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 May

bonding?? bondage??

Who taught: Carol

Hey, my friends! First of all, I am sorry that I miss a post today. Yesterday, Jessy wanted to watch a movie together and by the time the movie ended, it was too late for me. So… I went to bed. Did you miss me?

A few months ago, I saw Carol was wrapping up a present in the office. “Carol, what is it?”, I said. She said, “Oh this is a birthday present for Andrew. UX (User Experience) team members chipped in to buy this and I am wrapping it up now.” I thought it was so nice of them. So, I told her, “Wow, that is cool. I like the UX team because you guys have very strong, you know,”…….(Terry was trying to find the proper word here…So, it takes some time…)…… “bondage.” As soon as she heard, she was smiling and told me, “Well, Terry, bondage is not correct there? It should be ‘bonding’.” She continued, “Bondage has a different meaning.” I cannot remember whether she explained me the meaning of it or not. (I think she did!) OK, are you ready? Here is the definition of bondage. (source : urban dictionary)

Derived from a term for slavery, Bondage has come to mean sexual slavery, particularly dealing with the simple practice of restraining one’s partner to beds, posts, from ceilings, etc. Usually entails either rope (asian forms) or leather, chains, and other equipment specially designed for the purpose (western.)

Bondage considered a fetish, as enthusiasts generally prefer the thought or presence of a fully-clothed restrained partner to a fully nude and unrestrained partner.

Example) Hey, honey, would you like to try a little bondage play?

Bunny Bondage

I know! This is totally inappropriate. But, you know what, this is something you need to know so that you do not make the same mistake as I did. Thank God! It was Carol. Man, I do not even want to imagine the situation I use this one to someone I totally do not know or barely know. Thank you, Carol, for your kind understanding and explanation!

Oh, the other thing you need to be careful is “bandage.” Because if you pronounce “bandage” incorrectly, people would think you are talking about “bondage.”

So, try now to look up the dictionary to find out the proper pronunciation of bondage and bandage and practice them as much as you can!

06 May

elephant in phrases

Who taught: Zac and Jean

Project management is one of my main responsibilities as an applications engineer. To manage projects, I have to be in so many conference calls. About 40 to 50 % of my daily hours are dedicated for calls with different customers. There are some of the expressions I have heard so many times in the calls.

1. At the end of the day : It means “When everything else taken into consideration.”ย  Similar expressions would be “eventually” or “in the end.”

2. Takeaways : any piece of information learned from a lecture or discussion. For example, as the conference call is getting closer to an end, you can say, “So, takeaways from today’s meeting would be, ‘You guys should listen to me!'” ๐Ÿ™‚ Hey, I am joking here. You know it, right?

Elephant in the room

3. Elephant in the room : Frankly, I have never heard of this one in meetings or calls yet. But, this is definitely an expression which would be used in meetings. It means an issue which is important and everybody knows it but no one actually wants to talk about it. Look at the picture! How can you not notice the elephant in the room? But, also, if you take a look at the picture closely enough, you will notice that all of the people do not look at the elephant. They almost look like trying not to see the elephant. So… what would be a good example of the elephant in the room these days? How about immigration issue?

Speaking of elephant, Jean, today, also taught me another expression with elephant in it which I really like.

“Seeing pink elephant.”

I personally like pink color and it has a meaning you would never figure out by just hearing it. Here is the definition!

a euphemism of drunken hallucination.

Simply, it means “drunken.” The origin of this expression goes back to 1913. Based on Wikipedia, Jack London used this expression to describe a sort of alcoholic. I am very curious why he used “PINK” elephant for the purpose of describing drunken but I guess I would not be able to find out ever. Then, later, one of the Belgium beer brand, delirium tremens, used pink elephant as its label.

delirium tremens

So, next time if you are out with your friends in a bar. You should do the followings.

1. Order a bottle of delirium tremens. It is actually pretty good beer and has high ABV (Alcohol By Volume).

2. Then drink as fast as possible until you feel drunken.

3. Once you feel you are drunk, say, “I think I am seeing pink elephant” instead of “I feel like I am drunk” to your friends. They will think you are so hip. ๐Ÿ™‚

Good luck!

05 May

Ropes and fish

Who taught : Raul, Brian and Richard

Supposed that you are in a sailboat! There would be bunch of ropes which are really important to be controlled by crew members to stay safe in the sea. Now, what if you are a newbie in the boat! You would not know what to do with the ropes. So, the first thing you need to learn is how to deal with ropes. There it is! “Learn the ropes.” Here is the definition of the expression.

to understand or learn how to do a particular job

For example, you have a new engineer in your team. You would expect that he/she would not know how to do his/her job for a few weeks or maybe a few months. Then, you can say, “He/She needs some time to learn the ropes.” Now, a few months later, he/she becomes better at his/her work and knows what he/she is doing. Then, guess what you can say? “Finally, he/she knows the ropes!”

