Category Archives: From work

There are so many abbreviations or expressions that are used in work. I would like to share anything I heard or learned in my work with you.

12 Apr

torso

Who taught: Carol

Torso (source: http://philippefaraut.com/)

You might think that I do not study English hard enough when you hear this story. But, look, you cannot know all of the words in English, right?

About a year ago, I was invited to a meeting where about 7 people of the company that I used to work brainstormed and discussed a new design of a few features for a software.

Before we got into a real discussion, Carol suggested to play a game to have our brains relaxed and ready to be creative. So, here is the rules of the game.

1. Fold a paper horizontally three times so that there are three sections on the paper.

2. The first person who only sees the top folded section of the paper draws a head of a person who he/she thinks of. (There is only one restriction here which is that this person should be one of the people who are in the meeting.) After drawing, the first section should be hidden so that the second and following folded section should be on top and the person who just drew should pass the paper to a person who is sitting next to him/her. This way the person who gets the paper has no idea whose head is drawn.

3. The second person who gets the paper draws torso and arms of a person who he/she thinks of that it should be. (It is, of course, highly possible that torso and arms are of a different person from a person for the head.) And once again, flip the paper so that the third and following empty section shows up on top and pass it to a person who is sitting next to him/her.

4. Now the third person draws legs of a person who he/she thinks of that it should be. And.. This person passes the paper to a person who is sitting next to him/her again.

5. This last person now unfolds the paper so that everybody can see the whole body of a person that is drawn by three different people.

This whole step happens for everyone in a group at the same time so that there are as many people drawn on papers as the number of people in a group.

As you can imagine, most of the people on papers are all funny looking as they all have different head, torso, arms and legs. They are not really correctly lined up. So, a person’s head is not really on top of the center of torso.

So, to take one example, Angela drew my head with fancy glasses and Andrew drew a torso and arms but he drew a torso with breast, thinking that it should be a torso of a lady in the group and I cannot remember who that was. And finally, Phil drew legs. Interestingly, I was sitting right next to Phil and I got that paper and it was partially me with very good looking boobs. Thanks, Andrew! (Do you remember who did you think of when you drew that torso?)

Now what is so special about this story? Well, as Carol explained the rules, she used this word, torso. But, I, who was the only non-native English speaker in the group, did not understand what it means. So, I had to ask her what that means. She kindly explained it to me.

But, to be very honest with you, this kind of experience makes me so frustrated. Why don’t I know it? Why have I not studied this word till I am 35 years old? Asking these questions, I try to encourage myself to study more because asking these questions during meetings does not really help the flow of meetings. And.. I do not like that happens at all.

So, my friends! Good luck with your English! There are so many words that you would not expect to come up in many circumstances and, anytime that happens, you would feel a little embarrassed, if not a lot. Once again, you have to ask questions and be brave to speak out even with embarrassment.

P.S: Carol! If you think I explained the rules incorrectly, feel free to add comments. 🙂

07 Apr

peter out and peter principle

Who taught: Jeff

Peter Principle (source: http://www.buzzflash.com/)

Today, Jeff, one of my friends at CMU, and I had meetings with students. The meetings were for testing an application done by students and reviewing source code. As we talked about work, we got into a conversation about his previous works and how much he had to travel. He said, at one point in his past, he went to the airport to go to Chicago or New York in the morning and had meetings during the lunch time and, after the meetings, came back to be with family for dinner. This all happend in one day. Pretty intense, isn’t it? Anyway, as we talked about this work stuff, we had the following conversation.

Jeff : “So, Terry, have you ever heard of Peter Principle?”

me: “I have no idea what that is. What is it?”

Jeff: “It basically means that everyone in an organization tends to rise, or be promoted, to the level of incompetence.”

me: “Huh! So, do you think someone whose name is Peter came up with the expression?”

Jeff: “I believe it is from another expression, ‘petered out’.”

Then, he started to google it. We, of course, found a wikipedia page. To save your time for reading the page, my initial impression was right. The principle was made by Dr. Laurence J. Peter in 1969.

me: “Looks like ‘petered out’ expression is from ‘Peter Principle’.”

