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!

28 Apr

stud

Who taught: Jake

Stud earrings (source: http://www.diamonds-earring.net/)

Do you know types or designs of earrings? I bet there are many different designs. Do I know them? Not at all. Should I know? Probably!

A few weeks ago, I learned one type of earrings from Jake. It is stud. How does it look like? It is hard to explain. Please refer to the image here in this post. One thing I know is that stud earrings are not the ones that are dangling and, if any man wears earrings, chances are he is wearing stud ones.

Well, Jake did not really talk about earrings with me. I mean,,, why would he and I talk about earrings?

So, what happened is that he used “stud” in his sentence and I did not get it. I said, “What? Stud? What is it?” From the context I gave you so far, can you guess why he used stud? Once again, we did not talk about earrings at all. I am sure you cannot guess at all.

He used stud to mean a good looking guy or a guy who is popular among ladies. I think he was saying, “Terry, you are a stud.” He said something good about me and I did not get it. How poor am I? 🙂

Since I asked what stud means, he tried to explain it to me. He said stud is a type of earrings and it also means a male animal that is very desirable for breeding, especially a racehorse.

My guess is that, at some point in farms, people started to use stud to mean a good looking guy because it means a male racehorse that is very good for breeding. After all, man is a male animal.

So… how about you? Are you a stud?

You think you are? Then, I have an idea. Why don’t you wear stud earrings? That could make you look even studder. (Wait! Is studder even a word?) 🙂

26 Apr

christen a house

who taught: Kelly and Phil

Terry’s house

Today’s expression is one of the expressions I have never heard of in my entire life. Also, I am kind of reluctant to write about but, for the purpose of this blog, which is keeping track of all of the expressions I learned and also share with you, I will do my best to write about it. I will let you know why I am a little reluctant later.

A few weeks ago, Phil and Kelly came to my new house to give me their opinions about any possible improvements that I need to work on. (They have been home owners for a while.) A good news is that they think our house does not need many improvement work. Yay! Oh, here is what I also heard from Phil. So, whenever you invite your friends to your house for the first time, then you ought to give them a short tour to your place, explaining things in your house. Well, my house does not have anything fancy or special. But, since Phil and Kelly were visiting my house for the first time, I gave them a brief tour.

As we all walked up to the second floor where there are three rooms, Kelly said, “Hey! So, have you guys ever christened the house yet?”

Jessy and I did not understand it at all. We said, “What? What does it mean?”

Before we get to what Kelly meant, let me give you a very simple definition of the word, christen.

When a baby is christened, he or she is given a name during the Christian ceremony of baptism.

Also, there is another meaning of the expression which is “To use something for the first time.” I believe Kelly’s usage is more originated from this second definition. Now, let me rephrase Kelly’s question in connection with the second definition.

Hey! So, have you guys ever used the house for the first time yet?

Here comes my favorite question! Can you feel it? or Can you understand what Kelly meant? I guess not! The key thing you need to think here is the deep implication of the word, use.

Now, remember that Kelly asked this question as she was seeing the rooms! What do you usually do in rooms? Let me guess. You sleep, right? Let me go a little deeper. Do you really just sleep in rooms with your wife or girl friend? (If you are a lady… Do you really want to just sleep in rooms with your husband or boy friend?) I guess not. What else do you do? Haha.. that is right. You would make love. No No No, You WILL make love. So, here is the equation I can tell you for this expression.

Making love in a room for the first time = Use a room for the first time = Christen (As a result, christen equals to making love in a room or a house for the first time)

I am sure you now get what Kelly’s question meant.

Have we christened my house yet? No comment! How about you? Did you christen your house as soon as you bought your house? What? You did it on the same day you got the keys to the house. 🙂

So, why I do not really want to share and use this expression? I am a Christian. So, I probably would not use this expression. But.. Look! It is better to know these expressions to be able to understand what your friends are saying, right?

21 Apr

in the cards

Who taught: Austin

tarot cards (source: http://tarotreadingsdc.com)

About two weeks ago, I went Stella’s baptism event. Stella is my friend Pat’s daughter. She is amazingly adorable. I believe she got all of the best things from her parents. There is no doubt that she will become so smart.

At the event, Jessy and I met Stella’s grand parents. After the official baptism event, we drove to the venue of reception. As we have food, we had a chance to chat with Pat’s parents.

During the conversation, we talked about our work and our passion in software development. Naturally, we mentioned that many of our friends are working together to develop a new web application that is possible to make a big difference in the world. As Austin, Pat’s father, heard that, he said, “Two of you should also do it in addition to your main jobs.” We said, “Yeah, maybe we should. We can make something cool.” And, Austin said, “Great! That is in the cards. Hope to see you something amazing.”

From the context, it was not that hard to understand what Austin meant by saying, “in the cards.” It should mean, “something possible to happen.” That was what I thought. And, as I always do, I tried to think about its etymology. For that, I thought it has to be related with cards in connection with playing card games. What I mean by card games is the ones you can see in Las Vegas. I mean I do not know how many games exist but they all use the same type of cards to play very different games, right? It does not matter what game you are playing because there is always possibility of having bunch of different cards from a set of cards. That is exactly what I thought for this expression’s etymology.

