Monthly Archives: October 2010

14 Oct

Show me

Who taught: Jessy

Show me state (source : www.plateshack.com)

Have you ever driven in the U.S.? If you have a chance later, try to pay a little more attention to license plates. Each state has its own design. As you may know, I live in Pennsylvania state. Honestly, Pennsylvanian license plate is very boring and nothing much special about it. But, if you go to other states, you would notice something different. They put their nickname on the plates. For example, Florida’s license plate has “sunshine state” and New Jersey’s has “garden state.” They kind of make sense, aren’t they? Maybe someone out there would not agree with NJ’s one??? 🙂

A few weeks ago, Jessy asked me one question, “Do you know what is the nickname of Missouri state?” Well, I did not know that. Can you guess it? Haha, I know! You got a hint from the title. It is “Show me” state. Now, why? Based on my research, it looks like it was coined/popularized by a Congressman Willard Vandiver. He said the following in his speech in 1899.

I come from a country that raises corn and cotton, cockleburs and Democrats, and frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I’m from Missouri, and you have got to show me.

Shorter version you can use is “I am from Missouri. Show me!” This is actually an expression that American people say. It means, “I do not quite believe you. Show me proof.” Interesting, isn’t it? I think I say this “interesting” word so many times. But, it really is to me! The question is then do people in Missouri say like, “Dude, I am in Missouri. You gotta show me.”? Or, what if I go there and say, “Hey I am in Missouri now. You gotta show me!” They would laugh, right?

Shall we try a quick poll here? What is the most interesting state nickname in the U.S.? My choice is Indiana. It is “Hoosier state.” What is yours?

12 Oct

pound

In every place, there are things that are unreasonable. About two years ago, Jessy and I decided to go on a trip to Ocean City, New Jersey. We decided to take Jessy’s car since my car is too small and her car has a GPS. It took about 8 hours for us to get there. I would never drive again that long in one day. Maximum number of hours I can drive in one day is 7 hours. I do not know how people can drive such a long distance in one day in the United States. But I think it is very common to drive a long distance here since the country is so big. Seriously, everything is big in America. 🙂

We stayed there for about 4 days, lying on the beach and playing a few rounds of golf. It was very relaxing and fun. But, we had no idea that the unbelievable event was waiting for us. Coming back, we were so happy that we were getting closer to home. As I was parking Jessy’s car, I realized that my car was not there anymore. As soon as we got out of the car, we started to walk around, looking for my car. But, we could not find it. “Oh, no! My car is stolen! What the heck!” said I. I looked down and that was the moment that I noticed that something was not the same. The road had been all scrapped and under the construction. Later, I learned that this is very typical in Pittsburgh. During summer, there are always road works to fix the potholes created during winter because of all the salts spread on the roads to get rid of snow.

Apparently, there was a road work during our absence and I found a few papers flooding around the road. So, I grabbed one and started to read it. It says, “The road will be repaved. Please move your car to other places or your car will be towed at your cost!” And, at the bottom, there was a date of notice and enforcement date. The notice date was just one day before the enforcement date, which means it was just one day notice and they towed not only my car but also all of the other cars parked on the street. How unreasonable it is! It gets even worse.

Car pound (source: www.post-gazette.com)

There was a phone number on the paper and I called them to get my car because I needed it to go to work as soon as possible. And, they gave me another number to call to get my car back. It was the number of the Pittsburgh pound. Now, what is pound? pound is one of the units of mass or weight. Or, if you are in UK, it is their unit of currency. But in this context, it is a place where all of the towed cars are located. The full expression is “car impound lot” or “car impound yard.” When they told me, “You should call the pound with the phone number I gave you.” I was like, “What the heck is pound here? Is it the name of parking lot or what?”

Well, what can I do? I went to the pound and payed around $120 to get my car back. Wait! It is not the end of the story. About 4 months later…. Read again! 4 months, not a few weeks or a month. It was 4 months later. I got a mail from the Pittsburgh Police in which they said I need to pay $100 fine because of illegal parking. Can you believe it? What is wrong? I could not believe what just happened. This time, I could not accept it. So, I went to the court by myself and fought about it. The judge said, “You already paid a lot for getting your car back and it is not reasonable at all for you to pay it with that short notice. You do not need to pay the fine at all.” I won. What a victory! Can you imagine that a non-native English speaker goes to the court all by himself and explain what happened in front of a judge and other police officers? I am telling you! Living in a foreign country is not easy at all. In fact, it is very challenging.

So, if you think about moving to a foreign country, you better be well prepared. 🙂

10 Oct

expressions in sports

Soccer (source : www.treehugger.com)

Are you a soccer fan? I love playing soccer. The winter league just started and I play soccer every Monday from Oct to Feb. Last Monday, I noticed a few expressions, playing soccer, that you might be interested in.

