Monthly Archives: June 2010

03 Jun

spill the beans

Who taught : Jean and Pete

Today was Jake’s question day. He asked a few interesting questions to people and I was one of them. One question I found it useful was, “If you are in a room where air conditioner is on and you think it is too cold, would you ask Jessica to turn it down or turn it up?” I said, “Turn it down!” “But then, does it mean you want to set the target temperature down which makes the room even colder?” “No, it means just make it not too strong in terms of fan speed or something.” He asked the same question to other friends, American friends. They all said, “turn it down.” Well, what would you say?

let the cat out of the bag

They say there is no secret. Do you agree? Have you ever experienced a secret crush on someone? You know, like your school friend or teacher. I guess you have. If you have not, it is not too late. 🙂

Then, have you also told to a few of your best friends, “Hey, so… it is between you and me. You gotta promise that you are going to keep the secret……I think I love Jessica.” Well, when you said, did you really expect that your friends would keep it secret? Honestly, once you say any of your secrets to someone else, I bet you should consider that it is not a secret any more. Anyways, what if someone else found it out and ask you like, “So, Terry. Is it true that you have a crush on Jessica?” Then, at that moment, I can say, “What? how did you know that? Who spill the beans?” Or the other expression is “Who let the cat out of the bag?”

They all mean “to tell/expose secret information.” If you want to describe the situation that secret is exposed to everyone, then you can say, “Oh cr*b! Now, the cat is out of the bag! What should I do?”

While I am looking for the best etymology of “spill the beans”, I stumbled upon this interesting story.

Folk etymology holds that the phrase comes from secret societies in ancient Greece. Members would vote on applicants by placing white (for yes) or black (for no) beans into a vessel. If the vessel were to spill or get knocked over on purpose, the secret vote would be revealed. But it is not likely to be true since the saying is American and only dates back to the early twentieth century. (Source : Yahoo!)

How about “let the cat out of the bag”? Here is the best one I found.

At medieval markets, unscrupulous traders would display a pig for sale. However, the pig was always given to the customer in a bag, with strict instructions not to open the bag until they were some way away. The trader would hand the customer a bag containing something that wriggled, and it was only later that the buyer would find he’d been conned when he opened the bag to reveal that it contained a cat, not a pig. Therefore, “letting the cat out of the bag” revealed the secret of the con trick. (Source : Ag Etymology)

What do you think? It sounds very reasonable, isn’t it? Since I read this etymology, I think I would not forget the expression at all.

02 Jun

Certifiable

Who taught: James and Mike

Raining cats and dogs

It is raining cats and dogs now. It is a pretty scary storm with thunder and lightning. Hope everybody is safe!

Near my desk, my company’s UX (User Experience) team members nest together to do team coding work to meet the deadline of the new version release of the software. There is also a big white board that they use for keeping track of all of the work items. Today, I noticed a piece of paper stuck to the other side of the board. It reads, “Everyone here is a certified genius.” But, for some reason, someone covered two words of the sentence so that it became, “Everyone here is certified.” I bet Jake did it. Jake, it’s you, right? Well, by looking at it, I was curious. “Why someone covered the words here?” I asked to James. He said, “It might be something related to the word, ‘certifiable’.” “What’s up with ‘certifiable’?” I asked again. He told me that if someone is certifiable, it means he/she is insane. “So, when I see this sentence here, it sounds to me, ‘Everyone here is insane’,” James said.

The origin of the expression is from “certifiably insane.” And, at some point, people decided to drop ‘insane’ and make it shorter. People should not do this. It makes non-native English speakers harder to understand. Seriously, let’s not do that, shall we?

So, next time if you see someone is really out of his/her mind or mentally ill or just crazy, try to say, “Dude! You are certifiable.” Now, I am not sure whether this is very serious or it has a feeling of pulling someone’s leg. My friends! Should I be careful using this one?

01 Jun

pull an Andrew

Who taught : Beth, Andrew and Brian

A few weeks ago, Andrew, Beth and I were in a party together. Near to Andrew, there were a small desk where people can put their bottles or glasses. There was a beer bottle on top of the table and the table was not very stable. While Andrew was trying to explain something, he accidentally hit the table and the beer bottle fell on the ground and, as you can imagine, it broke. I helped out to clean the pieces of broken bottle. Ironically, a few minutes later, I hit the same table and another bottle almost dropped. “Oh, Terry, you almost pull an Andrew,” Beth said. I was a little confused about the expression. I mean I could feel that it means something I did the same thing Andrew did because that is exactly what happened. But, I was not 100% sure about the expression. Beth, then, told me that the expression is something you can use when someone did the same thing other people have done. “But, it has negative connotation,” Andrew added.

After having this conversation, I was curious about the origin of the expression but failed to find any information about it. But, I was able to find very interesting one related with the word, “pull.” What if Beth did not use article there? Like, “Terry, you almost pull Andrew.” It has a total different meaning. Could you give it a try? Here is the definition of the expression, “pull someone.”

Pull someone is used to describe the successful act of attracting a person to such an extent that you would be able to snog or perhaps bone them if you so desired. (Source : Urban Dictionary)

Well, by reading this definition, I bet you would also have a question mark in your mind about “bone someone.” Well, it means having sex with someone and it is a term used by guys. I do not think ladies can use this term if you know what I mean. 🙂

Bush mosaic of dead soldiers

Speaking of beer bottle, I have another expression I learned from Brian today. “Hey, Terry, can you guess what dead soldier means?” When he asked this question, I had no idea about it. “What? Dead soldier? Does it have any meaning?” “Yeah, it means empty beer bottle,” Brian told. Sigh, how could I know that meaning? Next time I go to a bar with friends, I will use the expression, like “Hey, all, you gotta leave dead soldiers! So, finish all your bottle!” Why do I have a George Bush’s photo here? When I searched for “dead soldier”, I found this picture as one of the image search results. I was very curious why this picture is one of them. Well, if you look at it very closely, it is a mosaic of small pictures and they are the pictures of dead soldiers in Iraq.