Monthly Archives: April 2010

16 Apr

chomp at the bit

Who taught: Alex

This week flied by. Starting with the final day of the IO days competition, there were the presentation on Wednesday and playing basketball on Thursday. Finally, it is TGIF. But, most importantly, tomorrow is Saturday. It is not just any other Saturdays for me because my brother and sister-in-law are coming to the U.S. from South Korea. It has been almost 4 years. Jessy and I are so excited about it. There is a real nice expression you can use when you are so excited like me. “Chomping at the bit!” For example, today, I can say like, “I am chomping at the bit because I will get to see my brother and sister-in-law for the first time in four years.” You know what I really like about this expression? Its origin! You know what the bit is in this context?

A bit is a a type of horse tack used in equestrian activities, usually made of metal or a synthetic material, and is placed in the mouth of a horse or other equid and assists a rider in communicating with the animal. It rests on the bars of the mouth in an interdental region where there are no teeth. It is held on a horse’s head by means of a bridle and has reins attached for use by a rider. (source: wikipedia)

horse bit

That is right! It is a bit used for horse (재갈). When horses get really excited, they started to chomp at the bit. That is why people started to use this expression to describe the state of excitement. I think that is really cool because it reminds me of the feeling of the horse when I use this one so that I can even feel the same feeling. You can also use “chomp” to describe someone eating something noisily. Important thing is I think you should hear chewing noise. For example, “he is chomping away on a bagel!”

Korean equivalent: I do not think we have anything similar to this. But, we have another interesting expression related with the bit. “조용히 해라! 재갈을 물려버리기 전에. (Jo yong hi hae ra! Jae Gal Mul Li Gi Jeon e)” This one is pretty offensive. So, use it when you are really angry and cannot bear with someone really noisy. English translation is “Shut up! Or I will put the bit in your mouth!” Pretty strong, isn’t it?

Today’s injury in English taught by Andrew : runner’s knee

Definition : A softening or wearing away and cracking of the cartilage under the kneecap, resulting in pain and inflammation. The cartilage becomes like sandpaper because the kneecap is not riding smoothly over the knee.

I think this could happen to anybody with any other activities. But, I kind of figured out why it has to be a runner. Well, one thing I was surprised when I first got to the U.S. is that so many people run on the street. Even more, guys are running topless. (Jessy loves this! I need to watch her.) If you run topless on the street in Korea, I am pretty sure you will get caught by police, ending up paying fine. Maybe not for women, though 🙂 The police might run together with you.

15 Apr

pardon my French

Who taught: Brian

When Brian taught me, he used, “excuse my french!” But, about two days ago, I said this one to my other friends and they all said, “It should be pardon my french!” Hmm… I thought American people do not use “pardon.” Don’t you prefer “excuse”? People in UK use “pardon” a lot, aren’t they?

Anyways, this expression might be very useful if you can use it in a good context. I mean… I don’t know… Maybe, you do not want to use this too often. I researched about the definition of this expression but was not able to find a real easy one. The easiest one I found is “excuse my bad language or forgive me for swearing.” Here is an simple example from the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

Pardon my French, but you’re an asshole!

I am not totally convinced about the origin of the expression, though. Here is what I found.

The word for “seal” (the animal) in french is “phoque,” which is pronounced the same as the word “fuck” in english. This is how the phrase originated.

This one does not make sense at all. Here is another one.

It in fact originates from the constant warfare between England and France many years ago, at that time “French” was associated with indecent things and activies (Swearing, kissing etc).

This might be possibly correct. My guess is basically that English people decided to use this one long time ago when they did have animosity toward French people. (Maybe they still have it???) Do French people also say, “Pardon my English” as the same meaning? Very curious…. Hmm.. Well, maybe I should not use this one in front of the real French people. They would not like it. Am I right?

Korean equivalent : 미안하지만 (Mi-An-Ha-Ji-Man) This might not be the perfect equivalent. But, you can use it in a similar context. I would translate this like, “Sorry for saying this… But!”

From today, I would like also to go through injuries in English, one per day, taught by Andrew. (So called, Andrew’s injuries in English series!!)

Today’s one is “jammed finger.” About three weeks ago, I played basketball and, during the game, the ball hits the tip of my index finger and my finger get swollen due to the impact of the hit. This case you can use “My finger is jammed!” If I heard this one without any context, I would have thought a finger covered with jam, like strawberry jam. Sounds yummy!

14 Apr

Preach to the choir

Who taught: Kara

Let me start with the update from the yesterday’s post! My team won the IO Days competition. I was so amazed by all of the outputs each team came up with within just three and half days. I am so thankful that I am working with unbelievably smart people. Where the heck all these people come from? My team worked as much as others did. We were just very lucky. One thing I really liked about my team was the final presentation. Kara already started the whole presentation preparation from the starting point and we were able to be well prepared for what we are gong to talk to the audience. Having said that, one of the best classes I took from Carnegie Mellon University during my master’s program was “How to make a great presentation.” Frankly, at that moment, I did not really appreciate the importance of the presentations and hated the class. But, it turns out that was one of the best classes I took in my life. The professor himself was really awesome presenter. Hearing his lecture, you are just totally blown away by his great flow and connection with students during the whole time of each class. There are a few rules he really emphasized to us.

