Monthly Archives: April 2011

12 Apr

torso

Who taught: Carol

Torso (source: http://philippefaraut.com/)

You might think that I do not study English hard enough when you hear this story. But, look, you cannot know all of the words in English, right?

About a year ago, I was invited to a meeting where about 7 people of the company that I used to work brainstormed and discussed a new design of a few features for a software.

Before we got into a real discussion, Carol suggested to play a game to have our brains relaxed and ready to be creative. So, here is the rules of the game.

1. Fold a paper horizontally three times so that there are three sections on the paper.

2. The first person who only sees the top folded section of the paper draws a head of a person who he/she thinks of. (There is only one restriction here which is that this person should be one of the people who are in the meeting.) After drawing, the first section should be hidden so that the second and following folded section should be on top and the person who just drew should pass the paper to a person who is sitting next to him/her. This way the person who gets the paper has no idea whose head is drawn.

3. The second person who gets the paper draws torso and arms of a person who he/she thinks of that it should be. (It is, of course, highly possible that torso and arms are of a different person from a person for the head.) And once again, flip the paper so that the third and following empty section shows up on top and pass it to a person who is sitting next to him/her.

4. Now the third person draws legs of a person who he/she thinks of that it should be. And.. This person passes the paper to a person who is sitting next to him/her again.

5. This last person now unfolds the paper so that everybody can see the whole body of a person that is drawn by three different people.

This whole step happens for everyone in a group at the same time so that there are as many people drawn on papers as the number of people in a group.

As you can imagine, most of the people on papers are all funny looking as they all have different head, torso, arms and legs. They are not really correctly lined up. So, a person’s head is not really on top of the center of torso.

So, to take one example, Angela drew my head with fancy glasses and Andrew drew a torso and arms but he drew a torso with breast, thinking that it should be a torso of a lady in the group and I cannot remember who that was. And finally, Phil drew legs. Interestingly, I was sitting right next to Phil and I got that paper and it was partially me with very good looking boobs. Thanks, Andrew! (Do you remember who did you think of when you drew that torso?)

Now what is so special about this story? Well, as Carol explained the rules, she used this word, torso. But, I, who was the only non-native English speaker in the group, did not understand what it means. So, I had to ask her what that means. She kindly explained it to me.

But, to be very honest with you, this kind of experience makes me so frustrated. Why don’t I know it? Why have I not studied this word till I am 35 years old? Asking these questions, I try to encourage myself to study more because asking these questions during meetings does not really help the flow of meetings. And.. I do not like that happens at all.

So, my friends! Good luck with your English! There are so many words that you would not expect to come up in many circumstances and, anytime that happens, you would feel a little embarrassed, if not a lot. Once again, you have to ask questions and be brave to speak out even with embarrassment.

P.S: Carol! If you think I explained the rules incorrectly, feel free to add comments. 🙂

07 Apr

peter out and peter principle

Who taught: Jeff

Peter Principle (source: http://www.buzzflash.com/)

Today, Jeff, one of my friends at CMU, and I had meetings with students. The meetings were for testing an application done by students and reviewing source code. As we talked about work, we got into a conversation about his previous works and how much he had to travel. He said, at one point in his past, he went to the airport to go to Chicago or New York in the morning and had meetings during the lunch time and, after the meetings, came back to be with family for dinner. This all happend in one day. Pretty intense, isn’t it? Anyway, as we talked about this work stuff, we had the following conversation.

Jeff : “So, Terry, have you ever heard of Peter Principle?”

me: “I have no idea what that is. What is it?”

Jeff: “It basically means that everyone in an organization tends to rise, or be promoted, to the level of incompetence.”

me: “Huh! So, do you think someone whose name is Peter came up with the expression?”

Jeff: “I believe it is from another expression, ‘petered out’.”

Then, he started to google it. We, of course, found a wikipedia page. To save your time for reading the page, my initial impression was right. The principle was made by Dr. Laurence J. Peter in 1969.

me: “Looks like ‘petered out’ expression is from ‘Peter Principle’.”

Jeff: “I do not know. Sometimes, native English speakers use expressions without knowing their origins.”

So, at this point, let me ask you a question? What do you think ‘petered out’ or ‘peter out’ means? Assuming that it is from Peter Principle, it should have something to do with incompetence, right? I would say it has to a certain extent. If something is petered out, that means it is not as it used to be anymore. And, sometimes, if you peter out on someone, that means you kind of give up on him/her. Another time you can use ‘peter out’ is when you run. Suppose that you run a marathon, you would peter out after the first 2-3 miles if you are not good at running. Don’t you agree? Now, can you feel the expression?

Hope you would not peter out on my blog!

Have a great day, my friends! Peace out, not peter out! 🙂 Pun intended!

By the way, did we find out where this ‘peter out’ expression is from? I do not think we did. How about you tell me? Can you?

05 Apr

go by vs take

Who taught: Phil

Shoes car (source : http://highclearing.com/)

During winter, I play soccer with Phil and other friends every Monday. Since Phil lives close to me, he usually picks me up on his way to the sports complex where we play soccer. Yesterday, he was gonna pick me up as usual but then I realized that my soccer shoes are in my new house. (FYI, I bought a house and now I am in the middle of moving things. So, some are in my new house and some are in my old house.) So, I had to go to the new house to get them. On my way to Phil’s house, I called him.

Me : “Phil, I should be at your place in 5 minutes. Do you want to go by my car?” (I meant we want to use my car to go to the complex instead of using his car.)

Phil : “Sure, either way is fine. Seeya.”

So, I picked him up. And he said, “Hey Terry. You said, ‘go by my car’ when you called. I could understand what you meant but ‘go by my car’ sounds weird to me. I would say ‘take my car’ instead.”

After the game, I looked ‘go by’ up in a dictionary again. It means ‘to elapse or pass’ or ‘to pay a short visit.’  Let me give you examples!

1. to elapse : As time goes by, you will feel better.

2. to pay a short visit : Phil was not at home when I went by his place yesterday.

So, using a verb ‘go’ followed by ‘by’ has something to do with flow or passage. It does not have the feeling of using something for the purpose of transportion. My initial thought when I used ‘go by’ was ‘go’ means moving from one place to another place and ‘by’ means ‘a mean for something.’ As separate words this could be right but when they are used combined, the meaning is not as I thought.

What an easy word, take, to use? And, I was not able to find it when I needed it. This happens all the time, especially when I speak. Sometimes, I realize something is wrong right after I say it. Then, it is too late to correct it. That makes me feel somewhat frustrated. But, I know I need to get over it by speaking more and more which means I will make a lot of mistakes. Isn’t it so true that people learn from mistakes as long as we try to do our best to correct them.

Don’t you make this type of mistakes? What’s your story?

My friends! There is another thing I want to share with you. Today is my 10th wedding anniversary. Hope Jessy remembers this time! 🙂 Last year, she forgot. We have a small plan. We will have a steak with wine at our very first house. And, most importantly, I will buy a charcoal grill today to grill the steak.