What do you think? Do you think I am correct? The answer is not really. I looked upon its etymology and it says the expression is from a specific type of cards, which is tarot cards. What is tarot cards? Based on what I found, it is:

a set of cards with pictures representing different parts of life and that are believed to be able to show what will happen in the future.

Isn’t it interesting? They are believed to be able to show what will happen in the future and that is why this expression is here with us now.

I would love to see those cards for real. Never seen it so far. Now, do people play games with these tarot cards?

Now, what are the things do you have in your cards? Hope they are all good ones!

14 Apr

my better half

Who taught: Calvi

my better half (source: http://shirtoid.com/)

Yesterday, my friend, Calvi updated his facebook status, saying “According to my better half, baby jeans are the cutest thing on the planet.” As I saw and read it, I kind of paused for a while to think about the expression and spoke to myself, “Huh.. I know that expression, my better half. But, it is a great expression. I mean, it is really really awesome. What a great way to say about your girl friend or boy friend.”

Of course, if you are married, that would be either your wife or your husband.

Speaking of this expression, let’s have a poll here. What do you use to call your spouse or boy friend/girl friend?

1. Honey

2. Babe

3. Darling

4. Just name

Jessy and I have been mostly calling each other honey. Even when Jessy gives me a call, my phone says I got a call from honey. Is it weird? If so, I will take it as you being jealous. 🙂

I have a thought. What if we call each other, “my better half,” all the time? And, what if we also think my spouse is really my better half all the time? We would behave differently? We would respect more and also feel like I am not complete without her/him because I am the only half of one complete entity. Don’t you agree?

I mean, I knew this expression before but have never really used it at all. You know what! I think I am going to use this a lot more from now on. Would you join me, at least, today? Let’s send an email to our spouse, saying, “Hey! My better half! I love you so much!”

By the way, do you also think baby jeans are the cutest thing on the planet??

P.S: Thank you, Calvi, for reminding me of the expression and how important and better my half is!

12 Apr

torso

Who taught: Carol

Torso (source: http://philippefaraut.com/)

You might think that I do not study English hard enough when you hear this story. But, look, you cannot know all of the words in English, right?

About a year ago, I was invited to a meeting where about 7 people of the company that I used to work brainstormed and discussed a new design of a few features for a software.

Before we got into a real discussion, Carol suggested to play a game to have our brains relaxed and ready to be creative. So, here is the rules of the game.

1. Fold a paper horizontally three times so that there are three sections on the paper.

2. The first person who only sees the top folded section of the paper draws a head of a person who he/she thinks of. (There is only one restriction here which is that this person should be one of the people who are in the meeting.) After drawing, the first section should be hidden so that the second and following folded section should be on top and the person who just drew should pass the paper to a person who is sitting next to him/her. This way the person who gets the paper has no idea whose head is drawn.

3. The second person who gets the paper draws torso and arms of a person who he/she thinks of that it should be. (It is, of course, highly possible that torso and arms are of a different person from a person for the head.) And once again, flip the paper so that the third and following empty section shows up on top and pass it to a person who is sitting next to him/her.

4. Now the third person draws legs of a person who he/she thinks of that it should be. And.. This person passes the paper to a person who is sitting next to him/her again.

5. This last person now unfolds the paper so that everybody can see the whole body of a person that is drawn by three different people.

This whole step happens for everyone in a group at the same time so that there are as many people drawn on papers as the number of people in a group.

As you can imagine, most of the people on papers are all funny looking as they all have different head, torso, arms and legs. They are not really correctly lined up. So, a person’s head is not really on top of the center of torso.

So, to take one example, Angela drew my head with fancy glasses and Andrew drew a torso and arms but he drew a torso with breast, thinking that it should be a torso of a lady in the group and I cannot remember who that was. And finally, Phil drew legs. Interestingly, I was sitting right next to Phil and I got that paper and it was partially me with very good looking boobs. Thanks, Andrew! (Do you remember who did you think of when you drew that torso?)

Now what is so special about this story? Well, as Carol explained the rules, she used this word, torso. But, I, who was the only non-native English speaker in the group, did not understand what it means. So, I had to ask her what that means. She kindly explained it to me.

But, to be very honest with you, this kind of experience makes me so frustrated. Why don’t I know it? Why have I not studied this word till I am 35 years old? Asking these questions, I try to encourage myself to study more because asking these questions during meetings does not really help the flow of meetings. And.. I do not like that happens at all.

So, my friends! Good luck with your English! There are so many words that you would not expect to come up in many circumstances and, anytime that happens, you would feel a little embarrassed, if not a lot. Once again, you have to ask questions and be brave to speak out even with embarrassment.

P.S: Carol! If you think I explained the rules incorrectly, feel free to add comments. 🙂