Jeff: “I do not know. Sometimes, native English speakers use expressions without knowing their origins.”

So, at this point, let me ask you a question? What do you think ‘petered out’ or ‘peter out’ means? Assuming that it is from Peter Principle, it should have something to do with incompetence, right? I would say it has to a certain extent. If something is petered out, that means it is not as it used to be anymore. And, sometimes, if you peter out on someone, that means you kind of give up on him/her. Another time you can use ‘peter out’ is when you run. Suppose that you run a marathon, you would peter out after the first 2-3 miles if you are not good at running. Don’t you agree? Now, can you feel the expression?

Hope you would not peter out on my blog!

Have a great day, my friends! Peace out, not peter out! 🙂 Pun intended!

By the way, did we find out where this ‘peter out’ expression is from? I do not think we did. How about you tell me? Can you?

28 Sep

It is all greek to me

All Greek to me (source:www.fantasticfiction.co.uk)

Back in my previous work, I had to do a lot of conference calls with clients. There were also many chances for me to conduct customized trainings to clients. Most of the stuff I talked about was, of course, related with how the search engine works or how to configure or customize search applications. Fot that purpose, I had to talk a lot about a few programming languages. Most of the people who have computer science background were totally fine with those stuff. But, there were also many times that the people in the client’s side have no CS background. I found that it was very challenging.

One day, I was having a conference call in which I basically did two hours training using web meeting. There were around 4 or 5 people from the client. And, many of them did not have any CS background. I tried really hard to convey the knowledge effectively but it was still challenging.

So…. at one point, one of the people from the client asked me a question. I tried to give some examples to help her to understand better. And, she was able to understand it. Then, she said, “Thank you for explaining it again, giving me a good example! Now, I can understand. Before, it was all Greek to me.”

Hearing her saying, I knew what she meant. But, I thought it is an expression she made up and I moved on to the next slide. About 30 minutes later, I talked about something and she did not understand again and asked me another question. At the end of my answer, I remembered the expression she used and thought it would be good to use a similar expression but a little bit differently to her. So, I said, “Is it clearer now? Hope it is not all Latin to you anymore.”

Interestingly, they did understand what I meant and moved on and the meeting was done. Then, a few weeks later from the meeting, I heard another person, saying the same expression she used, “It is all Greek to me.” Then, I realized that it must be one of the expressions in English people use a lot. So, I searched the expression. And……. There it is. It is an expression American people use. Duh! I hit my forehead, talking to me, ‘they must have thought that I am so weird using Latin instead of Greek.’

What do you think? Is this expression weird? “It is all Latin to me!”

Here is the definition of the expression.

I do not undertand any of it. It does not make sense to me.

So…. when are you going to use this expression? You can totally use this one when doctors explain what is going on with your body. Don’t you agree?

What if you understand things someone says? You can say, “I get it!” or “I get that!” You can use this one when I explain how to develop applications. 🙂

My question is why it is Greek, not Latin or Hebrew or even like Korean?

26 Sep

English pronunciation

Who taught : Andrew, Jake, James and Carl

There is a new tv show started last week. It is called, “Outsourced.” I love it. It shows a lot of cultural differences between America and India. You should really try to watch it and let’s talk about it later.

Do you know what file type I hate most? It is zip file.

Do you know why? Well… it is so hard to pronounce. A few months ago, I was having a meeting with a client and there were James, one of my old coworkers, and Carl, my old boss. After the meeting, I went into Carl’s room to have another meeting and, at the end of the meeting, he taught me how to pronounce zip correctly. And, interestingly, when James and I had brunch together last Saturday, he mentioned about his feeling about my pronunciation of zip file. It is actually kind of frustrating to have the feeling that I would never be able to have a correct pronunciation for some of the alphabets or words.

There are a few other alphabets or words that are hard to pronounce correctly. (Here, I mean really correctly like Americans, not like mimicking the sound!)

1. v and th

A lot of Koreans, or Asians, pronounce this incorrectly so that many American people think we are saying “b” instead. For example, when you are looking for a “vase” but if you pronounce it incorrectly, then it becomes “base.” The other example is any word having “th.” More specifically, if you trying to say that you are “thinking” now but, if you say it incorrectly, then it becomes to mean that you are “sinking” now. Then your American friends would be like, “to where are you sinking down?”

