Category Archives: From media

27 Feb

smitten

Who taught: Robin (How I met your mother)

Smitten (source: http://onekindofme.blogspot.com/)

I feel like I am not doing a good job of keeping up with new posts more often these days. But, that does not mean that I am not learning any new English expressions any more. There are still so many new ones that I get to know by talking to my friends, hearing what other people talking and watching TV shows. One of the shows I enjoy a lot is “how I met your mother” that is on CBS. A few weeks ago, there was an episode where Barney met a girl whose name is Nora. And he was thinking of her many times. Well, that is pretty much what he is doing all the time in the show. Anyway, in the episode, he was having a conversation with Robin about the issue with Nora. And, Robin said, “Barney, you are totally smitten by Nora.” “No, I am not,” said Barney. Well, that was my first time hearing the expression, “smitten.”

I was confused again because the verb, “smite,” means “hit hard.” So, for example, if I smite you, that means I hit you so hard that you are kind of hurt. If I take the expression Robin used directly, then it could simply mean that Barney was hit hard by Nora physically so that he now got hurt. But, as always, “smitten by someone” does not have anything to do with hitting someone. Suppose that you are smitten by Angelina Jollie, then it means you find her so attractive that you are falling in love with her. I know… I know.. Almost every man in the world is smitten by Angelina Jollie, right? Now, I kind of think hitting has something to do with here. Maybe, the one who are smitten is mentally hit so hard by a girl or a boy that he/she cannot forget about her/him. 🙂

Interesting thing is after I got to know this expression from watching the show, I have heard this expression many times from TV. Probably more than 10 times. Is it a new one in the block? Are people starting to use this one these days? Also, another thing I found on the Internet is that there is an argument about which preposition should be followed. Is it on, with or by? From my understanding, it should be “by.” What do you think? Which preposition do you use?

Now, practice time! If you are married or have a girl friend or boy friend, you should say to her/him today, like “Babe! I am totally smitten by you. Do you know that?”

24 Feb

bullying and ginger

Who taught: how would you do? (TV show)

One of the social issues that America has these days is bullying, especially in schools. I am sure my readers know what bullying means. But, just in case….. Bully, as a verb, means “to treat in an overbearing or intimidating manner.” Hence, bullying, as a noun, is “the act of treating someone in an intimidating manner.” There is a very special expression in Korean for the same act. It is 왕따 (Wang Dda). This expression is actually a combination of Chinese character, 王, and Korean verb, 따돌리다. 王 means King in English. And 따돌리다 means “leaving someone out or exclude.” To sum it up, “Wang Dda” means “total exclusion for everything.” Can you feel it, my American friends? 🙂

5 years ago, when I was in Korea, this was a huge social issue and I heard a lot about this from news almost every day. Hope that it got better over the last 5 years. A few days ago, I was watching an ABC TV show, “HOW WOULD YOU DO?” In the show, they were trying to find out how many people would help out when they see bullying that is happening in a public place like a restaurant. More specifically, there were three teenagers and also two other teenagers sitting next to each other. One of the two was a white boy with red hair and freckles. The three boys started to bully him by calling him “Ginger!” As I heard it, I was confused, asking Jessy, “What the heck is ginger in this context? I do not get it. Why is it a problem?” She said, “I do not know. Looks like ginger is used to describe some specific type of people and has a negative connotation?? Let’s look it up!” So, we looked it up on Urban Dictionary. There it was! It is an expression that people use to mean a person with pale skin, freckles and red hair.

And as I was searching, I also found out that this expression was used in another TV show, South Park. I am not sure this helped to resolve the issue or not. I doubt it actually helped. They should have not done this episode.

So, aren’t you interested in what happened with the boy? There was one lady who was sitting close to the boys. She said, “You guys stop it. Look around! Everyone here in this restaurant is different from each other and you cannot judge people based on what they look.” Wow! how amazing it is! Amen!

Here is my suggestion! Let’s not use this word at all from now on so that eventually the expression is not valid any more! After all, ginger is not a word for human being! It is for a plant!

15 Feb

PDA

Who taught: Office

PDA (source: http://metropolitician.blogs.com/)

Back in Korea, my parents used to say to Jessy and me, “We have never seen a couple like you guys. You guys are so happy together and show love to each other well. It is great to see.” The reason why they said like that was because we did not hesitate to show our affection in front of them. We hugged and kissed a lot even when they were present. It sounds very normal in America, right? But, it is not in Korea. I am not sure how much things have been changed in Korea ever since we left but, when we were there, people did not like seeing other couples’ hugging and kissing in public places.

It was kind of socially and culturally prohibited. Sometimes, old people say some harsh words to young couple who are showing their affection in public places. For example, Jessy always wanted me to show my love in public places. Whenever we are in a subway train or a park, she was asking me to kiss her. Then, I was like, “Hey, this is not our home. Don’t you see other people here? We cannot kiss here.” Then, she became sullen till I really kissed her. To save her and me from that unhappy situation, I had to kiss her. So, I looked around and around and around to find a proper time, then, if no one was looking at us, I kissed her very quickly. Well, then, Jessy became happy again. As this happens again and again, Jessy asked me more. She wanted to me get bolder to kiss her even people were looking at us. I was so embarrassed to do it. So, what I said to her was, “OK, here is the deal. Since we know we are gonna move to America, I will kiss you in public places in America because people there would not care about it and all of them do kiss in public places, I think.” She accepted the deal.

