Author Archives: Terry

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!!!

10 Feb

Wet bar

Who taught: Alen and Leslie

Wet Bar (source: http://good-times.webshots.com/)

I have been hunting my house for the last two months. It takes a lot of my time but it is kind of fun to look around bunch of different houses with different architectures. It is hard to find houses having the same floor flan in the U.S. And, another interesting thing is that many houses have a space called a family room. They are usually in the lower level. Some nice houses have a bar along with the family room. But, if the bar does not have a sink with running water. Then it is a dry bar. If it has, then it becomes a wet bar. I heard that expression from Leslie when I went to see a house with her. Looking at the bar and hearing what she was talking about, it was pretty easy for me to understand what she meant. But, if someone says the expression in the middle of any kind of conversation, I would be puzzled. I would probably guess the expression to mean a bar where people are getting wet. Why wet? I do not know. Maybe they are all going crazy, drinking beer or cocktails, and throw drinks to each other. Or, there is some sort of sprays on the ceiling of the bar? It actually sounds like fun to be in that kind of bar in summer. Sounds like a great business idea! Don’t you think?

I might have not been able to remember the expression if I only hear it from Leslie but I heard it again, watching a TV show, Two and a Half Men. In the show, Alen used this expression to his new girl friend, saying “I want to make a wet bar in your house. Can I?”

Speaking of an expression that have “wet” in it, I learned another one from my friends. (Forgot who it was. Maybe Andrew or Jake?) So… I would say almost all of men in the world experienced this, especially when they are teenagers. Waking up in the morning, you have experienced that something is wet around your testicles, haven’t you? No?  Oh… come on! Let’s be honest! A lot of times, this happens with those dreams with hot girls, right? Now, let’s make an expression. That’s right. The expression is “wet dream.” Whenever I see or hear this kind of expression, I feel like I can say whatever I think of, combining some words. But, then when I do that, my American friends would be like, “No, we don’t say like that.” What the heck? Don’t you want to try to your American friends? Try it! They will tell you the same thing. “Hey dude! That sounds weird.”

07 Feb

nerve-wracking

Who taught: Kathy

Sad! Sad! Sad! Steelers lost yesterday. If you are not a fan of American football, it would be hard for you to understand my feeling. We were so close to win the Super Bowl. Well, life goes on. Every time there is a Super Bowl game, people are so excited not only about the game but also about commercials. My favorite this year is Bridgestone’s as I added in this post. I love it. What do you think? Don’t you like it? What is your favorite?

Watching a Super Bowl game is hard in a sense that there are so many times I get to worry, assuming that Steelers are playing. If it is a game that Steelers are not in, who cares? (No offense to the people who root for other teams. I am talking about my feeling here. 🙂 ) You know what I mean? It is actually very stressful. I had that experience yesterday. As most of people were, I was in a party hosted by Sue and Brian. It was so fun to be with great friends and to watch the game together. During the game, I had to go to the kitchen to grab some food. As I went into the kitchen, Kathy was coming into too and said to me, “It is so nerve-wracking. Don’t you think?” I knew the expression but never used it yet. “Yeah! It is hard to watch,” said I. But then, I thought about the expression and I said to me, “Nerve-wracking! That is actually a very interesting expression.”

Let’s do a very short analysis here!

1. Nerve means long thin fibres that transmit messages between your brain and other parts of your body.

2. Wrack means ruin or destruct.

Combination of nerve and wrack now means “ruin or destruct your nerves,” right? This makes me feel the expression perfectly. People say nerve-wracking is similar to anxious. But, I feel like this should be different. I mean I feel very different by saying “nerve-wracking” from saying “anxious.” Nerve-wracking feels a lot stronger to me. How about you? Am I right, my American friends?

What are the things that are nerve-wracking to you? Watching a Super Bowl game (when Steelers are playing) is definitely nerve-wracking to me.