2. wood

This one looks pretty easy to pronounce but it, in fact, is very hard to pronounce correctly. Jessy has a friend who came to the U.S. around 20 years ago when she was around 25 years old. She has children who of course are native English speakers. One time, she had a conversation with her children and she said “wood.” As soon as she said that word, her children said to her, “Mom, that is not correct. Say it again!” So, she tried again and again but still the pronunciation was not correct. You know what happened eventually. Her children said, “Mom! You are never gonna be able to pronounce it correctly at all.”

How frustrating it is! Remember! She has been living in the U.S. for 20 years. 20 years!

3. Square or Squirrel

Well, I had a very similar experience with what Jessy’s friend had. I live in a neighborhood, called Squirrel Hill, in Pittsburgh. One time, I was talking about this neighborhood to Andrew and Jake. As soon as I said it, they were like, “Terry! What? Say it again!” So, I kind of realized that I spoke it incorrectly and tried really really hard to pronounce it correctly. Then, they said, “That is pretty good. Before, it was not correct.”

Then, a few days ago, I was talking about something and I said “Square Root” to Andrew and Jake. Then, they were like, “Hey! Terry! Say it again?” Yeah, they challenged me again. So, I tried again. Andrew and Jake! How was I? Do you think I need more practices? I guess so, right?

So, as a non-native English speaker, what is the hardest word or alphabet for you to pronounce? I think mine is “Z” alphabet and any word having it like Zoo or Zip. The real hope I have now is I wish I can speak those ones really good so that no one can recognize me as a non-native English speaker. There must be some ways to practice. Does anybody know how to practice to pronounce those alphabets correctly?

21 Sep

Nickel and dime

What is quarter?

The answer is 1/4 or 25%. Then, what is the quarter of 1 dollar? That is right. It is 25 cents. People in the U.S. and Canada call 25 cents quarter. In fact, you would hardly hear 25 cents. They mostly call it quarter.

United States coin (source: wikipedia)

How about 1 cent? Penny. (I do not know where this is from. Does anybody know?)

How about 5 cents? Nickel. (This is because the coin is made from nickel alloy. It used to be made from silver but then there was a shortage of silver so that it was changed to nickel alloy.)

Shall we keep going? 10 cents is dime. (It is because this coin is the smallest in diameter.)

A dollar is a buck. This one’s etymology is pretty interesting. So, buck is male deer. In 1856, people stated to use this word to mean dollar because buckskin was used as a unit of trade between Indians and Europeans. And, they dropped “skin” from “buckskin” as they use.

One grand is 1,000 dollars.  Some people also call it “large” or “stack.” Well, the word grand itself means basically large. And…..Back then, 1,000 dollars was a large sum of money and thus people call that amount large or grand. Now, people still call 1,000 dollars “grand.” Besides, it is really easier and faster to say “one grand” instead of saying “one thousand dollars.” You would hear this one a lot in the United States too.

Out of all there slangs, you know which ones are the hardest ones to distinguish each other. They are nickel and dime. But, if you can remember that dime is the smallest in diameter and know that 10 cents is the smallest coin, you can distinguish them better.

But, very interestingly, there is an expression called, “nickel and dime.” For example, if you have any customer, trying to get as much as possible from you without paying a lot. You can say like, “He has a tendency to nickel and dime. So, you better be careful with him.”

Here is the definition :  Cause seemingly hidden ongoing expenses which, over time, add up to a large expense.

Have you ever looked at the United States coins closely? If you do, you can find the following two expressions.

1. E pluribus unum : It is Latin for “Out of many, one.” and this is a motto of the United States. You can find this one on the seal of the United States too.

2. In God we trust : Until this became the official motto of the United States by law in 1956, “E pluribus unum” was recognized as the motto of the United States. Now, this is the official motto of the United States.

I guess these could be one of the questions that would be in the U.S. citizenship exam? It is just amazing how much I can learn, writing posts for my blog.