So, when we got here, she wanted me to kiss her in Time Square of New York City. Well, I did it and Jessy was happy. Most of all, nobody cared as far as I remember.

A few days ago, there was an episode of Office TV show about this behavior. Do you know what American people call this kind of behavior? It is called, PDA. Let me guess! Now, you would be saying, “What? PDA? That is like a small mobile device, Personal Digital Assistant.” That is right. But, at the same time, PDA means “Public Displays of Affection.” Based on the episode I saw, it looks like American people do care about PDA and they are not really fine with seeing PDA. So, the question is how much is fine and how much is not fine? Maybe it was because PDA happened in the office? So, if it is in subway or park, it is fine? I need to know the answer because Jessy will ask me to kiss again in the central park of NYC. Somebody please tell me!!!

10 Feb

Wet bar

Who taught: Alen and Leslie

Wet Bar (source: http://good-times.webshots.com/)

I have been hunting my house for the last two months. It takes a lot of my time but it is kind of fun to look around bunch of different houses with different architectures. It is hard to find houses having the same floor flan in the U.S. And, another interesting thing is that many houses have a space called a family room. They are usually in the lower level. Some nice houses have a bar along with the family room. But, if the bar does not have a sink with running water. Then it is a dry bar. If it has, then it becomes a wet bar. I heard that expression from Leslie when I went to see a house with her. Looking at the bar and hearing what she was talking about, it was pretty easy for me to understand what she meant. But, if someone says the expression in the middle of any kind of conversation, I would be puzzled. I would probably guess the expression to mean a bar where people are getting wet. Why wet? I do not know. Maybe they are all going crazy, drinking beer or cocktails, and throw drinks to each other. Or, there is some sort of sprays on the ceiling of the bar? It actually sounds like fun to be in that kind of bar in summer. Sounds like a great business idea! Don’t you think?

I might have not been able to remember the expression if I only hear it from Leslie but I heard it again, watching a TV show, Two and a Half Men. In the show, Alen used this expression to his new girl friend, saying “I want to make a wet bar in your house. Can I?”

Speaking of an expression that have “wet” in it, I learned another one from my friends. (Forgot who it was. Maybe Andrew or Jake?) So… I would say almost all of men in the world experienced this, especially when they are teenagers. Waking up in the morning, you have experienced that something is wet around your testicles, haven’t you? No?  Oh… come on! Let’s be honest! A lot of times, this happens with those dreams with hot girls, right? Now, let’s make an expression. That’s right. The expression is “wet dream.” Whenever I see or hear this kind of expression, I feel like I can say whatever I think of, combining some words. But, then when I do that, my American friends would be like, “No, we don’t say like that.” What the heck? Don’t you want to try to your American friends? Try it! They will tell you the same thing. “Hey dude! That sounds weird.”

02 Feb

stoned or baked

Who taught: Stan and Braverman family

Stoned or Baked (source: http://www.nogoodforme.com/)

A few days ago, I wrote about “edible.” Well, yesterday, I learned a new thing about the word, edible. What if someone on the street asks you like, “Hey do you have any edible?” What would you answer? I would try to think whether I have my lunch box or not. If I have, then maybe my answer would be, “Yes, I do. Why?” Well, that answer could be very dangerous. Do you know why? It is because the word, edible, also means something else. It means marijuana. In my opinion, this usage of the word is not very common in the east coast but in the west coast. How funny is it? You can say “it is edible” to mean something people can eat. And, all of a sudden, the other people would possibly think you have marijuana.

Speaking of marijuana, drug is a big issue in the United States. Hunting my house around, I have learned a lot. One of the things I got to know is related with the size of high schools. Some parents prefer to move to a school district where its high schools are small in terms of class size. The reason is that it is better to prevent their kids from getting into troubles with drugs. Another thing that I learned is that there are many cops in high schools during the day with dogs to find out whether there is any drug or not in the schools. That is scary to hear. In my whole life, I have never even seen any drug.

There are a few expressions that are related with drugs. When you do drugs, you become very happy and kind of abnormal, laughing a lot with no reason. At least, that is what I heard. 🙂 Then, people say, “Are you high?”, which sounds easy to understand. But, there are other expressions such as stoned or baked. Some people say, “Are you stoned?” or “You are baked, right?” These are ridiculous. There is no way we, non-native English speakers, can figure out what they mean. It is like, “Are you saying that some people throw stones at me and I got hurt? or Are you saying I was in the oven for a while?” I actually do not get these. What are the origins of these expressions? Can anyone tell me? For example, a few weeks ago, Stan posted his old picture in which he is smiling on his Facebook. I commented, “Stan, you look so happy.” And, a few hours later, one of his friends added another comment, “You look totally baked.” I was like, “What is going on? What the heck does this baked mean?” I had to look up all the dictionaries to find out what that means. Luckily, there was Urban Dictionary. Without it, my life in the U.S. would be a lot harder. Urband Dictionary is my friend and…… your friend too.