Monthly Archives: July 2010

27 Jul

tool in the shed

Who taught: Carl

Shed

Here is the definition of shed on Wikipedia.

It is typically a simple, single-story structure in a back garden or on an allotment that is used for storage, hobbies, or as a workshop. Sheds vary considerably in the complexity of their construction and their size, from small open-sided tin-roofed structures to large wood-framed sheds with shingled roofs, windows, and electrical outlets. Sheds used on farms or in industry can be large structures.

There are so many different types of sheds, such as bike shed, hay shed, garden shed, or boat shed.

Most of sheds have bunch of tools in them. Now, imagine you are in your garden shed and looking at different tools. Well, a few of them would be in good shape and some of them are too old and covered with rust.

Having this kind feeling in your mind, I would like to suggest a good expression you can use to describe a person who is not really intelligent. “Not the sharpest tool in the shed!”

So, next time if you meet someone you think he/she is not intelligent at all, instead of saying, “He is an idiot!”, try to say, “He is apparently not the sharpest tool in the shed.”

I learned this one from Carl who is my boss. So, this might be one of the expressions used by old people. (Carl does not look like old at all but in fact he is quite old.) My young friends! (If you are younger than me, you can consider you are young 🙂 ) What do you think? Would you use this or have you ever used this one?

26 Jul

black sheep

Who taught : Andrew, Jean and Kara

Today, let’s discuss about some of the expressions used for describing some irresponsible or bad guys.

<Situation 1>

Black sheep and White sheep

You are a member of blue blood family and have one sister and one brother. Your sister and brother have been always good and study hard. She is a professor and he is a doctor. Now, you have been always slacking and did not work hard and now are a pizza delivery guy (No offense to delivery guys!).

Now, what are you? Yup! You are the black sheep in your family.Why? You know! Generally speaking, sheep are white and if you have a black one, then it stands out from the flock. But I guess color is an important factor here. If all of the other sheep are black and there is a white one. Then, the  white sheep would mean the best one in the flock, not a bad one?? Just my two cents!

So, again, you do not want to be a black sheep at all unless if you do not mind that life at all.

<Situation 2>

Let me think! Hmm…. what would be a good example for you? OK.. so.. You are single and have one friend who has such a lovely beautiful girlfriend. And, one day, you are hanging out with them and other friends. As you drink more and more, you got drunk and started to flirt with your friend’s girlfriend, without realizing all of your friends are watching you.

So, now, what are you? In this case, you are douchebag. I am very curious why American people decided to use this word to describe a person who is jerk.

Based on Wikipedia, douche is a device used to introduce a stream of water into the body for medical or hygienic reasons, or the stream of water itself. It usually refers to vaginal irrigation , the rinsing of the vagina, but it can also refer to the rinsing of any body cavity.

And, a douchebag is of course a bag to be used for this purpose. Then, why is this word used for describing a person? There is no good connection, I think. Does anybody know it?

26 Jul

sunday dinner at Browns Hill Bible Chapel

Who taught : Emily, Rachel and Liz

Cake for Leah and Zac's farewell dinner made by Mandie

When I knew that I am coming to the U.S., my father asked one of his friends who is a missionary from the U.S. to find out the church for me to go. He recommended Browns Hill Bible Chapel to my father and me. Since then, Jessy and I are going to the chapel and it has been such a blessing for us. If you are interested in coming, please tell me. We should go together.

A few weeks later from our first visit to the chapel, Debby asked Jessy and me after the church service, “Hey, do you guys want to have dinner together?” I responded, “OK! What time do you want to meet? Maybe around 5:30 pm?” She said, “No, it is now!” “But you said dinner,” I asked again. She then realized and explained to us, “Oh.. we use dinner for Sunday lunch.” I was quite surprised. I have always thought dinner is a meal we eat in the evening. Do you guys really use dinner, meaning lunch or something?

And, yesterday, we had a special Sunday dinner after the service at church to say good bye to our friends, Leah and Zac. They are moving to Spain because of Zac’s new job. They will be staying there for about 5 years and COME BACK to PGH. Right, Zac? They have to because we all miss them so much and I am pretty sure they will miss us too.

Right before the dinner, I was talking to some friends and Emily and Liz were talking to other friends. But we were pretty close. And for some reason, I felt that Emily and Liz were talking about me. When I looked at them, they were like, “Nothing! How did you know we are talking about you.” I said, “I do not know! I just felt it.”

