection. Let’s suppose that if you go to a restaurant and every menu has fixed ingredients. Thus, if get to pick only a food from the menu! I am pretty sure that restaurant will fail in America. Well, but this is only my opinion. I am curious about your thoughts on this.