Who taught : Brian, Scott, Carol

In the last post, I talked about a big social issue in Korea. Now, let’s talk about America’s. What do you think is one of the serious issues in America? I would say it is “obesity.” The other day, I was watching a new TV show, Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution. In the show, Jamie Oliver who is from UK visited an elementary school in West Virginia. In the school kitchen, employees were preparing breakfast for students. You know what the menu was? It was instant Pizza. And there was another box full of chicken nuggets. They were for lunch. Unbelievable!! I was not able to believe what I was watching. I have to say this show is one of the best shows in a sense that it could help to change children’s diet and, if it could really make children stay fit and healthy, this would contribute to saving a lot of health care cost nationwide in the future.

Speaking of food, I learned two good expressions regarding eating or biting.

1. Your eyes are bigger than your stomach : When Carol told me this one, my interpretation was, “Well eyes cannot be bigger than stomach at all… So, maybe it means something nonsense??” Well, this time I was kind of close. Don’t you agree? This expression means…. Actually, instead of trying to define, let me give you a context. You and your family went to a seafood buffet and you started to pile up a lot of food in you plate. I mean really really high. Then, your wife would say to you, “Oh honey! Your eyes are bigger than your stomach! Can you finish it? You might throw a lot of them out.” I believe we all have the same experience, right? The thing is I always have really small portion and Jessy complains a lot like, “Your stomach must be smaller than your eyes!” 🙂 My feeling with this expression is that it can only be used in relation with food. Can I also use this expression if someone being too greedier than what he/she can afford?

2. Don’t bite off more than you can chew : I think this expression is more suitable to describe the situation that someone being too aggressive. Is this originated from eating apple or something? That is what I feel when I hear this one. Anyways, you would also hear this one often in business conversations. For example, if someone is trying to agree to do something more than he/she can handle, then you can say, “Let’s not bite off more than we can chew! We gotta be realistic.” Actually, today, Scott used this expression in relation with some sort of our sales. So, if you can use this kind of expression in a proper business context, people might think you are pretty good at English and you are hip.