1. Sub!

This is not a sub that you would order at a restaurant, as you may imagine. 🙂

In the league games, there are 7 players in each team but we usually have around 18 people coming regularly. That means each team has two substitutes. When one player is trying to come out, then he/she says, “Sub,” to the people waiting. This is shortened version of substitute. There is no time during the game to say the full word. In fact, I have never heard anyone saying the full word when I play soccer.

2. Back or Front?

But then, when you sub, the person who will join the game would ask you, “Back or front?”, to you as he/she goes in. Why do you think he/she asks that question and what are the right answers? That is right! He/she wants to figure out the position you played and your answer would be like “Back center” or “Front right.” Well, how simple and short! Interestingly, this is exactly what happened to me last Monday. When I try to come out, saying “Sub!”, the guy who is going to go in asked me “Back or front?” Well, I did not get the meaning as quick as possible. Like 5 seconds later, I realized that what he meant when he asked that question but it was too late to answer. How stupid? I mean, it is such an easy question but I missed it (Honestly, I did not know whether he was talking to me or not.) and did not say anything to him when he asked it. The problem is this kind of conversation happens so fast and hard to catch up later once you miss it at the moment.

3. Got your back!

Speaking of back and front, there is another saying you can say during the game. “Got your back!” You can say this when anther player who is in front of you, having the ball, but cannot figure out how to go forward. If he heard you, chances are he will pass the ball to you.

4. It is all yours!

Can you guess when you can use this expression? Let me describe you the situation when you can use this. I was up front center and a midfielder passed the ball really well to me. Then, there is nobody who is blocking me and I got the ball under control. The only thing I need to do is calm down and put the ball into the goal. In that situation, all of my team players would be like, “Terry, it is all yours!” What do you think? Do you think I made that goal?

07 Oct

a raw deal

Who taught: Andrew

Sushi (www.foodandwaterwatch.org)

Do you like sushi? I love it. What is the major characteristic of sushi? It is mostly made with raw fish. Now, what is the definition of the word, “raw”? It means not treated with heat or not refined, right?

A few days ago, my friend Andrew posted a new status on his facebook. He said, “Waking up early in the morning is good because I can do a load of laundry.”

I replied to it, saying “I would like to sleep more and ask Jessy to do the laundry.” (Don’t get me wrong! I do what I need to do but Jessy is the one who usually does the laundry.) In reply to my comment, he said, “We’ve been living together for over 6 years and we still do all of our laundry separately!” I was very surprised by that. Is this part of the American culture or what? 🙂

His reply made me kind of curious about their financial decision. So, I asked, “Does that mean you guys have separate bank accounts? That is minus for you.” (Supposedly, his wife makes more money than him. 🙂 ) Well, finally, he said, “That is a good point! I think I am getting a raw deal here!”

From the context, I was able to understand what he meant by “raw deal.” But, to be honest with you, that was my first time to see the expression. Do you guys already know the expression?

When I think of the word, raw, it is uncooked or unrefined as I mentioned earlier. After seeing the expression, I looked up the word again and  found out that it also means crude. And, because of it, raw deal can mean any deal which is crude. I am sure you can totally say “unfair deal” instead of “raw deal.” But I am also sure a lot of American people use “raw deal” instead of “unfair deal.” Am I correct?

05 Oct

cougar

Who taught : Jake and friends

Cougar (itpleasesme.com)

A few weeks ago, I was having lunch together with my friends. During lunch, we had a few different talks and one of my friends talked about a guy who is dating a lady. Pretty typical until that moment. But then, she mentioned that the guy is young like 25 and the lady is old like 37. As soon as she said that, all of the other friends asked the same question to her, “Is she a cougar?”

Well, I was the only one who did not understand what that means. As you know, cougar is an animal. I think it is Puma but not sure. They look pretty much the same.

I will give you the best example for you. Do you know Demi Moore? She is 47 years old. Now, do you know whom she is married to? He is Ashton Kutcher and he is 32 years old. The age difference is 15 years. It is quite big, isn’t it? So, in this situation, people call Demi Moore cougar. Interesting thing is she said, “I am a Puma not a Cougar,” when she had an interview with CBS. What is the difference? No idea!

There are a few questions I have related with this expression.

1. If a lady is a cougar, does she have to be hot?

The answer is NO but she should be a little bit attractive, though, to be qualified for being a Cougar.

2. How much age difference should be there?

I guess it should be pretty significant because small difference is not really interesting at all. Maybe more than 10 years? What do you think?

3. Why cougar?

I have no idea about this but Jake told me people used cougar because the mental image of her is hunting the boys.

Speaking of cougar, there is a TV show, called Cougar Town, and its story is totally about a lot of cougars. I mean ladies of hunting young guys if you know what I mean. 🙂

One last question! Is this expression offensive or not?