Category Archives: From media

06 Dec

jittery

Who taught: Ryan Calo, Bob and Jean

jittery and coffee (source: http://www.clipartof.com/)

How are you doing today? It’s rainy and gloomy in Pittsburgh but I am happy that it is not snowing and not that cold.

Do you know when it is really hard for me to forget a word or an expression?

It is when someone uses it and even explains it to me right after I get to know it. Two days ago, Sunday, I was in my church as usual. After the first service, I was talking to Bob and Jean. Bob, all of a sudden, realized that he needed a coffee and said to us, “I gotta get a coffee before it’s all gone.” And, Jean said, “Oh yeah.. You should get it. Otherwise, you will get jittery.”

At that moment, I could not believe my ears. “Did you just say ‘jittery’?”

I just got to know it on Friday while I was reading the New York Times.

The article was about startups’ I.P.O.  Ryan Calo said, “When you have an I.P.O. you don’t want investors to be skeptical or jittery.” That was my first time to see the word, jittery. And, from the context, my feeling was that it means being anxious or concerned about any issue.

So, I said to Jean, “Jittery! That’s the word I just got to know. Doesn’t it mean being anxious?” To some degree, I was correct but not really. Jean said, “It does mean being anxious and nervous but it can be also used to describe a person whose body is physically shaking.” For example, it is possible for you to be jittery by taking any kind of medicine such as a cold pill. Then, this really means your body shakes. It does not mean that you are anxious or nervous.

What if my body shakes because I am scared or because I got a cold. Can I say I am jittery? It seems like many American people think of the word, jittery, in relation to drinking too much caffeine or the lack of caffeine. Am I right?

01 Dec

cut corners

Who taught: Eric Goldman

facebook and privacy (source: http://www.p2pnet.net/)

One of the things that I regularly do to improve my English is reading newspapers. What I mean by “read”? I mostly read aloud unless I am in a public place like an atrium or a coffee shop.

You should definitely try to read aloud as often as you can. From my experience, it gives me a chance to not only remember words better but also pronounce them correctly with proper intonation.

Two days ago, I was reading an article of the NY Times which is about Facebook’s settlement with FTC for its privacy issue. In the article, Eric Goldman who is a law professor said, “Facebook repeatedly cuts corners when it comes to its privacy promises.” Cut corners? Does not sound good but what does it exactly mean? These were the questions that came to my mind.

Painting was the first thing that I thought of as soon as I saw this expression, cut corners. Why? When I was painting the master bedroom of my house, I was so tired that I wanted to skip painting corners. People would not really pay attention to see corners, right? Besides, it gets trickier to paint corners. To sum it up, if I cut corners, I feel like I am doing a sloppy work.

Luckily, my first impression was pretty close. Here is what it means:

Do something in easiest, quickest or cheapest way. It also implies circumvention of standard procedures or something ill-advised or even illegal.

Eric is saying that Facebook has not been really careful or tried not to follow good and thorough procedures to protect users’ privacy. What do you think? I think I have to agree with him. As a Facebook user, I have felt that some of the changes or modifications they have made did not satisfy my expectation in terms of protecting my privacy.

Oh… you do not want to cut corners when you paint. Who knows? Later when you want to sell the house, you may regret.

16 Nov

let him stew

Who taught: Teresa

A cook holding a cooker (source : http://vspages.com/)

Do you cook? I personally do not really cook much other than ramen noodles. I am a way better cook than Jessy when it comes to ramen noodle soups. Speaking of cook, one of the questions I used to have on my English exam when I was a middle school student was the difference between cook and cooker.

Cook can be a verb as well as a noun. We all know what it means as a verb. As a noun, it means a person who prepares or cooks food. What is cooker? A cooker is an appliance used for cooking food. It sounds like I am preaching to the choir. You would be like… “Hey Terry! I know what they means. What’s the point? Do you think I did not pass my middle school English?”

Let me tell you this! I have a friend who has been living in the U.S. for more than 20 years (And, she got a bachelor’s degree.) and she still use “cooker” instead of “cook” to mean a person who prepares food. My guess is that she would distinguish them correctly when she writes but when she speaks she just do not have enough time to find the proper word. So, do not assume that you will be able to find correct words while you are speaking just because you know words. Knowing is totally different from speaking. To be able to speak with a good speed, you gotta speak aloud and think aloud in English as much as you can. Please, do it! Don’t just think that you want to do it! You gotta do practice English.