Then, we sat down together to have dinner and Rachel was right next to me. So, I said to Rachel, “Hey, Rachel. You know what happened? Emily and Liz made fun of me.” And Emily said, “No, we did not! We were just teasing you.” At that time, I was kind of confused and thought about the previous post about “Popular VS Famous.” Again, make fun of someone and tease someone have the same meaning in English-Korean dictionary. Thus, it is hard to find out the proper usage of them in a proper context.

So, here is what I learned. Tease is pretty much same act as making fun of but it does not really involve a bad intention.

Am I right? I am still kind of confused. This kind of subtle difference in expressions is so hard to catch.

22 Jul

popular vs famous

Who taught : Jake

Honda Civic

Popular and famous….

Is anyone out there who does not know what these words mean? I doubt it.  In English-Korean dictionary, they have almost same meaning in Korean. It is pretty hard to distinguish each other. I am not sure how they are in other countries’ dictionaries.

Yesterday, I made a mistake with these words. It was a very subtle thing but Jake taught me the correct usage of the words.

After we had dinner together, Pat, Jake, Carol, Mark and me started to walk to the street where we all parked. As we were approaching to the cars, we realized that there are so many people who have Honda Civic in our company. Pat has Civic SI which he really loves. (I mean he is really into it.) Jake has Civic Hybrid. Kara has Civic coupe. Jessy has a regular 4-door Civic. Wow, I realized another thing, writing this. We have all different kinds of Civics we could have in our company. It is such a practical and fuel-efficient car. In addition, reliability is so great that you can easily drive it more than 100,000 miles without any major issue. So, if you are now considering buying a car, I would totally recommend it to you. Well, so, yesterday, I said, “I think Civic is the most famous car in our company.” Hearing it, Jake told me, “T-Bone, you should say the most popular car in our company.” Till that moment, I was not sure what is the difference. “Why? What is wrong with famous?” said I. Jake added, “So, for instance, I would say ‘Ferrari is the most famous car in the world.’ But, when you are tying to describe that many people like and have Civic, I would say, ‘Civic is the most popular car in the company.'” By hearing Jake’s examples, I was able to catch the subtle difference of the two words. Could you also understand? Interesting, isn’t it? Maybe, if I was writing, I would be able to find the proper word but it is again hard to find and use the proper word in speaking. Sigh! But, I really appreciate Jake’s help to make my English better and preciser.

21 Jul

peach fuzz

Who taught: Jake, Carol, Kara, Mark, Patrick, Angela, Stan, Alex and Andrew.

Last Friday, Andrew, Jake, Angela, Stan, Alex and I were having lunch together. Angela used to live in New York City area and, more specifically, her place was in New Jersey. Her house was on the second floor and there was a hair weave place on the first floor of the house. Do you know what the weave is? Here is the definition for you I found from the Wikipedia.

a very general term used to describe human or artificial hair used to alter one’s natural hair appearance by adding additional hair to their natural hair or by covering the natural hair all together with human or synthetic hair pieces.

I think I saw a lot of African American women try to have this weave. One thing I am curious is that how they can maintain or wash the weft hair. It would be really hard to wash regularly.

Speaking of washing hair, on our way to a restaurant this evening with my friends, Mark and Jake taught me one expression that some of the women would use when they would like to say no to some sort of asking from a guy or her friends. Supposed that Jessy, my wife, is a single and a guy asked her out and she really does not want to say straightforwardly no to him, then what she can say to him is “Oh… that is sweet but I am sorry. Tonight, I need to wash my hair.”

Mark and Jake told me it is an expression that WOMEN (maybe men with long hair) can use and it is politer than just saying no. Then, I thought that it is harsher than just saying no. What do you think?

peach fuzz

In relation to hair story, there is another expression I learned in the restaurant today from my friends. During dinner, we ended up talking about some women with bunch of different body hair, especially hair on face.

Do you know what you can use to describe bunch of short hairs on face? Jake said, “peach fuzz.” So, I just wrote that down on my iPhone. But, here is the thing!! So, I looked that expression up in the Urban Dictionary. And…… look what I found here. Jake!!! Can I really use ‘peach fuzz’ for short hairs on face? It sounds dirty. 🙂