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!

26 Oct

Really? vs for real?

Who taught : Jessy

Carnegie Mellon University (source: scholarpreps.com)

Walking around the CMU campus, I hear various languages, including English, Korean, Chinese, Hindi, Spanish, Japanese, etc. Not a surprise at all because there are so many international students here at CMU! But, there is also a very interesting thing I noticed among English speakers. As you all know, there are different races, White, Black, Hispanic, Asian, etc, in the U.S. When I was in Korea, I had barely seen any other races other than Asian. In this case, it is of course Korean.

According to Wikipedia, the U.S. population’s distribution by races in 2009 is as follows;

1. White : 75%

2. Hispanic : 16%

3. Black : 12.5%

4. Asian : 4.5%

As I mentioned, there is a difference between black people and white people when it comes to English. I am sure there are so many things. (If you know any, feel free to add a comment.) But, today, I would like to talk about one very simple expression.

When a person says something that is hard to believe, what would you say? I usually say, “Really?” And, most of my white American friends say the same thing. But, black people almost never use that expression. They say, “For real?” Well, there is not much difference in terms of meaning. Either way, you should be fine. But, it is very interesting to see this kind of difference. This morning, I went to a convenience store where the clerk was a black guy. He was having a conversation with a black woman and she said something hard to believe, then he quickly responded to her, saying “For real?”

This event reminded me of a conversation I had with Jessy a few days ago. Jessy and I was watching a TV show and I noticed that a black guy on the show said the expression, “For real?” As I heard that, I said to Jessy, “Did you notice that black people use ‘for real’ instead of ‘really’?” Jessy told me, “That is always the case with them. Didn’t you know that?” (FYI, Jessy has many black friends so that she knows a lot of expressions they use.)

Jessy also has a Korean friend who runs a business for which he hired a lot of black employees. As a result, he speaks English with the black people all the time. Now, he always says “For real?” instead of “Really?” So, where or with whom you speak English matters. Interesting, huh? (Don’t get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with ‘for real’ or ‘really’. It is just a difference and I think it is interesting.)

24 Oct

what pepper?

Who taught : Cannot reveal

bell peppers (source : www.defeatdiabetes.org)

Working with many different clients as an engineer, I have found that the names of servers in different companies are very interesting. For example, a company decides to use peppers for server names, such as habanero, datil, etc.

When it comes to pepper, there are many different ones, including chilli pepper, bell pepper, banana pepper and, of course, black pepper. In Korea, people are  so familiar with hot chilli pepper. There are so many foods which have chilli peppers in it. Kimchi is a good example. I have never eaten any other peppers before I came to the United States. (But, I now love grilled peppers.) For that reason, I used to say just “pepper” in English, thinking of it as chilli pepper. There was one time I had to explain what Kimchi is to my American friend and I said, “It is basically fermented cabbage with bunch of different vegetables, such as pepper, and it is pretty spicy.” Then, he said, “Why?” I said, “It has pepper in it. That is why.” He said, “Oh… You mean hot chilli pepper? When you said just pepper, I thought you are talking about bell pepper.”

If you go grocery shopping here in the U.S., there is a vegetable section and you would be surprised by the fact that most of the peppers are bell peppers, not chilli peppers. Even though spicy foods are getting popular here, a lof of American people do not really buy chilli peppers. Thus, if you say just pepper, they would think you are talking about bell pepper or sweet pepper. Most of times, if you want to talk about hot chilli peppers, you need to be very specific. For example, jalapeno, habanero, datil, etc. If not, they would think you are talking about bell peppers.

Speaking of pepper, there is a saying in Korea. 작은 고추가 맵다. (Jak Eun Gochu Ga Map Da.) Literal translation into English is “Small chilli peppers are spicier.” Can you guess what it means? Let me guess! Do you think this has something to do with male reproductive part? You need to get your mind out of the gutter. I do not think this has any sexual implication. This means, “Small people could be more talented and perform well.” I was trying to find an English expression which would have similar meaning. One friend, who wants to stay anonymous, told me, “Good things come in small packages.” But he also mentioned that this has sexual implication. My American friends! Is this expression always being used in a sexual context or not? I am curious.

19 Oct

Have you ever eaten humble pie?

Who taught: Jessy and Carl

source (listsoplenty.com)

Humble pie! Sounds yummy? As a matter of fact, it is a pie. I mean there is a recipe and you can make and eat it. But, have I eaten it? No. I have never seen it. The original recipe says it should be filled with liver, heart and other offal, mostly of cow but often deer. Now, it does not sound like yummy any more, does it?

In medieval times, people called this “umble pie.” The word, umble, originated from the French nomble which means “deer innards.” Since it has all of the inner parts of beef or deer, not the meat, you can figure out that it is not a food that higher-class people would eat. That is true. Humble pie was considered as inferior food. (source: wikipedia)

Writing this, I started to doubt that this food would still exist with the original recipe. People here in the U.S. would not eat it. Does anyone know that this pie is still out there?

