Monthly Archives: February 2011

27 Feb

smitten

Who taught: Robin (How I met your mother)

Smitten (source: http://onekindofme.blogspot.com/)

I feel like I am not doing a good job of keeping up with new posts more often these days. But, that does not mean that I am not learning any new English expressions any more. There are still so many new ones that I get to know by talking to my friends, hearing what other people talking and watching TV shows. One of the shows I enjoy a lot is “how I met your mother” that is on CBS. A few weeks ago, there was an episode where Barney met a girl whose name is Nora. And he was thinking of her many times. Well, that is pretty much what he is doing all the time in the show. Anyway, in the episode, he was having a conversation with Robin about the issue with Nora. And, Robin said, “Barney, you are totally smitten by Nora.” “No, I am not,” said Barney. Well, that was my first time hearing the expression, “smitten.”

I was confused again because the verb, “smite,” means “hit hard.” So, for example, if I smite you, that means I hit you so hard that you are kind of hurt. If I take the expression Robin used directly, then it could simply mean that Barney was hit hard by Nora physically so that he now got hurt. But, as always, “smitten by someone” does not have anything to do with hitting someone. Suppose that you are smitten by Angelina Jollie, then it means you find her so attractive that you are falling in love with her. I know… I know.. Almost every man in the world is smitten by Angelina Jollie, right? Now, I kind of think hitting has something to do with here. Maybe, the one who are smitten is mentally hit so hard by a girl or a boy that he/she cannot forget about her/him. 🙂

Interesting thing is after I got to know this expression from watching the show, I have heard this expression many times from TV. Probably more than 10 times. Is it a new one in the block? Are people starting to use this one these days? Also, another thing I found on the Internet is that there is an argument about which preposition should be followed. Is it on, with or by? From my understanding, it should be “by.” What do you think? Which preposition do you use?

Now, practice time! If you are married or have a girl friend or boy friend, you should say to her/him today, like “Babe! I am totally smitten by you. Do you know that?”

24 Feb

bullying and ginger

Who taught: how would you do? (TV show)

One of the social issues that America has these days is bullying, especially in schools. I am sure my readers know what bullying means. But, just in case….. Bully, as a verb, means “to treat in an overbearing or intimidating manner.” Hence, bullying, as a noun, is “the act of treating someone in an intimidating manner.” There is a very special expression in Korean for the same act. It is 왕따 (Wang Dda). This expression is actually a combination of Chinese character, 王, and Korean verb, 따돌리다. 王 means King in English. And 따돌리다 means “leaving someone out or exclude.” To sum it up, “Wang Dda” means “total exclusion for everything.” Can you feel it, my American friends? 🙂

5 years ago, when I was in Korea, this was a huge social issue and I heard a lot about this from news almost every day. Hope that it got better over the last 5 years. A few days ago, I was watching an ABC TV show, “HOW WOULD YOU DO?” In the show, they were trying to find out how many people would help out when they see bullying that is happening in a public place like a restaurant. More specifically, there were three teenagers and also two other teenagers sitting next to each other. One of the two was a white boy with red hair and freckles. The three boys started to bully him by calling him “Ginger!” As I heard it, I was confused, asking Jessy, “What the heck is ginger in this context? I do not get it. Why is it a problem?” She said, “I do not know. Looks like ginger is used to describe some specific type of people and has a negative connotation?? Let’s look it up!” So, we looked it up on Urban Dictionary. There it was! It is an expression that people use to mean a person with pale skin, freckles and red hair.

And as I was searching, I also found out that this expression was used in another TV show, South Park. I am not sure this helped to resolve the issue or not. I doubt it actually helped. They should have not done this episode.

So, aren’t you interested in what happened with the boy? There was one lady who was sitting close to the boys. She said, “You guys stop it. Look around! Everyone here in this restaurant is different from each other and you cannot judge people based on what they look.” Wow! how amazing it is! Amen!

Here is my suggestion! Let’s not use this word at all from now on so that eventually the expression is not valid any more! After all, ginger is not a word for human being! It is for a plant!

21 Feb

deadbeat vs dead beat

Who taught: James

Deadbeat (source: http://www.babble.com/)

About two weeks ago, there was Ari’s birthday party where I danced with her. She is an amazing dancer. On the other hand, I have no experience in dancing. She led me the whole time when we danced. Now, I do not even remember what happened. Maybe sometime in the future I should try to learn. It is interesting to see how people are different from each other and enjoy different things. Anyways, my friend, James also was there. Jessy and I picked him up to go to the venue of the party. On the way to the place, we talked about the time Jessy and I spent together for more than 13 years. I cannot exactly remember how this kind of conversation started. But, I think we talked about why we are trying to buy a house now. We said we want to buy it now because this year is the year of our 10th anniversary.

