Who taught: Eric

Hosed (source: http://www.zazzle.com.au/)

Living in the U.S., every day and every moment is pretty much full of surprises. You should be really ready to hear and learn all of the new expressions that are not in any traditional dictionary at all. If you and your American friend who knows that you are a non-native English speaker are the only ones having a conversation, I can guarantee you would not hear those things. But, when you are one of many people and most of them are native English speakers, then there are surprises. If you are not physically in a country where there are bunch of native speakers, the best way you could hear these kinds of expressions is watching TV shows. One of the recent shows I would strongly recommend is 30 Rock. Also, I like watching Outsourced. It has very interesting stories about cultural shock and learning languages.

Let me talk about one of the experiences from which I heard a total new expression I had a few days ago. I am not sure I have ever told this but I love playing soccer. Well, apparently, I am a Korean. Korean people are in love with soccer. Every Monday, I play soccer with people whom I met in a league. Two days ago, I was there too. There were so many people so that many of us had to wait for a turn to play. Two people who came before me got into the game and it was finally my turn. As one guy who was playing came out, another person besides me suddenly got in before me. Well, it was too late for me to ask him to come out. So, I decided to wait for the next turn. At that moment, Eric said to me, “Terry! You just got hosed. You should just stick your nose in.”

I knew what he meant from the context. Especially, “sticking your nose in” part was easy. But, what the heck is “got hosed?” I have tried to find etymology of this expression out but no success yet. There is one scenario I can guess though. Hose itself means a flexible tube conveying water or other liquid. It could also be a verb to mean spray water with a hose. Thus, if someone hose you, then you will get wet which you do not really like unless it is really hot and that is what you want, right? Hey, my American friends! What do you think about my guess here? Am I right? For some reason, I have a bad feeling about this expression too. Sounds kind of dirty. Is my mind in the gutter?!? 🙂

More simply, “got hosed” is the same thing as “got screwed.” As I said in previous posts, it is easy to say, “OK.. that is easy. I think I know that expression now.” But, I would like to challenge you here. How many times do you think you would ever use this expression in the proper context? Why don’t you count it? That would be fun and it could motivate you to try to remember them to be able to use them later. Having said that, I just remembered one quote I heard from Today show. “People are goal-oriented. If there is a goal, there is a higher chance to achieve things. So, set your goal. The more specific a goal is, the better it is.”

Getting back to my story…. Funny thing is I got really hosed on that day. Why? Because I got injured. Maybe, Eric’s saying was foreshadowing?  🙁