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!

10 Oct

expressions in sports

Soccer (source : www.treehugger.com)

Are you a soccer fan? I love playing soccer. The winter league just started and I play soccer every Monday from Oct to Feb. Last Monday, I noticed a few expressions, playing soccer, that you might be interested in.

1. Sub!

This is not a sub that you would order at a restaurant, as you may imagine. 🙂

In the league games, there are 7 players in each team but we usually have around 18 people coming regularly. That means each team has two substitutes. When one player is trying to come out, then he/she says, “Sub,” to the people waiting. This is shortened version of substitute. There is no time during the game to say the full word. In fact, I have never heard anyone saying the full word when I play soccer.

2. Back or Front?

But then, when you sub, the person who will join the game would ask you, “Back or front?”, to you as he/she goes in. Why do you think he/she asks that question and what are the right answers? That is right! He/she wants to figure out the position you played and your answer would be like “Back center” or “Front right.” Well, how simple and short! Interestingly, this is exactly what happened to me last Monday. When I try to come out, saying “Sub!”, the guy who is going to go in asked me “Back or front?” Well, I did not get the meaning as quick as possible. Like 5 seconds later, I realized that what he meant when he asked that question but it was too late to answer. How stupid? I mean, it is such an easy question but I missed it (Honestly, I did not know whether he was talking to me or not.) and did not say anything to him when he asked it. The problem is this kind of conversation happens so fast and hard to catch up later once you miss it at the moment.

3. Got your back!

Speaking of back and front, there is another saying you can say during the game. “Got your back!” You can say this when anther player who is in front of you, having the ball, but cannot figure out how to go forward. If he heard you, chances are he will pass the ball to you.

4. It is all yours!

Can you guess when you can use this expression? Let me describe you the situation when you can use this. I was up front center and a midfielder passed the ball really well to me. Then, there is nobody who is blocking me and I got the ball under control. The only thing I need to do is calm down and put the ball into the goal. In that situation, all of my team players would be like, “Terry, it is all yours!” What do you think? Do you think I made that goal?

07 Oct

a raw deal

Who taught: Andrew

Sushi (www.foodandwaterwatch.org)

Do you like sushi? I love it. What is the major characteristic of sushi? It is mostly made with raw fish. Now, what is the definition of the word, “raw”? It means not treated with heat or not refined, right?

A few days ago, my friend Andrew posted a new status on his facebook. He said, “Waking up early in the morning is good because I can do a load of laundry.”

I replied to it, saying “I would like to sleep more and ask Jessy to do the laundry.” (Don’t get me wrong! I do what I need to do but Jessy is the one who usually does the laundry.) In reply to my comment, he said, “We’ve been living together for over 6 years and we still do all of our laundry separately!” I was very surprised by that. Is this part of the American culture or what? 🙂

His reply made me kind of curious about their financial decision. So, I asked, “Does that mean you guys have separate bank accounts? That is minus for you.” (Supposedly, his wife makes more money than him. 🙂 ) Well, finally, he said, “That is a good point! I think I am getting a raw deal here!”

From the context, I was able to understand what he meant by “raw deal.” But, to be honest with you, that was my first time to see the expression. Do you guys already know the expression?

When I think of the word, raw, it is uncooked or unrefined as I mentioned earlier. After seeing the expression, I looked up the word again and  found out that it also means crude. And, because of it, raw deal can mean any deal which is crude. I am sure you can totally say “unfair deal” instead of “raw deal.” But I am also sure a lot of American people use “raw deal” instead of “unfair deal.” Am I correct?

05 Oct

cougar

Who taught : Jake and friends

Cougar (itpleasesme.com)

A few weeks ago, I was having lunch together with my friends. During lunch, we had a few different talks and one of my friends talked about a guy who is dating a lady. Pretty typical until that moment. But then, she mentioned that the guy is young like 25 and the lady is old like 37. As soon as she said that, all of the other friends asked the same question to her, “Is she a cougar?”

Well, I was the only one who did not understand what that means. As you know, cougar is an animal. I think it is Puma but not sure. They look pretty much the same.

I will give you the best example for you. Do you know Demi Moore? She is 47 years old. Now, do you know whom she is married to? He is Ashton Kutcher and he is 32 years old. The age difference is 15 years. It is quite big, isn’t it? So, in this situation, people call Demi Moore cougar. Interesting thing is she said, “I am a Puma not a Cougar,” when she had an interview with CBS. What is the difference? No idea!

There are a few questions I have related with this expression.

1. If a lady is a cougar, does she have to be hot?

The answer is NO but she should be a little bit attractive, though, to be qualified for being a Cougar.

2. How much age difference should be there?

I guess it should be pretty significant because small difference is not really interesting at all. Maybe more than 10 years? What do you think?

