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!

29 Jun

spooning

Who taught: Pat


 

Let me introduce you a song that I am really addicted these days! One of my students, Kelvin, got me into this song and I love it.

It is a song called moves like jagger by Maroon 5, featuring Christina Aguilera. In fact, I am listening to it as I write this post. This song makes me want to dance. (Am I dancing now? Probably in my imagination.) 🙂 You will enjoy it this summer. Finally, summer is here, yay!

On the contrary, let’s talk about winter. One of the things I do do enjoy during winter is snowboarding. The feeling that I get to have when I ride very fast and jump over big mount of snow is amazing and hard to describe. Last winter, I went snowboarding a few times with my friend, Pat. And, one time, we went and stayed over a night at Kerry’s cabin that is located close to the resort.

Puppies' Spooning (source : http://shabamzy.blogspot.com/)

We had to share a bed. As we were getting into the bed, he said to me, “No spooning!” I did not get what he meant. I was like, “Dude, are you hungry? We are about to fall asleep here.” So, can you guess what spooning means here? I mean, we know what spoon is, right? I do not even need the definition here. The point here is the shape of a spoon. As a person, can you make your body look like a spoon? Yes, you can! As a matter of fact, you might do it every night, especially if you got married. At this point, you need to think two spoons are put together in your kitchen drawer. How do they stay together? They stay very close to each other since they have the identical shape, right? That said, here is the definition of spooning with regard to people.

A form of affection between a couple. Where the man lays front to back with the girl. They fit together like spoons.

It is a good thing to do with your wife/girl friend or husband/boy friend. But, with your friends with the same gender? No,,, no no…

So, please no spooning in cabin with your friends, if you know what I mean. 🙂

P.S: Do people in the U.S. use spooning to mean using a spoon to get some food from a bowl or something? I kind of doubt. Could you advise me, my American friends?

20 Jun

penny wise pound foolish

Who taught: Carol and Mark

Penny wise pound foolish (source: http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/)

In the U.S., there is mother’s day and father’s day separately whereas there is parents’ day in Korea. Yesterday was the father’s day in the U.S. I was thinking, if my father is around me, what kind of gift I should give to him. And, then, I watched U.S. Open final round. What an amazing play and gift for a father’s day! Rory Mcilroy finished his final putt and hugged his father, saying, “Happy father’s day! This is for you.” Oh man, if I were his father, I would be so proud of him that I feel like I have everything in the world. Great job, Rory! Looking forward to seeing your more often on the leader board!

A few days ago, we had a housewarming party at my place. My friends, Carol and Mark, brought two bottles of wine. I believe you all know that every wine has its own name or brand, right? So, the wine Mark brought was Jargon and the one Carol brought was Pennywise. Carol explained that why they brought those wines. There is a jargon, penny wise pound foolish. She asked me whether I can feel it or not. I said, “hmm…. not really!” First of all, since I am in the U.S., I am not really familiar with the English word, pound, even though I realized what it is later. Anyway, can you feel it? I think you can.

It is always great to hear an example of usages of an expression. When can we use this expression?

For example, you decided not to buy a gum because it is too expensive, then later you decided to go on a luxurious and upscale trip to Europe. Basically, you were trying to save a penny and then later you spend a lot of pounds, or dollars, on something that is too much for your budget.

Well, I am sure we all make mistakes that are penny wise pound foolish. I really want to buy GTI but, if I buy that car now, then it would be a good example of being penny wise pound foolish, right? I know, I know. But I really like that car. Jessy, can I buy it?

By the way, what kind of gift did you give to your father yesterday? How about winning the U.S. Open next year? 🙂

17 Jun

red herring

Who taught : Alex and Sangeetha

That's what I am (source: http://www.imdb.com)

Have you seen this movie, that’s what I am? A few days ago, Jessy and I watched it and I personally like it. In the movie, there are a few slangs and one of them is ginger. There is a student who is called the Big G by other students in the movie, basically in the context of bullying. So sad to see it happening just because of his hair color. And, later in the movie, he mentioned a word, tolerance. He said, “I like this word because of its definition.” Here is the definition he used in the movie.

sympathy or indulgence for beliefs or practices differing from or conflicting with one’s own

As I hear this definition, I thought about it. How much do we judge other people every time and every day? And, the worst thing is that we judge other people by their looks or behaviors without even really knowing them. Why can we have sympathy or indulgence to each other? It is just something I would like to suggest you to think about today.

OK… so two days ago, Alex and Sangeetha visited my place and we had dinner and watched a movie. It was fun. As always, I also learned a few new expressions. Let me tell you one of them that I think it is very interesting! It is “red herring.”

Here, herring is a kind of fish that is blue. Now, why there is “red”  in the expression. If you salt or smoke herring, its color is changed to be red from blue.

Knowing that, would you be able to feel what it means? There is no way you can feel it unless you really know the meaning of it. Here is the meaning of the expression. Oh.. actually… before I talk about it, let me give you a perfect situation that you can use this expression. Whenever you watch a thriller or read a mystery fiction, the story always leads you to believe that one character must be a criminal or killer but, in the end, you find out that the other character that you never thought about suddenly becomes the killer. Now, who is the red herring here? The first character you believed to be a killer is the red herring. OK. now, here is the definition for you.

diverting attention away from an item of significance.

Alex said something to Sangeetha and Sangeetha sort of disagreed to what he said. As she tried to argue about it, she said something that is not really connected to what Alex said. So, at that moment, Alex said to Sangeetha, “Now, that is a red herring.”

When Alex told me that story, my feeling about the expression was that it must be from fishermen’s sayings. Well, I was not even close. The etymology of this expression is very interesting. Let me give you the best link you can visit to find it out.

Next time you watch a thriller with your friends, why don’t you try to find out who in the movie is the red herring? It will be fun.

08 Jun

hug the toilet

Who taught: Carol

Hug the toilet (source : http://www.funnymediablog.com/)

I am sorry if you read this post in the morning. Try not to imagine too much as you read it through. 🙂

Let me start with a simple survey here!

How many of you have experiences of drinking too much and throwing up as a result? All of you maybe?

Now, if the answer is yes, how many of you have gone into a bathroom to find a toilet to vomit? Probably many of you, right?

I guess I do not need to explain this expression, hug the toilet, by now. Let me have you feel this expression even better. When you need to vomit by becoming intoxicated, you would love to find a toilet and as you vomit, you have to be very close to the toilet. In doing so, you have to kind of hug it just like you hug your girl friend or boy friend. Can you feel it? As I said, you have to feel an expression to be able to not only understand and use it properly.

A few weeks ago, Carol twitted me, saying, “Hey, do you know what ‘hug the toilet’ means?” For some reason, my first guess was exactly correct. I guess it is because I had an experience of hugging the toilet. I had only one, though. And, it was due to the fact that I was forced to drink by my bosses in the Army. I hated that feeling and I felt I am like a trash. And, after that, I have never even thought about drinking. Now, I have a question to Carol. Why did you ask that question? Did you hug the toilet the night before that day? 🙂

My friends! Hope you do not have many experiences of toilet hugging! If you have too many, you might want to think about how to quit or reduce drinking.

Don’t hug the toilet but hug your juliet!

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?