1. Keep your presentation simple : One of the projects I have to go through in the class was actually making a powerpoint file. The grading system was very simple. Does it have too much words in it and does it have unnecessary slides in it. “Never let your ppt distract your audience’s attention! He always says there are so many people try to put too much in the ppt. Powerpoint itself should never try to talk to the audience. You are the one talking to the audience so that ppt file should be a useful help!”

2. Keep your time : “Time is money! Never waist your audience’s time! The better presenter should be able to convey the core idea to the audience in an easy and simple way and in SHORT time! If you can finish earlier than the allocated time, that is fine.” That is what he said! Of course, the final exam of the class was making a presentation. And, if anyone went over the time limit, they get penalized for that.

3. Know your audience : My program was one of the program under software engineering department. So, a lot of students had a tendency to talk about technologies or methodologies they used in their presentations. He hated that even he was a professor of the School of Computer Science. “If your audience has no or little technical background which is usually the case in the business world, never talk about the technology itself. Instead, talk about what the outputs are and what values they can get from using the technology you developed. They have no interest in how the technology works!”

4. Kill them with your killer point : In a similar context from the third one above, “Do not talk or reiterate what the audience already know, they will get bored right away”, he said. For this one, I have really nice expression. Kara used this one when my team practiced the presentation yesterday night. When James suggested that he might start with questioning “What is the information optimization?” for our presentation. Kara, without any hesitance, said, “Don’t preach to the choir! The whole company talked about it all the time. They all know what it is.” Well, that was correct. In our presentation, we focused on talking about what the problem was and how our application could solve it. I think that was what my team did really good.

The origin of the expression: It is easily acceptable that people in the choir of a church are already believers. Thus, you do not have to preach to them about believing in God. They all know it.

Korean equivalent : I cannot think of any other ones but I think this might be the one. 번데기앞에서 주름잡기! (Beon-De-Gi ap e su ju reum jap gi) Literal translation of this one would be “Do not even try to make wrinkles in front of silkworm pupae!” 🙂 Silworms have a lot of wrinkles and if you try to make wrinkles in front of them, you are waisting your time. Funny thing, though, we, Korean, eat the silkworm pupae.

13 Apr

pull your weight

Who taught: Jake

Starting from the last Friday through Monday, there was a team competition in my company. We call it, “IO Days.” During about 3 and half days, each team can design and develop any new feature integrated into my company’s core software which is search engine. It was really fun. Our team developed a really cool and amazing analysis dashboard tool which can be used in any companies with very easy configurations, if they bought our software. 🙂 We have a big presentation day tomorrow. No doubt we will win. Go, IOcandy! I will keep you posted about the result of the competition later. But, at the same time, I feel really tired now. Maybe I am too old for this. 🙂 This group work remind me of the expression Jake told me a few days ago.

Well, in so many times, I guess you would have to work with other people as a Well, in so many times, I guess you would have to work with other people as a team, right? Then, there is always someone who do not work as hard as they supposed to. Here is an expression you can use when you see those people. “I do not think you are pulling your weight! Don’t you think so?” Jake told me this expression the other day, “So, T-Bone, I heard you did not pull your weight for the professional services team’s quarterly goal.” I knew he was joking about something (“What? Jake! You were not joking?? That is BS! I know you did not pull your weight for the IO Days.”) but I did not know what he meant. Well, as always, curious Terry had to ask the origin of the expression. He dose not know it. Hmm… I thought about it and my only guess is “tug of war.” When you play it, you are always in a team and you really need to pull all of your weight to contribute to your team’s win. So, in that sense, it totally makes sense. But, I am not sure if my guess is right or not. Do you guys know?

12 Apr

wine and dine

Who taught : Kelly

Wine and Dine….Sounds like really elegant and nice expression, isn’t it?

When I heard it for the first time from Kelly, I thought this would be an expression used for having real nice dinner. It is half correct because there is something else after dinner. You can use this one like, “I am going to wine and dine her tonight.” I mean you could use but you have to be careful. Why? this is an expression you can use, “when you want to take a lady out to real nice dinner and then have a sex with her.” Well, I think you should drink wine too along with dinner. I am not sure whether women can use this one. Is it possible? One more cultural lesson here! Be careful asking any woman for having dinner together! In America, if you ask any lady to go out for dinner together, then it implicitly means you might want to have a sex with her. Well, if you think more carefully, if you are a woman, if you say yes to this request, then you are implicitly saying I would like to have a sex with you. I mean, possibly. This is not the case at all in Korea as far as I know. (You know, I am very innocent and do not know a lot about this. I am not sure how I was able to marry Jessy. 🙂 )

There is a dirtier expression than this one, “wine dine 69.” Kelly actually taught me this one 🙂 Well, I will let you figure out the 69 part. One hint is … Think of 6 as a man and 9 as a woman. “Still not get it? My friends! I donno… You should research by yourself!”

Having said an expression related with sex, there is an expression you can use when you want to stop talking about sexual stuff with your friends if he/she keeps talking about those things. You can say, “Get you mind out of the gutter!” The gutter literally means a narrow channel that gets water from the roof of the building. Also, there is a street gutter for the same purpose. As you can see, the gutter has pretty dirty things. So, for American people, the gutter is related with some sort of dirty things especially thoughts related with sexual stuff. If any of your friends like to talk about sexual stuff, then you can say, “Dude, your mind is in the gutter!” This might be offensive to your friends so that you should be careful when you use it.

Interesting thing is, though, that people are really fast to learn these kind of expressions. Is it because people like to talk about this kind of stuff more than others or is it just because of human basic instinct?