Author Archives: Terry

16 Nov

let him stew

Who taught: Teresa

A cook holding a cooker (source : http://vspages.com/)

Do you cook? I personally do not really cook much other than ramen noodles. I am a way better cook than Jessy when it comes to ramen noodle soups. Speaking of cook, one of the questions I used to have on my English exam when I was a middle school student was the difference between cook and cooker.

Cook can be a verb as well as a noun. We all know what it means as a verb. As a noun, it means a person who prepares or cooks food. What is cooker? A cooker is an appliance used for cooking food. It sounds like I am preaching to the choir. You would be like… “Hey Terry! I know what they means. What’s the point? Do you think I did not pass my middle school English?”

Let me tell you this! I have a friend who has been living in the U.S. for more than 20 years (And, she got a bachelor’s degree.) and she still use “cooker” instead of “cook” to mean a person who prepares food. My guess is that she would distinguish them correctly when she writes but when she speaks she just do not have enough time to find the proper word. So, do not assume that you will be able to find correct words while you are speaking just because you know words. Knowing is totally different from speaking. To be able to speak with a good speed, you gotta speak aloud and think aloud in English as much as you can. Please, do it! Don’t just think that you want to do it! You gotta do practice English.

Well, I got sidetracked. The reason why I brought cooking stuff up is because of this expression I heard from the Mentalist, a CBS TV show that I enjoy watching.

Teresa who is a detective on the show said, “Let’s not interrogate now. Just let him stew for a while,” after she caught a suspect. As I heard her saying, I thought, “Hmm… Interesting! Stew? He is not cooking. It sounds like let him think but there gotta be more than that.”

So, I looked it up and apparently there was more. It is not just simply thinking. It means that let a person to think about something bad that has happened or something stupid he/she has done.

When is the best time to use this expression? I think if your children did something bad or stupid, then you can let them stew instead of helping them out to fix the issue. Sometimes, it is better to let people stew so that they can learn from their mistakes. Who am I talking? I think I should let me stew on stupid things that I have done so far. Maybe, we should all have some time to let all of us stew.

11 Nov

get hold of

Who taught: Tami and Sujata

Pittsburgh Winter (source: http://dashdingo.org/)

Sometimes, I hear the same expression from a few people around me in a short period of time. That happened last week. My colleague, Sujata finally switched to a Mac from her old PC. While I was talking to her the other day, I asked her, “Hey, How’s your Mac? Are you getting comfortable with it?”

She said, “Yeah. It is getting better but I think I still need some time to get hold of it fully.”

Last week, Tami and I were having a conversation with students from other schools. We were talking about the Pittsburgh weather which is pretty bad in winter as you can see from the picture. As she was explaining the winter weather, she said, “It usually takes some time to get hold of it, especially for international students.”

At that point, I was like, “Huh! Same expression!” So, I thought that I should really remember and try to use it later.

I believe you would get what it means through these two examples, right? The word, ‘hold’, means to retain or control. Basically, ‘get hold of something or someone’ means the same thing.

One good usage is that, if someone is impatient and you want him or her to calm down, you could say, “Hey! Get hold of yourself!”

There is an issue though. When I was researching about this expression, I found this expression interesting. The reason is that ‘get’ is a verb and I am pretty sure ‘hold’ here is a noun. Then, where is an article. Shouldn’t I put ‘a’ before ‘hold’ all the time? Like, “get a hold of yourself or get a hold of it.”

There seems a little bit of debates going on even among native English speakers about including ‘a’ or not. I am not sure which one is correct. What do you think, my friends? Which one sounds correct to you?

08 Nov

dicey and antsy

Who taught: Kevin and NYT

Antsy (source: http://ilovetrampolines.blogspot.com/)

There are so many words that end with “y.” I am not kidding.. There are so many and people here use them a lot. Listen carefully to a conversation between American people when you have a chance. You will hear those words, ending with ‘y’, in many sentences.

Let me give you two examples today.

