Category Archives: From friends

As a non-native English speaker, it is fun to learn new English expressions from friends. I am not afraid of asking questions to my friends. Luckily, my friends are so nice that they always do their bests to explain to me. Thank you, all!

17 Oct

snap out of it

Who taught: Insider.

Snap out of it (source: http://www.galleryplanb.com/)

Every life has its ups and downs. When things are good, everybody is happy. But, when things are not good, it is hard to be happy and sometimes it makes people depressed or sad.

In my case, one of the saddest moments in my life was when my first girlfriend ditched me to marry someone else when I was in the Army. My seniors and friends tried to cheer me up but it was so hard for me to feel better.

They said the same kind of expressions again and again. They are “Cheer up! It will get better” and “Keep your head up!” Now, the other word that they used a lot is this one, “정신차려(Jeong-Sin-Cha-Ryeo),” in Korean. At that time, I still had to stay in the Army for 2-3 more months. My seniors worried about any possible accident that I can cause if I were depressed too long because I had to carry 30 bullets for my rifle, 1 grenade and  200 bullets for my machine gun every day as I guarded west coast line.

So, for this specific Korean expression, 정신차려(Jeong-Sin-Cha-Ryeo), I have thought that I can use “Wake up!” in English if I were to translate… till a few days ago. Watching a TV show, I heard this expression, “Snap out of it.” As soon as I heard it, it was like someone slap my face to tell me that is it. That is the perfect English expression that I can use to mean 정신차려(Jeong-Sin-Cha-Ryeo). Interestingly, on the show, a woman really was slapping her boyfriend as she said this expression to him. (She could just snap her fingers. Women must enjoy slapping guys.) What a perfect one! If you want to be more effective and strong, you could say “Slap out of it!” as you really slap her (I am not sure who is your her? 🙂 ).

Even though I am happy to get to know this expression, I do not want to personally hear it or use it to my friends. But, you never know what’s around the corner in your life. So, better to know any expression that can be perfectly used. Don’t you agree?

10 Oct

robber barons

Who taught: Anonymous

Rockefeller (source: wikipedia.org)

Last weekend, I went to the Niagara Falls with my parents-in-law and Jessy. This was my sixth time to see the falls and I was still amazed by its size and the amount of water that is falling continuously. Every time I see this type of amazing nature, I once again realize that there are a lot of evidences of God’s existence, surrounding me.

To remember God, we all went to a local church on Sunday with my friends, Jason and Ashley. Since we are visitors, many of the church members asked me some questions like where I am from and what I am doing, etc. So, as you know, my answer is pretty simple. I am from Pittsburgh, PA and teach at Carnegie Mellon University. I said the same to an old person who asked the questions. Here is another thing that kind of surprised me again. He asked this question, “Carnegie Mellon University? Who established it?” He basically does not know CMU. Well, I’ve always thought that everybody in the U.S. would and should know CMU. Well, I was wrong.

So, I told him that CMU is established by Andrew Carnegie in 1900. Guess what? Do you know what was the first word that I heard from him? He said, “Oh! One of those robber barons!”  When I first heard, I was thinking like, “Wait. What? Is he now talking about Barone family of Everybody Loves Raymond show? Why is he saying that they are robbers?”

As usual, I asked him. He then kindly explained it to me using an example of Rockefeller who made a lot of fortune by selling oil at an extremely lower price than his competitors back in late 1800s.

We all know what robber is. The real sarcasm of this expression comes from this word, baron. Baron means a member of the lowest order of the British nobility. They sort of got into this nobility by making a lot of money but the way of making money was a robbery. Do you know how much wealth Rockefeller was able to accumulate? According to Wikipedia, it is estimated that his personal fortune was equal to 1.53% of the total U.S. economy in his day. Wow. That is an unbelievable figure!

Now I know there have been a few robber barons in history. But, can I use this expression in any other cases?

 

06 Oct

RIP and fizzle

Who taught: Blake and Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs (Source: apple.com)

Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

Do you know who said this?

That’s right. It is Steve Jobs. It is so true and I totally agree with what he said. Yesterday there was an announcement about the new iPhone, iPhone 4s. It was disappointing. 4s does not look like any game changing device at all and also Steve Jobs was not there to talk about it. Many media including New York Times described iPhone 4s as fizzle.

You know what fizzle is? If something is fizzle, it ends in a weak or disappointing way after starting off strongly.

Ironically, Steve Jobs died from pancreatic cancer yesterday. But, he is not a fizzle at all. There is a saying in Korea, “A tiger leaves its skin after death; a man leaves his name.” He not only leaves his name but also amazing Apple products that we will use for a long time, remembering his passion and name.

After his death, there were so many Facebook status updates from my friends including Blake, saying “RIP, Steve Jobs!” Now, what is RIP? It’s an abbreviation of “Rest In Peace!” This is an expression you can use for people who died, hoping them to rest in peace.

Going back to Steve Jobs’s speech, once again, it is so true that we should really live a full life while we are here in the world. However, if I ever add one more thing, if I were to give a speech, I would say we should also at least think about us after the death. Is it really the end of everything once a person dies? Let me give you an advice, if I may. Please read the Bible. You need to at least give it a try to see what’s there. There is the truth in the Bible.

RIP, Steve Jobs!

04 Oct

step on it

Who taught: PetSmart and Jessy

Step on it (source: http://labelle-et-lebadboy.blogspot.com/)

There is one expression that I would not say to Jessy. That is “Step on it.” But, I might use this to some cab drivers when they drive too slowly. Well, it wouldn’t be the case in New York City though. As you can imagine, the definition of this expression is simple, “To accelerate.”

Now, you know why I would not use this to Jessy? If not, you may want to read this post about heavy foot. She has a lead foot. Many times, I need to ask her to slow down. Maybe, I can say, “Don’t step on it!” ??

I did not know what this means until I heard it from a TV commercial. PetSmart TV commercial talks about their sale event and asks to people to come and, at that time, it says, “Step on it!” Not surprisingly, Jessy knew the meaning of the expression and explained it to me. What the…. I was like… Don’t even think about because you step on it all the time.

28 Sep

literally

Who taught: Many friends, The Big Bang Theory and Alex

If you were in the U.S., one of the words you would hear very often is this word, “literally.”

The definition of literal is

Taking words in their usual or most basic sense without metaphor or allegory

Another definition is “free from exaggeration or distortion.”

A few days ago, Alex commented on my last post. He mentioned that there is a difference between literal speech and figurative speech. As I read his comment, the first word that came to my mind is this word, literally. You know why? It’s because of this TV show, The Big Bang Theory. In an episode where Penny was seeing this guy who is not as smart as the other guys in the show like Sheldon. I mean who can be even considered to be as smart as those guys, especially Sheldon. Anyway, this guy who is literally dumb says, “I haven’t been to a comic book store in literally a million years.”  And, Sheldon who is a PhD, of course, reacts like this guy does not have any clue what he is talking about, saying ‘Literally… Literally A MILLION YEARS?”

Can you get it? I am sure you can because you are smarter than Penny’s boy friend. Oh man! You should see this show. This show literally makes me laugh all the time.

So, the point here is that you will hear many people using this word, literally, not to mean something literal, but to exaggerate something that is not literal at all. If you think about it more, it is a very strong exaggeration. To me, it’s a figurative speech using the word, literal. How ironic! So, it is not bad and you can totally use it.

One tip! If someone says literally for something that is not really literal at all, don’t act like Sheldon in the show. That is not cool. If one of your close friends did, well you could be his/her Sheldon. It would be fun. 🙂 That is something I am going to try next time my friend says literally.