In the middle of the conversation, we had a chance to talk about how we met and how much I was poor back then. When we were dating, we both were college students but, right after we started to date, I told Jessy, “I think you are going to marry me.” Her reaction??? She laughed!! And after a few years of dating…… what happend?? We got married. I was right, wasn’t I? But, the problem was I was still a student. She had to work to support me till I graduated. Jessy’s parents, of course, did not like it.

When we talked about this story to James. He said, “So, Terry, you were like a deadbeat to Jessy’s parents.” As it usually is the case, I did not know the expression, “deadbeat.” From the context, I was able to kind of feel it. But, not really fully grasp it. What does it mean? Here is the definition for you.

A lazy person or a person who does not do what he/she is supposed to do. A person unable to pay his/her bills. Someone of low financial standing.

Well, James was right. I was not the one who was paying anything. Jessy even payed for my books. It was a hard time for me because my father was also very close to being a deadbeat because of his failure from his construction business. As I look for this expression, I found that this expression can also be used to mean differently.

Soppose that you just finished a triathlon competition. How would you feel? You would feel so exhausted, right? Then, here is what you can say. “I am dead beat now.” Interestingly, in this case, you need to put a space between “dead” and “beat.” It does not really matter when you speak though. So, be aware of these different usages of the same expression.

FYI, I do not think I am a deadbeat anymore. 🙂 Am I right, Jessy?

17 Feb

haggle

Who taught: Mike

Haggling (source: http://girliegirlarmy.com/)

Today’s expression is very fresh. I just learned it from my friend, Mike. Yesterday night, I made an offer on a house that Jessy and I like. And, as we expected, there was a counter offer from the owner. And…. I am now in the middle of negotiation over the price. It is actually happening pretty fast. I thought it is going to take a few days but it looks like it will take only a few hours to either reach an agreement or not. Speaking of negotiation, there is a saying in America, “Everything is negotiable.” There are so many things you can negotiate in America and the most common items that you have to negotiate in America are cars and houses. To be able to negotiate, it is important to do your own homework and of course be able to speak English. 🙂 Which one is harder? I am sure speaking English could be harder for many non-native English speakers.

Frankly, it would be actually advantageous to not be able to speak fluent English to negotiate. You can simply say, “This amount or NO!” Sounds easy, isn’t it?

Going back to my conversation with Mike… I told him the story of my negotiation for the house price and he said, “No body is really buying a house now. So, you can probably haggle over a price easily.” As I hear, I showed my trademark, a curious face. Then, Mike realized that I do not know the word, haggle. So, he started to explain it to me, saying “Haggle is like bargaining.” What an easy word. Everybody knows what bargain means, right? Well, now I added another word in my vocabulary. 🙂

So, what should I haggle over? Hmm… How about my salary? 🙂

15 Feb

PDA

Who taught: Office

PDA (source: http://metropolitician.blogs.com/)

Back in Korea, my parents used to say to Jessy and me, “We have never seen a couple like you guys. You guys are so happy together and show love to each other well. It is great to see.” The reason why they said like that was because we did not hesitate to show our affection in front of them. We hugged and kissed a lot even when they were present. It sounds very normal in America, right? But, it is not in Korea. I am not sure how much things have been changed in Korea ever since we left but, when we were there, people did not like seeing other couples’ hugging and kissing in public places.

It was kind of socially and culturally prohibited. Sometimes, old people say some harsh words to young couple who are showing their affection in public places. For example, Jessy always wanted me to show my love in public places. Whenever we are in a subway train or a park, she was asking me to kiss her. Then, I was like, “Hey, this is not our home. Don’t you see other people here? We cannot kiss here.” Then, she became sullen till I really kissed her. To save her and me from that unhappy situation, I had to kiss her. So, I looked around and around and around to find a proper time, then, if no one was looking at us, I kissed her very quickly. Well, then, Jessy became happy again. As this happens again and again, Jessy asked me more. She wanted to me get bolder to kiss her even people were looking at us. I was so embarrassed to do it. So, what I said to her was, “OK, here is the deal. Since we know we are gonna move to America, I will kiss you in public places in America because people there would not care about it and all of them do kiss in public places, I think.” She accepted the deal.

So, when we got here, she wanted me to kiss her in Time Square of New York City. Well, I did it and Jessy was happy. Most of all, nobody cared as far as I remember.

A few days ago, there was an episode of Office TV show about this behavior. Do you know what American people call this kind of behavior? It is called, PDA. Let me guess! Now, you would be saying, “What? PDA? That is like a small mobile device, Personal Digital Assistant.” That is right. But, at the same time, PDA means “Public Displays of Affection.” Based on the episode I saw, it looks like American people do care about PDA and they are not really fine with seeing PDA. So, the question is how much is fine and how much is not fine? Maybe it was because PDA happened in the office? So, if it is in subway or park, it is fine? I need to know the answer because Jessy will ask me to kiss again in the central park of NYC. Somebody please tell me!!!