12 Sep

Newbie vs nOOb

Who taught: Andrew, Pat and Jean

n00b (source: dayumdana.tumblr.com)

It is amazing to see that almost all of the languages keep evolving. A few days ago, I was watching “Everybody Loves Raymond” with Jessy and heard a new expression I have never heard of, schmuck. An old guy told that Raymond is a schmuck. Do you know what it is? It is basically a jerk, idiot or moron. When I heard it, for some reason, I thought it is kind of an old expression. Why? I think, during the last 4 years and 2 months in the U.S., I have never heard of that one from any of my American friends. Am I right, my friends?

But, I have heard some other expressions that a lot of people use these days. In fact, I used them about a week ago to Andrew. I assume many of you have a facebook account, right? I also do have. If you search for “Terry Lee”, you might be able to find me on facebook. Anyways, a few days ago, Andrew wrote on his status, “I just found out that my iPhone headphones have a built-in microphone.” As soon as I read that one, I was like, “Oh, Andrew! You gotta be kidding me! How could you not notice it?” and added a comment, “You are such a newbie!” Newbie is a term that have been used by a lot of gamers first. When there is a new person comes into an online game, they say “Hey, here comes a newbie!” And, people started to use the term to describe any person who is new at something. For instance, if I go to a tennis court to try it out with bunch of friends who are already good at it, I can say to them, “Hey Guys! I am a newbie here. You gotta serve slowly.” There is a short version for this. It is “newb.”

Following my comment, Jean added another comment saying, “No, no, T-bone, like this: You are such a nOOb!” When I first heard this expression from Pat, I thought it is the same thing as newbie. Well, as you can imagine, it is not the same thing at all. Thus, you should be careful when you use this one because it has the same meaning as “Schmuck.” Here is the definition I found on urban dictionary.

A n00b or nOOb is someone that lacks intellegance or common sense, most people think that noob is a word used only in the online gaming world, but in reality it is becoming an ever popular word.

Maybe you would not want to use nOOb one too often or to someone whom you do not know well. Furthermore, since newb and nOOb sound very similar if you do not pronounce correctly, you might want to use newbie when you mean to say newbie to other people. Most of the times, you would find yourself speaking the word in this type of sentence, “Man! You are such a newbie!” or “Dude! You are such a nOOb!”

P.S.: Schmuck also means penis. Be careful to use this word too! Or maybe, try to pay attention closely to find out the context when someone uses this word in conversations. 🙂

09 Sep

gold digger

Have you heard this song? The title of the song is gold digger. One thing I would like to make clear to you. I hate Kanye West. Do not listen to his song at all after this post! 🙂 So, I used to listen to HipHop a lot but not really anymore. Maybe I am getting older. But the other reason I do not listen to them anymore is because of their lyrics. Some of them are just so bad. I mean really bad. Funny thing is I used to not be able to hear and understand lyrics and just enjoy rhythm and beat. I mean some of them are still hard for me to understand what they are talking about because it is so fast.

So, if you listen to hiphop without understanding the lyrics, you would probably fine with keep listening. But, if you pay attention a little bit more, you would notice that some lyrics are horrible. I remember one time when I was driving down to DC with Jessy and we were listening to HipHop and, all of a sudden, Jessy and I looked each other and said, “Did you hear what he is saying? That is insane!” Annnnnnnd, we changed the channel. So, you gotta be careful what you are listening. 🙂

Well, but there are some expressions you might be interested in from listening to music. For example, gold digger. If you listen to the song carefully, you should be able to understand what it means. In general, this is only used for women but who knows. Here is a definition on urban dictionary.

Any woman whose primary interest in a relationship is material benefits. A woman who cares more about a man’s bank account than she does about the man.

If I did not know the expression and my friends would ask me what I think this expression means, then I would say, “It sounds like someone lives life for making more and more money and only cares about money.” I guess this would be partially correct but not really, right?

Now, what about a guy who is in relationship with a gold digger. What is the expression you can use? Before I tell you this expression, I must say that I like this expression itself. Based on a web source I found, this expression was first used in 1926 and, in 1976, Jackson 5 released a single whose title is “Sugar Daddy.” That is right! Sugar Daddy is the expression you can use for a man who is in a relationship with a gold digger or relationships with gold diggers. (He could have multiple relationships at a time. Why not? 🙂 )

Why don’t we all become God Digger instead of Gold Digger because God is really the ultimate Sugar Daddy. You should at least give it a try to read the Bible to find out who He is.

06 Sep

pepper in talk?


Pep talk (source:http://brownsharpie.courtneygibbons.org/)

Today was Labor day which is one of the national holidays in the United States. In addition to the fact that people do not go to work, it has a few meanings to the American people. It is the end of summer. To enjoy the symbolic last day of the summer, people go for a picnic where they grill a lot. Labor day also meas the start of NFL and college football season, which I am so happy about. After labor day, the number of people playing golf decrease a lot because people start to watch college football on saturdays and NFL on sundays. These are a few things I know about Labor day. Do you guys know anything else you want to share?

Moving on to today’s expression, let me ask you a question! Have you ever experienced any situation that your boss or boss’s boss call a meeting and make a short or long talk about work, work, work? Well, more specifically, the main thing that he/she is trying to say is that you need to work harder? I am sure you do have that experience, (In which you would be talking to yourself like, “Oh! Great! Here it goes again!”) Maybe you are the one who is making that talk? Oh… good luck with that! Well, either way… Do you know what is the English expression you can use for that kind of talk? It is called, “PEP TALK.”