3. Why cougar?

I have no idea about this but Jake told me people used cougar because the mental image of her is hunting the boys.

Speaking of cougar, there is a TV show, called Cougar Town, and its story is totally about a lot of cougars. I mean ladies of hunting young guys if you know what I mean. 🙂

One last question! Is this expression offensive or not?

03 Oct

what is your brownie point?

Who taught: Alex, Sangeetha and Ari

Brownie Uniform (source:http: liendoanaulac.org)

Have you ever eaten a brownie? It is so good. Oh, you do not know what it is? It is a small square cake, mostly made with chocolate. No wonder why it is good, huh? I had never eaten a single brownie before I moved to the U.S. I mean… I think I saw it in Korea but was not really interested in trying it. But, here in the U.S., any party you go, there are bunch of desserts and brownie is definitely one of them.

But, did you know that brownie has a different meaning? It means a junior girl scout. I was not a boy scout when I was young. My parents could not afford it. 🙂 But, apparently, there are bunch of levels in girl or boy scout and one of the levels they have is brownie. Usually, girls whose age is from 6 to 8 are in the brownie level and they wear brownie uniform. As you can imagine, the color of the uniform is brown.

Moving on, have you heard an expression called brownie point? Can you give it a try to find what it means? If you think it as a girl scout point, it is pretty easy to find out. Yes, it means the point girl scouts from the brownie level receive by doing some specific tasks. As they get the points, they can get badges to wear on their uniform. I guess, the more badges, the better.

But, you can use this expression for any situation where a person does a good work or deed. The best example you can find is from the relationship between husband and wife.

Say that you are a husband and your wife is out of town….. and you did  a load of laundry. And when she is back, she would be so happy, right? Now, you just got a brownie point. Last Saturday, Alex used this expression when I had lunch with him, Sangeetha and Ari. At the moment, I was able to figure out what it means but the etymology I thought of was not correct. I thought this expression is originated from brownnose. To some extent, brownie point and brownnose are related with each other because if you brownnose, you sort of get additional brownie point. But the etymologies of two expressions are totally different, which is very interesting. Checking out etymology of an expression is so much fun and better to remember. So, when you hear some new expressions, you may want to try to find their origins. It is really fun and you learn so much more.

Let me ask you a question! What is your secret way of getting brownie points?

Comes from the points Girl Scouts at the Brownie level (ages 6-8) receive for doing specific tasks that when accumulated earn them badges (a sign of recognition) to wear on their Brownie Uniform.

30 Sep

Let’s boogie

Who taught : Pat and Alex

Korean ladder game (source: Daniel's facebook)

How many times have you had to decide who is going to do what in your life? So many times, right? For example, who will be making a presentation for your team project? There is a great solution for this!

Let me introduce one of the greatest games you can enjoy to decide who will be “it.” It is called the ladder game. In Korea, people play this game to decide who is going to pay how much for food or snack. Especially, when it is summer, people in offices play this game to decide who will pay for ice creams and who will go and get the ice creams.

Here is the rule.

Preconditions : There has to be multiple people. The more, the better. And, people should agree to pay money or do anything came out of the game. There is no way back.

1. Grab a paper. It should be big enough to draw bunch of lines.

2. Draw vertical lines as many as players. (The lines should be quite long enough to be able to enjoy the game.)

3. At the top of the lines, put numbers, starting from 1, of course.

4. At the bottom of the lines, put different amount of money that the players should pay. (Here, you can also select one line as an indicator for a delivery guy.)

5. Now, you draw bunch of horizontal lines randomly here and there, connecting the vertical lines. (The most important thing here is you should draw a lot to make the game really interesting and make it hard to find out what number will end up landing in what amount.)

6. Cover the whole drawings and players randomly choose numbers corresponding to the numbers written at the top.

7. Now, number by number, we follow the lines from the top to the bottom to find out who is paying how much and who is doing the delivery.

It is really really popular in Korea and I can guarantee that it is really fun to play. People are so excited about it. I think this is the game that exists only in Korea but not sure. Can anyone from other countries tell me if you have this or a similar game?

Today, I went to Denny and Patrick’s farewell party. It was their last day at the company that I used to work. It was great seeing all of my friends again. After the party, I went into the office to help Pat out to move his box over to his car. As we started to walk out of the office, holding the box, he suddenly said, “All right! The last day! Let’s boogie!” I did not get it. So, I said, “Hey! What did you say? Boogie?” Alex said, “Terry! You do not know what that is?”

From the context, it sounded like, “Let’s get out of here!” Well, I was right. Boogie is originally a type of music and it became to the word people use when they dance to Boogie music. Then, for some reason, people decided to use this word to mean walking. Not sure how it became to mean this. Does anyone know?

But, it sounds very interesting and kind of pleasant. So, next time, try to say “Let’s boogie!” instead of saying “Let’s go!”