1. Dicey : Ever played a board game? A lot of board games come with a pair of dice. As you roll your dice, you cannot be certain what numbers you would get. You are uncertain. And if it is an important roll, it even looks dangerous, right? That is the feeling of this expression. For example, a few days ago, Kevin on the Insider show was talking about Brad Pitt. He talked about his ex-wife, Jennifer Anniston. Unfortunately, it was not a good thing. As Kevin was reporting this story, he said, “It is always dicey to talk about ex-spouse.”

2. ย Antsy: Do you like ants? I did when I was young but not any more. Ever since I own my house, I do not really like them at all. Especially if you ever see an anthill in front of your house, you would not like it at all. Speaking of anthill, if you sit on any anthill when you are on a picnic, they would get into your pants. Now what? You cannot sit down and be still. You have to move around and jump around to have them go away from your body, right. Suppose that I do not know what is happening with you, I would think like, “You are sort of upset or impatient.” So, there is an expression, “having ants in someone’s pants.”

Huh? Would you expect that American people use that long expression? No way! They simply say, “antsy.” Again, with “y.”

Let me give you a sentence that can help you to remember these two words.

Don’t get too antsy by doing something dicey!

I am telling you again…. There are a lot more words ending with “y.” If you found one, let me know.

04 Nov

step on toes

Who taught: Random guy sat beside me

Step on toes (source: http://politicalpistachio.blogspot.com/)

People do not smoke in a coffee shop in America. At least in the ones that I go often. A few days ago, something that I did not expect happened. Someone sitting beside me was smoking. Huh?! What is going on? Is it illegal? But, something was different. I could not smell anything.

I quickly noticed that it is not a regular cigarette. All of the other people in the coffee shop seemed to know that it is not a real one.

A few minutes later, the owner was talking to him about his fake-smoking. The owner did not try to have him stop smoking but rather just checking it out.

In their conversation, the guy who was smoking said, “This is completely harmless but I will smoke this till someone says not. I do not want to step on toes.”

In my mind, “Oh, yeah? Let me ask you to stop,” but I did not have the guts to say so. Instead, I was thinking about the expression he used, “step on toes.” You know what? Playing soccer, I do know how it feels if someone steps or runs on my toes. It feels so painful.

So, this was easy for me to feel it. Basically, this expression is the same meaning of causing a problem or bothering someone. It is an interesting way of talking. Don’t you think?

But, in my opinion, I think he was sort of already stepping on toes by fake-smoking.

01 Nov

cheer up vs cheer on

Who taught: Phil

Cheer on (source: http://wehearyouamerica.readersdigest.com/)

Yesterday, I once again realized that a proper usage of the preposition is so hard. Mondays are soccer days for Phil and me in winter. It is so fun to play a soccer game with good friends. Jessy usually stay at home while I am away playing soccer. But, yesterday, I managed to allure her to come with me to watch my playing. ๐Ÿ™‚

It was my turn to pick Phil up on the way to the sports complex where we play soccer. To let him know that Jessy is also coming, I texted him, “Jessy might go too to cheer us up!” Sounds very fine to me. How about you, my non-native English speaker friends? Do you see anything wrong with what I said to Phil?

After Phil hopped into my car, he told me how native English speakers would feel as they hear ‘cheer up’. For example, if Phil told Patrick, “I need to cheer Terry up,” then Patrick would think I am sad or depressed now so that Phil has to be with me to cheer me up. Once again, let’s try to feel it. Where is up? Up means above you like sky. Then, cheer someone up means make someone who is so down to be up by your cheering.

So, it is not correct to say ‘cheer up’ for soccer players who do definitely not feel depressed. In that case, you need to use ‘cheer on.’

As I was researching about the expression, I found that there was no ‘on’ part at first. And, in 1800s, this expression was augmented by having ‘on’ in the end. Well, I am not sure how I can feel this one. Probably, let soccer players stay on where they are already excited. What do you think, my native English friends? Do you guys have that feeling when you say ‘cheer on’?

For Korean people and my own reference, “cheer up” means ๊ฒฉ๋ คํ•˜๋‹ค(GyukRyeoHaDa) whereas “cheer on” means ์‘์›ํ•˜๋‹ค(EungWonHaDa).