Speaking of a sailboat, there are bunch of expressions with “fish” in it. One thing I hear a lot in my work, especially in conference calls with customer, is “I’ve got other fish to fry.” It means I have some other works to do. So, when there is a time that you need to say some excuse for working on any item because of your busy schedule, try to use this expression instead of using plain English, such as “I have other works to do.”

Another simple word related with fish is “fishy.” Have you ever been to a market where there are so many kind of fish? It is so smelly. So, when you say something is fishy, it means you suspect something.You can say, “it is fishy” or “she is fishy.”

Oh, fish name is something I still cannot figure out in English. Can you guys teach me some fish names?

04 May

shit in phrases 2

Who taught: Brian

It was a long day! Woke up at 5:30 A.M., I went to D.C. with Carl, my boss, to have a meeting with a client for discussing the requirements of a project. After 2 and half hours meeting, we drove back to Pittsburgh. In the meeting, there were 4 people from the client’s side. One of them is from Russia and we could tell he is not native American because of his subtle accent. But, his English was amazing. Very fluent and flawless sentences! I do not know at what age he got to the U.S. But, hearing his English, I decided to set my goal that I want to be just like him in 5 years. It might be hard but I will do my best. Everything is possible, if you believe so!

OK! After publishing the post of “shit in phrases”, Brian pinged me with another expression with “shit” in it. I really like it because it is simple but very exquisite.

“brick shithouse”

Arnold (Source: My G TV)

Definition is as follows.

A big person who is broad and possibly tall but has little fat.

Origin : It originates from the expression used for the outside toilet built in bricks.

Korean equivalent : ๋ฒฝ๋Œ ๋’ท๊ฐ„ ๋˜๋Š” ๋ฒฝ๋Œ ๋˜ฅ์ง‘ ๐Ÿ™‚ (Byuk-dol-duit-gan) The equivalent is just literal translation of the brick-built outside toilet. No one ever use this one for describing a person in Korea.

FYI, you want to use this expression only for guys because, for women, this is insulting. I mean, I guess, you can use it for describing a lady but not in front of her. Even for guys, you would like to use this one for describing someone very stocky. Important thing from the definition is low fat. So, the guy should be big but with very low fat. Who would be a good example??? Hmm…. how about Arnold Schwarzenegger? What do you think? Am I correct?

Also, can I use this expression for describing a car or any other objects? For example, “Toyota FJ cruiser is a brick shithouse.”

02 May

Time to red up!

Who taught: Jackie and Alex

Pittsburgh Downtown

Ever since I came to the U.S. to study at Carnegie Mellon University, I have been living in the same city, Pittsburgh. My first impression of the city was not really good. It is a small city and I was not able to find many exciting things, you know, things you can find in New York city or Chicago. I remember the first Christmas in Pittsburgh. Jessy andย  I, at that time, did not have many American friends and many of our Korean friends went back to Korea during the winter break. So, we decided to go to downtown to spend some time there. You know what we saw? Nothing!ย  There were dark buildings and almost nobody on the streets. We had to come back to our apartment, so shocked. Later, we found that it is not a good idea to go to downtown at night due to the security reason.

Carnegie Mellon University

But, the more we live, we became to like it. I really like fall in PGH. Leaves are so colorful and temperature is perfect. In addition, Pittsburgh has Steelers (football) and Penguins (ice hockey). There is also Pirates (baseball). Well, frankly they suck but I still like them because I like going to PNC Park to see games, hanging out with friends. You know what? Pittsburgh has been chose by Forbes.com as the most livable cities in the U.S.

Speaking of Pittsburgh, I had also learned a few dialects that only Pittsburghers are using. For example, they have very special pronunciation for “downtown.” They, even me, say like “dahntahn.” So, if you get on a bus in PGH to go to downtown and try to find out whether it goes to downtown or not. Try to say, “Is this going to dahntahn?”, to the bus driver!

Last Friday, Jackie, my company’s office manager, sent an email to everybody, asking to clean eveybody’s desk up. In her email, she said, “The office needs red-up!” and “Thank you in advance for redding up!” From the context, I was able to understand what she was saying but I did not have any idea about “red up.” So, I looked it up in the urban dictionary.

Pittsburghese for “clean-up”

The other thing I learned from my friend, Alex, is “Coke.” In southern states, “Coke” means “soda” not just a Coke from Coca Cola. It even includes “Pepsi.” Isn’t it interesting?

I am pretty sure there are a lot more expressions only Pittsburgh people use. Also, there must be so many different expressions in different part of the U.S. or in other English-speaking countries. I would like to learn those too. It would be fun to compare all these different ones. Hey! My friends out there staying in other parts of the U.S. or other English-speaking countries! Could you share some of the expressions yinz guyz only use?