Well, I got sidetracked. The reason why I brought cooking stuff up is because of this expression I heard from the Mentalist, a CBS TV show that I enjoy watching.

Teresa who is a detective on the show said, “Let’s not interrogate now. Just let him stew for a while,” after she caught a suspect. As I heard her saying, I thought, “Hmm… Interesting! Stew? He is not cooking. It sounds like let him think but there gotta be more than that.”

So, I looked it up and apparently there was more. It is not just simply thinking. It means that let a person to think about something bad that has happened or something stupid he/she has done.

When is the best time to use this expression? I think if your children did something bad or stupid, then you can let them stew instead of helping them out to fix the issue. Sometimes, it is better to let people stew so that they can learn from their mistakes. Who am I talking? I think I should let me stew on stupid things that I have done so far. Maybe, we should all have some time to let all of us stew.

08 Nov

dicey and antsy

Who taught: Kevin and NYT

Antsy (source: http://ilovetrampolines.blogspot.com/)

There are so many words that end with “y.” I am not kidding.. There are so many and people here use them a lot. Listen carefully to a conversation between American people when you have a chance. You will hear those words, ending with ‘y’, in many sentences.

Let me give you two examples today.

1. Dicey : Ever played a board game? A lot of board games come with a pair of dice. As you roll your dice, you cannot be certain what numbers you would get. You are uncertain. And if it is an important roll, it even looks dangerous, right? That is the feeling of this expression. For example, a few days ago, Kevin on the Insider show was talking about Brad Pitt. He talked about his ex-wife, Jennifer Anniston. Unfortunately, it was not a good thing. As Kevin was reporting this story, he said, “It is always dicey to talk about ex-spouse.”

2.  Antsy: Do you like ants? I did when I was young but not any more. Ever since I own my house, I do not really like them at all. Especially if you ever see an anthill in front of your house, you would not like it at all. Speaking of anthill, if you sit on any anthill when you are on a picnic, they would get into your pants. Now what? You cannot sit down and be still. You have to move around and jump around to have them go away from your body, right. Suppose that I do not know what is happening with you, I would think like, “You are sort of upset or impatient.” So, there is an expression, “having ants in someone’s pants.”

Huh? Would you expect that American people use that long expression? No way! They simply say, “antsy.” Again, with “y.”

Let me give you a sentence that can help you to remember these two words.

Don’t get too antsy by doing something dicey!

I am telling you again…. There are a lot more words ending with “y.” If you found one, let me know.

26 Oct

battery

Who taught: Mikey and Big Bob

domestic battery (source: http://www.newser.com/)

Have you ever experienced a moment in which you say “Oh,, this word has also that definition? I did not know that.”? It is like rediscovering a word.

There is one radio station that I hear almost every morning while I am on my wat to work, 96.1 FM. The Morning Freak Show is on. DJs of the show are Mikey and Big Bob. I do not know how but they find very funny stories from everywhere.

One day, they were talking about a woman who threw cupcakes to her husband. She was allegedly very upset of course. Funny thing is that she was the one who called the cops and admitted that she threw cupcakes to her husband. You know what happend? She was arrested. What the…!!

The reason of arrest? Domestic Battery! As Mike and Big Bob was talking about this, I was talking to myself, “Wait! I know what domestic abuse or domestic dispute means but what is battery here? Does it even have the same spelling as the battery I know?”

So, I looked it up. Yup, it is the same spelling but just different definition. Battery can mean;

The unlawful and unwanted touching or striking of one person by another, with the intention of bringing about a harmful or offensive contact.

Do you guys know that already? Well, I did not. I thought battery is the thing that we all use to generate electricity. In fact, it has some other meanings too. I would not list all of them here because it might confuse you. Today’s expression is domestic battery. One step per day!

Oh.. today’s lesson! Do not throw cupcakes to your spouse! Also, if you already did, do not call the cops! I still cannot understand why she called the cops. What was she thinking?