02 Feb

stoned or baked

Who taught: Stan and Braverman family

Stoned or Baked (source: http://www.nogoodforme.com/)

A few days ago, I wrote about “edible.” Well, yesterday, I learned a new thing about the word, edible. What if someone on the street asks you like, “Hey do you have any edible?” What would you answer? I would try to think whether I have my lunch box or not. If I have, then maybe my answer would be, “Yes, I do. Why?” Well, that answer could be very dangerous. Do you know why? It is because the word, edible, also means something else. It means marijuana. In my opinion, this usage of the word is not very common in the east coast but in the west coast. How funny is it? You can say “it is edible” to mean something people can eat. And, all of a sudden, the other people would possibly think you have marijuana.

Speaking of marijuana, drug is a big issue in the United States. Hunting my house around, I have learned a lot. One of the things I got to know is related with the size of high schools. Some parents prefer to move to a school district where its high schools are small in terms of class size. The reason is that it is better to prevent their kids from getting into troubles with drugs. Another thing that I learned is that there are many cops in high schools during the day with dogs to find out whether there is any drug or not in the schools. That is scary to hear. In my whole life, I have never even seen any drug.

There are a few expressions that are related with drugs. When you do drugs, you become very happy and kind of abnormal, laughing a lot with no reason. At least, that is what I heard. 🙂 Then, people say, “Are you high?”, which sounds easy to understand. But, there are other expressions such as stoned or baked. Some people say, “Are you stoned?” or “You are baked, right?” These are ridiculous. There is no way we, non-native English speakers, can figure out what they mean. It is like, “Are you saying that some people throw stones at me and I got hurt? or Are you saying I was in the oven for a while?” I actually do not get these. What are the origins of these expressions? Can anyone tell me? For example, a few weeks ago, Stan posted his old picture in which he is smiling on his Facebook. I commented, “Stan, you look so happy.” And, a few hours later, one of his friends added another comment, “You look totally baked.” I was like, “What is going on? What the heck does this baked mean?” I had to look up all the dictionaries to find out what that means. Luckily, there was Urban Dictionary. Without it, my life in the U.S. would be a lot harder. Urband Dictionary is my friend and…… your friend too.

31 Jan

Is it in the bag?

Who taught: Kim

Money in the bag (source: http://cicmusic.wordpress.com/)

As you know, I teach at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). A few days ago, I stumbled upon a youtube video that is about the stereotypes of CMU. Typically, the workload at CMU is intense and heavy. Students spend a lot of hours in libraries and meeting rooms. From the comments on the video, I found one very funny saying among CMU students. They say that the campus was made up of two types of people “the fruits” (drama, fine arts) and “the vegetables” (science, engineering). Sadly (??!!), I was one of the vegetables because I graduated from the School of Computer Science (SCS). Consequently, I am now a vegetable grower since I teach computer science students. Well… vegetables are well known as healthy food. I will do my best to grow nice organic ones so that they can help people.

About two weeks ago, I heard a very happy news from my friend, Kim. She applied for the Fulbright scholarship program a few months ago. She changed her status on Facebook, saying that she passed the first round. I do not know how many people know the program but it is actually a huge one to get as a student in the U.S. I was so happy that I commented saying that, “Awesome! So happy to hear that!” Of course, there were her other friends who added comments. She replied, saying, “It is not in the bag yet. But I will keep you posted.”

Not in the bag… That was a new one to me. I am sure you guys can also understand what it means, right? So, I replied to her, “That is a new one and it will be going into my blog.” That is what is happening now.

If you know the etymology of the expression, you will definitely be able to feel the expression. Based on my research, this expression is from the 16th century. At that time, bird hunting was famous and hunters go out with a bag. When they finally retrieve a bird and put it in the bag, they now can declare that they catch a bird for sure.

Can you feel it? This is the question Jean asked me when I say that “In the bag is the new one to me!” I now feel the expression a lot better after knowing the etymology. How about you? Don’t you like to know etymology of new expressions? Here is today’s homework! Why don’t you ask your American friends whether they know the etymology of this expression? I bet many of them would not know which is not surprising at all. We just use many expressions of our mother tongue without thinking about their origins, don’t we?