Monthly Archives: May 2010

05 May

Ropes and fish

Who taught : Raul, Brian and Richard

Supposed that you are in a sailboat! There would be bunch of ropes which are really important to be controlled by crew members to stay safe in the sea. Now, what if you are a newbie in the boat! You would not know what to do with the ropes. So, the first thing you need to learn is how to deal with ropes. There it is! “Learn the ropes.” Here is the definition of the expression.

to understand or learn how to do a particular job

For example, you have a new engineer in your team. You would expect that he/she would not know how to do his/her job for a few weeks or maybe a few months. Then, you can say, “He/She needs some time to learn the ropes.” Now, a few months later, he/she becomes better at his/her work and knows what he/she is doing. Then, guess what you can say? “Finally, he/she knows the ropes!”

Speaking of a sailboat, there are bunch of expressions with “fish” in it. One thing I hear a lot in my work, especially in conference calls with customer, is “I’ve got other fish to fry.” It means I have some other works to do. So, when there is a time that you need to say some excuse for working on any item because of your busy schedule, try to use this expression instead of using plain English, such as “I have other works to do.”

Another simple word related with fish is “fishy.” Have you ever been to a market where there are so many kind of fish? It is so smelly. So, when you say something is fishy, it means you suspect something.You can say, “it is fishy” or “she is fishy.”

Oh, fish name is something I still cannot figure out in English. Can you guys teach me some fish names?

04 May

shit in phrases 2

Who taught: Brian

It was a long day! Woke up at 5:30 A.M., I went to D.C. with Carl, my boss, to have a meeting with a client for discussing the requirements of a project. After 2 and half hours meeting, we drove back to Pittsburgh. In the meeting, there were 4 people from the client’s side. One of them is from Russia and we could tell he is not native American because of his subtle accent. But, his English was amazing. Very fluent and flawless sentences! I do not know at what age he got to the U.S. But, hearing his English, I decided to set my goal that I want to be just like him in 5 years. It might be hard but I will do my best. Everything is possible, if you believe so!

OK! After publishing the post of “shit in phrases”, Brian pinged me with another expression with “shit” in it. I really like it because it is simple but very exquisite.

“brick shithouse”

Arnold (Source: My G TV)

Definition is as follows.

A big person who is broad and possibly tall but has little fat.

Origin : It originates from the expression used for the outside toilet built in bricks.

Korean equivalent : 벽돌 뒷간 또는 벽돌 똥집 🙂 (Byuk-dol-duit-gan) The equivalent is just literal translation of the brick-built outside toilet. No one ever use this one for describing a person in Korea.

FYI, you want to use this expression only for guys because, for women, this is insulting. I mean, I guess, you can use it for describing a lady but not in front of her. Even for guys, you would like to use this one for describing someone very stocky. Important thing from the definition is low fat. So, the guy should be big but with very low fat. Who would be a good example??? Hmm…. how about Arnold Schwarzenegger? What do you think? Am I correct?

Also, can I use this expression for describing a car or any other objects? For example, “Toyota FJ cruiser is a brick shithouse.”

03 May

words to describe weather

Weather is always one of the main subjects people talk about a lot in meetings or conference calls. And, there are a few words I know to describe weather. You may want to use these in your work.

1. Muggy

Korean equivalent : 후덥지근한 (Hu-deop-Ji-Geun-han)

Last Saturday was supposed to be raining all day but it was pretty good during the day and it eventually rained at night. But, during the day, it was so muggy that we knew that it was going to rain eventually.

2. Soggy

Korean equivalent : 눅눅한 (Nuk-nuk-han)

I think this word can be used to describe the time after a big rain when there is high humidity. This one does not necessarily have to be hot, I guess. Also, you can use this word to describe any objects. For example, if you bought a bread or chips but they are not really crispy as it supposed to be, then you can say, “This chips are soggy. I do not like it!”

3. gloomy

Korean equivalent : 어둑어둑한 (Eu-duk-eu-duk-han)

Supposed that there is a thunder-storm and the sky is full of dark clouds, then you would say, “It is so gloomy. I need something exciting!” Last winter in Pittsburgh, it rained in so many days. It was totally gloomy.

4. Wonderful/Awesome/Beautiful

Well, I guess you can say all these when it is really pleasant with proper temperature and lots of sunshine.

What are other words to describe weather? I cannot think of any other ones off the top of my head.

Speaking of weather, I remember I had a problem with Fahrenheit when I got to the U.S. for I was used to Celsius for a long time. You know how I adjust myself to this new scale? Basically, we all know 32 F is 0 C. So, anytime the temperature is lower than 32 F, I consider it is cold. The other one is 80 F. 80 F is about 25 C (More exactly it is 26.6 C.) So, I always think, if it is higher than 80 F, then it is hot. Jessy always disagrees with me. She thinks anytime lower than 50 F is cold and around 90 F is perfect and higher than 100 F is hot. (Something must be wrong with her. Or maybe this is women thing? 🙂 ) Now Jessy and I use Fahrenheit all the time and it is hard for us to convert to Celsius.

02 May

Time to red up!

Who taught: Jackie and Alex

Pittsburgh Downtown

Ever since I came to the U.S. to study at Carnegie Mellon University, I have been living in the same city, Pittsburgh. My first impression of the city was not really good. It is a small city and I was not able to find many exciting things, you know, things you can find in New York city or Chicago. I remember the first Christmas in Pittsburgh. Jessy and  I, at that time, did not have many American friends and many of our Korean friends went back to Korea during the winter break. So, we decided to go to downtown to spend some time there. You know what we saw? Nothing!  There were dark buildings and almost nobody on the streets. We had to come back to our apartment, so shocked. Later, we found that it is not a good idea to go to downtown at night due to the security reason.

Carnegie Mellon University

But, the more we live, we became to like it. I really like fall in PGH. Leaves are so colorful and temperature is perfect. In addition, Pittsburgh has Steelers (football) and Penguins (ice hockey). There is also Pirates (baseball). Well, frankly they suck but I still like them because I like going to PNC Park to see games, hanging out with friends. You know what? Pittsburgh has been chose by Forbes.com as the most livable cities in the U.S.

Speaking of Pittsburgh, I had also learned a few dialects that only Pittsburghers are using. For example, they have very special pronunciation for “downtown.” They, even me, say like “dahntahn.” So, if you get on a bus in PGH to go to downtown and try to find out whether it goes to downtown or not. Try to say, “Is this going to dahntahn?”, to the bus driver!

Last Friday, Jackie, my company’s office manager, sent an email to everybody, asking to clean eveybody’s desk up. In her email, she said, “The office needs red-up!” and “Thank you in advance for redding up!” From the context, I was able to understand what she was saying but I did not have any idea about “red up.” So, I looked it up in the urban dictionary.

Pittsburghese for “clean-up”

The other thing I learned from my friend, Alex, is “Coke.” In southern states, “Coke” means “soda” not just a Coke from Coca Cola. It even includes “Pepsi.” Isn’t it interesting?

I am pretty sure there are a lot more expressions only Pittsburgh people use. Also, there must be so many different expressions in different part of the U.S. or in other English-speaking countries. I would like to learn those too. It would be fun to compare all these different ones. Hey! My friends out there staying in other parts of the U.S. or other English-speaking countries! Could you share some of the expressions yinz guyz only use?