The point is this is not just a food anymore. It is an expression! Let’s close eyes and think about we are all back to the past, medieval times. You are in front of me and looking at my eating humble pie. What would you think? You would be like, “This poor Terry! How could you eat that dirty humble pie.” And, I would be like, “What the…. I am eating this stupid pie in front of him. It is so humiliating.”

That is exactly the feeling you would have if you use this expression. The meaning of the expression is;

To eat humble pie is to apologize and face humiliation for a serious error.

In conclusion, you do not want to eat humble pie as little as possible in your life. So, if someone ask the question, “have you ever eaten humble pie?,” your answer should be, “No!” or “Maybe once!” But there is a time you have no choice but to eat humble pie. For that case, I found one article for you, “how to eat humble pie!”

14 Oct

Show me

Who taught: Jessy

Show me state (source : www.plateshack.com)

Have you ever driven in the U.S.? If you have a chance later, try to pay a little more attention to license plates. Each state has its own design. As you may know, I live in Pennsylvania state. Honestly, Pennsylvanian license plate is very boring and nothing much special about it. But, if you go to other states, you would notice something different. They put their nickname on the plates. For example, Florida’s license plate has “sunshine state” and New Jersey’s has “garden state.” They kind of make sense, aren’t they? Maybe someone out there would not agree with NJ’s one??? 🙂

A few weeks ago, Jessy asked me one question, “Do you know what is the nickname of Missouri state?” Well, I did not know that. Can you guess it? Haha, I know! You got a hint from the title. It is “Show me” state. Now, why? Based on my research, it looks like it was coined/popularized by a Congressman Willard Vandiver. He said the following in his speech in 1899.

I come from a country that raises corn and cotton, cockleburs and Democrats, and frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I’m from Missouri, and you have got to show me.

Shorter version you can use is “I am from Missouri. Show me!” This is actually an expression that American people say. It means, “I do not quite believe you. Show me proof.” Interesting, isn’t it? I think I say this “interesting” word so many times. But, it really is to me! The question is then do people in Missouri say like, “Dude, I am in Missouri. You gotta show me.”? Or, what if I go there and say, “Hey I am in Missouri now. You gotta show me!” They would laugh, right?

Shall we try a quick poll here? What is the most interesting state nickname in the U.S.? My choice is Indiana. It is “Hoosier state.” What is yours?

12 Oct

pound

In every place, there are things that are unreasonable. About two years ago, Jessy and I decided to go on a trip to Ocean City, New Jersey. We decided to take Jessy’s car since my car is too small and her car has a GPS. It took about 8 hours for us to get there. I would never drive again that long in one day. Maximum number of hours I can drive in one day is 7 hours. I do not know how people can drive such a long distance in one day in the United States. But I think it is very common to drive a long distance here since the country is so big. Seriously, everything is big in America. 🙂

We stayed there for about 4 days, lying on the beach and playing a few rounds of golf. It was very relaxing and fun. But, we had no idea that the unbelievable event was waiting for us. Coming back, we were so happy that we were getting closer to home. As I was parking Jessy’s car, I realized that my car was not there anymore. As soon as we got out of the car, we started to walk around, looking for my car. But, we could not find it. “Oh, no! My car is stolen! What the heck!” said I. I looked down and that was the moment that I noticed that something was not the same. The road had been all scrapped and under the construction. Later, I learned that this is very typical in Pittsburgh. During summer, there are always road works to fix the potholes created during winter because of all the salts spread on the roads to get rid of snow.

Apparently, there was a road work during our absence and I found a few papers flooding around the road. So, I grabbed one and started to read it. It says, “The road will be repaved. Please move your car to other places or your car will be towed at your cost!” And, at the bottom, there was a date of notice and enforcement date. The notice date was just one day before the enforcement date, which means it was just one day notice and they towed not only my car but also all of the other cars parked on the street. How unreasonable it is! It gets even worse.

Car pound (source: www.post-gazette.com)

There was a phone number on the paper and I called them to get my car because I needed it to go to work as soon as possible. And, they gave me another number to call to get my car back. It was the number of the Pittsburgh pound. Now, what is pound? pound is one of the units of mass or weight. Or, if you are in UK, it is their unit of currency. But in this context, it is a place where all of the towed cars are located. The full expression is “car impound lot” or “car impound yard.” When they told me, “You should call the pound with the phone number I gave you.” I was like, “What the heck is pound here? Is it the name of parking lot or what?”

Well, what can I do? I went to the pound and payed around $120 to get my car back. Wait! It is not the end of the story. About 4 months later…. Read again! 4 months, not a few weeks or a month. It was 4 months later. I got a mail from the Pittsburgh Police in which they said I need to pay $100 fine because of illegal parking. Can you believe it? What is wrong? I could not believe what just happened. This time, I could not accept it. So, I went to the court by myself and fought about it. The judge said, “You already paid a lot for getting your car back and it is not reasonable at all for you to pay it with that short notice. You do not need to pay the fine at all.” I won. What a victory! Can you imagine that a non-native English speaker goes to the court all by himself and explain what happened in front of a judge and other police officers? I am telling you! Living in a foreign country is not easy at all. In fact, it is very challenging.

So, if you think about moving to a foreign country, you better be well prepared. 🙂