Author Archives: Terry

03 Jun

weed vs weeds

Who taught: Jean and Lorrie

Groundhog (source: http://brookeshelf.wordpress.com/)

There are glass french doors in my dining room through which I can see my backyard. Every evening, I see a groundhog that comes into my backyard, trying to find something to eat for his dinner, I guess. It is very funny to watch him because he does not eat lawn at all. He eats something else. You know what it is?

One day, as I see the groundhog, enjoying his dinner, I thought it is a pretty interesting thing to share with my friends. So, I wrote on my Facebook, saying, “Groundhog in my backyard. He really enjoys weed,” along with a picture. Now, my non-native English speakers, do you find anything weird from what I said. Probably not much, right?

A few minutes later, my friend Jean added a comment, “Are you growing weed in your backyard? You might not want to publicize that on FB ;)” Well, at that moment, I did realize that what she meant because I know there is a TV show, called weeds. My friend, Lorrie, also commented later. She said, “weed –> weeds (weed mean something else in English slang).”

What does weed mean in the U.S.? It means marijuana. According to Urban Dictionary, weed does not mean grass any more in the U.S.

So, be careful when you say weed. Now, my question is that what if you really mean one undesirable grass in your backyard. That is what a weed is, right? I can literally say, “I have this huge weed in my backyard.” Then, it can be understood by other people as a huge marijuana in my backyard. What word would you use to really mean a weed in your backyard? This is actually confusing and hard for me to catch and use properly.

Anyway, that groundhog really enjoys weeds in my backyard so that I think I do not need to buy a weed killer. 🙂

P.S: Is weed killer fine though? Shouldn’t that mean marijuana killer?

01 Jun

beard

Who taught: Christian

Beard (source: http://www.greatfunnypictures.com/)

Last week, there was a farewell party for Andrew’s last day at his work. He now moves on to the next chapter of his life. I wish him the best of luck. I am sure he will be very successful at his new work.
So, I was there and met many people who I have not been able to see for a while. As usual, we all talked about anything new or any recent news about each other. I, of course, mentioned about my move. As I mentioned my move, Christian asked me, “Where did you move into?” I said, “Regent Square.”

His following response was not what I expected at all. He said, “Oh… that is the gay neighborhood in Pittsburgh.”

Honestly, I was surprised because I did not know that at all. I said, “What? Really? But, my neighbors are all young married couples.”

Christian said, “Well, you never know. I have a few gay friends who live in that neighborhood. Your neighbors could be beards.”

At this point, I had to stop him to talk about what he just said. Can you catch what it is? Yeah! Beards! What the heck does beard mean? In general, beard means the collection of hair that grows on the chin, cheeks and neck, but not the upper lip, of human beings. Isn’t this what you think when you hear the word, beard?

Now, in the context of my conversation with Christian, it is obvious that he used beard to mean people, not the collection of hair. Also, he used it as he talked about gay people. Here is the definition for you!

a man or woman used as a cover by a gay partner.

Assuming that I am a gay and I live with my wife, Jessy. Then, who is a beard here? Jessy is a beard for me. Now, what if Jessy is also a gay and we live together. Then, we both are beards. That is what Christian meant. It was even more surprising to learn that people use beard to mean these people.

I had to think about its origin. Based on my research, people started to use this expression in 1960’s but there is no real etymology of it. Now, my guess is this. When you grow beard, then it covers your face which is the most important part of a human body and it is the part that really shows your identity. By having beard, you kind of cover your identity. What do you think? Don’t you think my assumption here is quite good?

Well, let’s make something clear here before I wrap up this post. Jessy and I are not beards and it does not matter whether Regent Square is a gay neighborhood or not to me and Christian. We are all people here on the earth.

27 May

jump through the hoops


 

Do you know OneRepublic? It is a rock band and I love it. My favorite song is this song called Good Life. Rhythm and lyrics are all great. If you listen to the song, you will hear the following line.

The hope is we have so much to feel good about.

What a great hope to have. We indeed do have so much to feel good about. The day we have today is amazing and cannot waste any second of it. Hope your day is great so far and be that way all the way. Even though it is not, hey… look at the bright side. Then, you will find so much for you to feel good about.

Today, I would like to share one expression that I hear very often these days. Almost every time I watch TV, I hear this one for some reason.

It is “Jump through the hoops.”