Definitions I found on the web are:

1. a vigorous, emotional talk, as to a person or group, intended to arouse enthusiasm or increase determination to succeed, etc.

2. This is usually a 5-10 minute speech given by your Supervisor at work,so as to make you work twice as hard for the same amount of money.

Well, the first one sounds pretty good but, in reality, you would hear pep talk in relation to the second one. Don’t you think?

Anyways, I had to find the origin of “PEP” to figure out why people started to use the expression. PEP is a shortened form of pepper. Now, in general, putting some peppers in your food sort of stimulates your appetite, doesn’t it? (American people use pepper a lot in the food. And, I do also love peppers.) Having that kind of feeling, what would be your feeling if someone add pepper in their talks? That is right! It is encouraging and stimulating. Another very good example of pep talk is the time when a coach of a football team tries to encourage the players before they go out to play a game, like “Hey, Guys, It is the time that you guys just go out there and show what you have! Let’s go! You can do it!”

Now, let’s put some peppers in your talk when you want to encourage yourself, shall we!

01 Sep

square vs hip vs sleek

Who taught: Andrew

AVAILABLE

So.. this is one of the words that can be used in so many occasions. Suppose you just get into a cafe and try to find a seat to sit. After a few looks, you spot one chair but someone is sitting on the chair next to that chair. And, you would like to make sure whether you can really sit on that chair or not, then how would you ask to the person? That is right! Simple! “Is this available?”

Another example would be in your biz email. You want to have a meeting with your client or customer but are not sure whether he/she can make it to the meeting at a specific time. What would you use in your email? That is right! Simple! “Are you available at 11:00 am on Tuesday? Please let me know your availability! blah blah….”

Now! You, assuming you are a woman, find me who is with friends at a bar and decide to go for me. “Hi, there! Nice to meet you! My name is Jessica!” At this point, everybody knows that you are trying to flirt with me. Then, what would you hear from my friends? That is right! Simple! “Hey, Lady! T-Bone is not available! He is married.”

I mean you can use this word in so many situations. I guess this is too easy for you. But, the reason why I bring this word up is because I would like to talk about the difference between English and Korean. All of the above cases, we, Korean, use totally different words. For instance, we use the expression, “품절남(Pum-Jeol-Nam)”, to describe a married man. Literal translation would be “He is out of stock!”

The hardest part for Korean people or any other non-native English speakers is that it takes a long time to realize that they can simply use “available” in so many situations because every time they try to speak something, then they think in Korean or their mother tongue first and try to translate it into English. This is one of the main reasons why non-native English speakers say so many sentences which do not make sense at all.

Square Face(source:gocomics.typepad.com)

Well… Let’s talk about today’s expression!

He is square.

Can you guess what this means? Hard to understand, right? Does it mean the shape of his body is square or the shape of his face is square or the shape of his but is square? What the heck does it mean?

Well, here is the definition on urban dictionary.

A person who is regarded as dull, rigidly conventional, and out of touch with current trends.

In other words, someone who is not cool. Now, what is the word to describe someone who is cool. Right! You can use “COOL” but there is also another one, “HIP.” So, if you see someone who is very in touch with current trends. You can say like “You are so hip!” to him/her. He/she will love it. What about to your male friend who is very fashionable, especially by wearing a suit? Then you can say, “You are so sleek today!” I am not sure whether you can use this one to female friends. I feel like you cannot. Hope my feeling is correct! (If I am correct, that means I am getting closer to become an American?? 🙂 )

30 Aug

ears burning!

Who taught : Kelly

Gays? (source:topnews.in)

As usual, Jessy and I took a walk this evening. During the walk, we saw two women walking along us, holding their hands. Well, we can simply tell they are together. I mean they are gays. Most of the time, if two people who are the same gender walk down streets, holding their hands, they are considered as gays. Maybe, it is 100% true. Am I right?
But, if you go to Korea and walk around, you will see a lot of ladies walking, holding their hands or arm-in-arm. 99% out of them are not gays. (Men would never do that. If you see any two guys, holding their hands, in Korea, they must be gays too.) For some reason, the Korean women all do that. I do not know why. It must be a part of culture. Not sure whether it is Asian thing or Korean thing though.

So, if you take a trip to America with your friend who is the same gender as you, you should not hold your friend’s hand in America. People here in America will think you are gays. (I mean they would not really care about it but they will just think you are gays even though you are not.)

A few weeks ago, I think, Kelly added a comment on one of my posts in which she used an expression, “Ears are burning!”
Let me give you a situation that you can use this expression! During lunch time, some of my friends are sitting together, eating lunch, and, in the middle of the discussion, they are talking about me. But I am not there. (Hope they are talking about good things! 🙂 ) A few minutes later, I show up and they say to me like, “Oh, hey T-Bone! We were just talking about you.” Then, I would be like, “Oh really? That is why my ears were burning. What did you talk about me?”

The definition of the phrase is as follows (source: wikitionary).

Said of somebody who was not present but was the topic of discussion.

Interesting thing is we, Korean, do have a very similar expression. We say, “귀가 간지럽다 (Gui-Ga-Gan-Ji-Reop-Da).” The literal translation is “My ears are itchy.” Our feeling of the expression is like, if so many people talk about me, then all of the sounds will come into my ears and that makes them itchy. But, I guess, for American, the word BURN should have that kind of feeling, right? Very interesting!