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!

05 Jun

through the grapevine

Who taught: Rachel

Grape Vine Yard (source: http://www.fruitipedia.com/)

There is a bible study that I go on Thursdays. It is a small group but I really love sharing our thoughts on the Bible. Last week, the bible study was at my place and Rachel got first.

Since it is during the week, we start our meeting talking about our lives, mostly with regard to work. She had a rough day at her work. While she was telling me her story about a very interesting development at her work, she said, “I heard it through the grapevine.”

From the context, I was able to understand but that was my first time hearing the expression. Could you guess what it is, my friends? Let me help you. Have you ever been to a grape yard? There are a lot of lines of grapevines but, if you look at them closely, you will notice how they are all intertwined. They all touch each other in one way or the other.

Therefore, there can be one grapevine plant at one end and there is another grapevine plant at the other end of the line. And if you follow the vines, chances are they are actually connected through the vines in the middle.

What do you think? Can you feel it? So, If you hear something through the grapevine, that means you heard it from someone and that someone also heard it from someone else and that someone else again heard it from someone else.

That’s how I feel about the expression, “hear something through the grapevine.”

Well, there are a lot of things we hear through the grapevine, right? Mostly, rumors. But at the same time, where there is smoke, there is fire.

Sometimes, though, it is better to be disconnected from other grapevines to not get involved into any of those strange rumors.

29 May

ringer

Who taught : Al

Ringer (source: http://www.life123.com/)

How was your weekend? It was a little longer weekend here in the U.S. because yesterday was Memorial Day. It is a federal holiday to remember the men and women who died while serving the country in the Armed Forces. Every year, I go to a church retreat during this holiday weekend. It was fun. This year, I sort of participated in the corn-hole tournament (FYI, if you do not know what corn-hole is, look at this post. Especially, read the comments through. 🙂 ). It was fun but it was also my first time to play the tournament. So, Bovi and I, as a team, were defeated in the semi-final. Not bad, huh?

After the tournament was done, I was having breakfast with Al and other friends. And, Al said, “So, Terry, I heard that you are pretty good at corn-hole. You were like a ringer yesterday night.”

Everything was fine for me to understand till I heard this word, ringer. What is it? I did not carry any ring and made sounds while playing corn-hole games.

Can you guess what it means? Here is a little more details about what happened for your guess! So, before a game started, I told people that I had not played for a very long time and I must be bad at it now. But, I won games to get to the semi-final.

Here is a great definition from Free Dictionary.

a contestant, esp a horse, entered in a competition under false representations of identity, record, or ability.

 

Well, I guess I did say things to falsely represent myself. The funny thing is that it sounds like a word that is not good to use often but it is not really a bad thing to say. Most of the times, when you play a sport with your friends and they might invite someone else and they say, “Hey I am not good. But I will try.” And, when the game is actually on, he or she just dominates it. They are ringers. I have seen some people like that when I play golf.

Also, there was another expression I heard during the retreat, red herring. At that time, that sounded totally new to me but I suddenly realized that it is one of the expressions I have already learned and I was correct. Look at this post to check it out. I won’t forget red herring.

15 May

[Series 2] a story about sandwich

Who taught: Tami

Eggs Benedict (source: http://www.thekneadforbread.com/)

About a month ago, Tami and I went to New York City for a biz trip to visit some start-up companies. It was very exciting to see all of these small companies with big ideas growing very fast. We could feel it. After a busy day, we walked to a restaurant near the World Financial Center for dinner. Fortunately, there was a film festival going on at the same time so that we could ‘sort of’ watch a movie as we were sitting in the restaurant.

So, time to order food which is always tricky. It’s been 6 years for me to be here in the U.S. But ordering food is not that easy. I gotta really pay attention to a waiter or waitress when he or she talks about today’s menu. Anyway, we saw one interesting item on the menu. I cannot remember its exact name but I think it was like “mile high lobster sandwich.”  Hey.. speaking of “mile high,” do you remember “mile-high club” that I posted two years ago? You should check it out. Initially, we thought that sandwich is related with this expression, mile high club. But, we need to confirm. So, Tami decided to ask what it is. Our waitress started to explain and she said something like this, “It is basically open-face sandwich with a lot of vegetables and lobster meat.”