Let’s try to feel the expression as I always do! So, it is not one hoop but hoops which could be 10 or 20 or even more. Now, if you are the one who is going through 30 hoops continuously. How would you feel? Man, that would be tiring, right? Would you do it? I don’t think so. Now, what if I say, if you finish jumping or going through 30 hoops, I will wait for you in front of the last hoop to give you $1,000. Would you do it? Oh, yeah, I am sure you would do it. That is how I feel this expression. The definition of the expression is “to do a lot of extra things so you can have or do something you want.”

I was not able to find the origin of the expression but a lot of people assume that this expression should come from circus where animals are jumping through hoops to entertain people and they do get some treatment once they successfully finish it. Sounds correct to me! What do you think?

As a home owner, I feel like finding a good contractor requires jumping through a lot of hoops. What else would be a good example? Can you share some with us?

I am sure we will all have a lot of things to jump through the hoops in our lives but it is and will be a good life as long as you think it is. Everything in life depends on what we think it is, not what it is.

24 May

not a chance vs fat chance


 

Every year, there is a Super Bowl party that I attend. It is great and fun to watch the game with friends, eating food. But, what makes Super Bowl party even more fun? They are Super Bowl ads.

One of the funniest ad during 2011 Super Bowl game was Pepsi MAX. Pay attention to what the woman is saying as you watch, not the guy’s part.

She said, “Not a chance!” What does it mean? Ha.. Am I joking here? We all know what that means. It simply means “impossible or don’t even think about it.”

OK! How about this expression, fat chance? Can you guess? Assuming that you do not know or have never heard of it, it sounds like something has a lot of chance which is exactly opposite to ‘not a chance.” Don’t you agree?

About three days ago, I stumbled upon an article where I saw this expression. Since I have never heard of it before, I thought the expression means a lot of chance but then the context does not make sense at all. I was scratching my head. “This cannot be correct.” So, I had to look it up. Then, there was a surprise! You know what! It has the same meaning to ‘not a chance.’ Then, I was like, “That does not make sense at all. I’ve heard of a similar expression from my friends. They say fat lie or big fat lie which means a serious lie or the worst lie. Why? This fat chance is different.”

So, I researched a little more and it turns out whoever used this expression first used it sarcastically. That is why this expression is different from fat lie.

Another similar expression is slim chance. But, this one has a little different feeling. Slim chance suggests that there could be a chance but fat chance means there is no chance at all. So, once again, you should be able to feel these expressions and also it is important to show that your are being sort of sarcastic when you use ‘fat chance’ in your conversations which is tricky. Good luck!

19 May

dude-bro

Who taught: Kim

Dude-bro (source: http://bag-of-games.blogspot.com/)

Today’s expression must be a fairly new expression. Why? I do not know why but I just feel like it. My guess is that most people who are comparatively old may not know what this expression means.

Last Saturday, while I was checking Facebook, one status updated by Kim caught my eyes. It was a very short sentence.

She said, “DC is full of dude-bros.” Reading this short sentence, we should not have a problem to find out that she was in Washington, D.C. and she was talking about the people there, right? Now, what kind of people do dude-bros mean? Can you guess?

Let’s try a little bit of anatomy here.

1. Dude : It simply means a man and, as a matter of fact, this word has a very positive connotation. Based on my research, the origin of this word is from 1870s and people started to use this word to mean well-dressed city folk.

2. Bro : Come on! We all know this. This is a shortened version of brother. These days, people in almost every country love to shorten words and this is the best example of that practice. It is pretty safe that this word also does not have any bad connotation. People use this a lot to call their best friends. I call Andrew bro from another mother (BFAM). Very good, right?

But then, there comes a very interesting result. When these two words are combined to be dude-bro, it does not have a positive meaning. It sure applies to men.

Here is the definition I found.

White suburban males, usually 16-25 years of age, hailing from anywhere, USA. Characterized by their love of College football, pickup trucks/SUVs, beer, cut off khaki cargo shorts, light pink polo brand shirts (with collar “popped”), abercrombie & fitch, hollister gear, and trucker hats.

I am sure you can imagine how they should look like. When I first found this definition, I was shocked. Do you know why? Here is the deal. So, when I first got to the U.S., I saw those people in many places like New York and DC. And, I strongly believed that I should follow those fashion styles. I actually did it.

Basically, I used to be one of dude-bros.

Today’s lesson: Do not try to mimic other people’s fashions. Try to create your own! Being dude or bro is fine but you do not want to be dude and bro together. 🙂