At that moment, I was able to understand what open-face means. How about you? Can you get it, my friends? It is also called “open sandwich.”

It is a sandwich that has a single slice of bread at the bottom and put a lot of food items on top of it. A good example is eggs benedict. Do you know what eggs benedict is? You should totally try it. It is mostly considered as brunch food and delicious.

So, here is how I feel about this expression. Basically, all of the items you put inside a sandwich are your eyes, nose, lips and even hairs. Olives can be eyes and lettuce can be hairs. But, if you put another slice of bread on top of all of those, then you are closing your face. If not, your face is open so that we can all see it.

Hey, what can be considered to be nose? Any idea?

08 May

homeboy or homie

Who taught: Phil, Shawn and Jake

Homeboy (source: http://faloutboylover.deviantart.com/)

While living in the U.S. for the last 6 years, I have made very good friends. Many of them work or used to work at Vivisimo, my previous company. About two weeks ago, IBM announced to acquire Vivisimo. Wow! Great news! As employees, my friends and I got some stock options. Due to the acquisition, we got to know that we will make some money. To be clear, it is not a lot at all. 🙂

Anyway, as we heard the news, Phil tweeted about drinking out of a brown bag. I replied one of his tweets and he said, “Don’t forget to pour one for your hommies.”

My initial impression was that it has to be my wife. Hommie sounds like “home” and my wife and I live together at our home. So, I thought it means wife. But, to make sure, I replied to him, asking “What is hommies?”

A few minutes later, Jake replied, “It’s spelled “homie”. Short for “home boy”. OK… sounds good. But then what is home boy? Here is what I thought. This should definitely mean my children, especially my son. Hmm…. I do not have a son. This does not make sense at all again.

So, I replied again, “What is home boy? Are you my home boy?” Shawn replied to this tweet, saying “I am most definitely your home boy.”

At that point, I had to look it up. As I was seeing the definition, I was like, “Oh…. I get it.” Can you guess what it means? It means a close friend. It makes sense, right? If you have a very close friend, you would spend a lot of time with him at your home or his home, right? A home boy! Nice expression, huh?

My last question! How about girls? Do people also say “homegirl”?

Phil, Jake and Shawn, you are definitely my homies! Patrick.. don’t feel left out. As you can see from the pic, you are my homeboy too. 🙂

01 May

rediscovering a word series 3: sexy

Who taught: Patrick, Rachel, Andrew, Beth, Mark, Jake and Carol

Let me start with a challenge for you! From today and from this moment, watch TV shows or movies that are in English. I know you want to watch shows and movies that are in your mother tongue. Do you know why? It is because you are comfortable. Of course, it is. You have a choice. One asks you to stay in your comfort zone which is easy and a lot of people do and the other takes your strong will to get out of the comfort zone. Trust me on this. If you make a decision and be persistent, your English will get better. Additionally, make watching them be one of your everyday routines just like you go to a bathroom every morning. Oh, you go in the evening? Whatever way it is. It has to be a routine. If not, chances are you will fall back into your comfort zone again.

Hope you take my challenge and make a good progress soon! So, had you watch American TV shows, one of the words you would hear a lot would be “sexy.” I swear that people on TV use it so often that I strongly believed that I could use this anytime to any person.

So, a few days ago, when I met my friends, I used it. Of course, I hesitated but thought it should be OK. Oops! I was very very wrong.

Here is what happened. Stella, Patrick’s daughter, was having fun in a chair and her hair became out of control. Suddenly, I remembered an expression, “sexy bed-hair.” You know… when you wake up in the morning, you hair is totally unorganized and messy but, to your significant other, it SHOULD look sexy, right? I will leave it up to your imagination what would happen after that look. 🙂

Well, I said, “Stella got sexy bed-hair.” As soon as I said, “Oh no…. Terry.. Sexy?”

So far, it sounds like I am innocent. Don’t you think? The issue was Stella is only one year old.

My friends told me that people do not use “sexy” to a little kid. My non-native English speaker friends, be careful! Just because you hear a specific word very often on TV, it does not mean that you can use it all the time. There are times that you cannot use them which is not easy to learn. I guess you gotta just experience just like me. Poor Terry.

Patrick and Rachel, Stella is so cute and I love you guys.

By the way, are there any other times that I should not say sexy? #confused.