19 Dec

slice and dice

Who taught: Jessy and Today show

Slice and dice (source: http://csassignment3.wordpress.com/)

Two days a week, Jessy gives me a ride to my work. Today was one of those days. On our way to my work today, Jessy asked me a question, “Hey! Do you know what ‘slice and dice’ means?”

Having a career in the information technology area, I have known the expression for a while. So, I was able to answer, telling Jessy the definition of the expression.

However, the way I remember this expression has nothing to do with my career. I think of this expression, imagining myself slicing and dicing a cucumber for salad so that I can eat the pieces of the cucumber easily.

Jessy said, “I heard that expression this Morning, watching the Today show. On the show, a reporter said,’When it comes to checking a return policy, slicing and dicing is better.'”

You know that this does not mean that you are physically cutting the return policy horizontally and vertically. That would not be a good idea. You would lose your receipt.

Oh.. Whenever I think of this expression, another word comes to my mind. It is “scrutinize.” What do you think? Pretty close, right? When you slice and dice a return policy, that means basically you are scrutinizing it so that you can keep yourself from being caught in a bad situation.

Now, I have always thought this expression has a negative connotation. Slicing and dicing is like being too picky about things. What do you think? Am I right? Enlighten me, my friends!

12 Dec

litter

Who taught: Jeff and Liz

No Littering (source: http://www.signvibe.com/)

As you drive on a highway in the U.S., you will see many different road signs. Maybe I should write a new post about other road signs later to follow up my old post. But, today, I would like to focus on one sign, “No Littering!”

Five and half years ago when I first got to the U.S., I saw this familiar road sign, No Littering, on my way to Washington, D.C. Why was it familiar? 15 years ago when I was in Canada to study English, I saw this sign for the first time. It means “Do not throw any trash!” You should be able to infer its definition which is “to strew with scattered objects or rubbish.” One good example of littering is throwing cigarette butts out of your car while you are driving.

From that moment till very recently, I had thought that ‘litter’ means this throwing things but nothing else. How naive!

Of course, it also means something else. Man.. I really wish one word just means one thing. That would be easier for me even though it also means that I probably need to memorize more words.

About two weeks ago, I visited Jeff and Liz’s house to see their new puppy, Dexter. Dexter is a yellow lab and he is so adorable. While they were talking about the process of his adoption, they used a very familiar word, litter. As soon as they said that word, I had to stop them. “Wait! Did you just say litter? And it means not throwing trashes?” Liz said, “Oh no! It means a small animal like a puppy.” To make sure that it is the same word that I had known, I asked again, “So, is it the same word from No Littering sign but a different meaning?” Jeff said, “Yes, it is the same word.”

Sigh! This is one of those moments that break my belief that I am getting better in English. It makes me feel that I got a long way to go.

Litter does mean a small animal but only used to describe one of those baby animals that were born with many siblings like puppies or kittens (In other words, a number of young brought forth by a multiparous animal at one birth).

After the visit, I asked myself these questions.

What if I were not in the U.S.? Would I be able to have a chance to know this different meaning of the word, litter? 

What if I were not invited by Jeff and Liz? What if I did not ask Dexter’s adoption story? 

This experience had me think a lot. Learning can happen everywhere. I gotta pay attention to all the things happening around me.

Next time if your friends say something that you do not understand, ask them what it means! It is not a shame to ask questions. It is a shame to not to ask and lose a chance to learn.

LIFE IS LEARNING!

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.

28 Nov

dapper and slick

Who taught: Chris and Danny

Dapper Justin Bieber (source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/)

From time to time, I visit tech startups with my colleagues and have conversations about any possible partnership between the program that I belong to as a faculty member and the companies.

About 10 days ago, Tami and I visited one cool startup in Pittsburgh which is specialized in mobile application development. As we get into the office, one thing we noticed was that all of the people were wearing business attires or suits. We felt that we were underdressed. Chris who is one of the co-founders of the company came down, a few minutes later, and told us why they are wearing nice.

He said, “Don’t worry! Today is Pretty Friday! Employees are supposed to wear cloths to make them prettier.” After a very productive meeting with him, I came back to my office. Not surprisingly, he also updated his company’s status on Facebook saying, “Pretty Friday! Branders are looking dapper today.”

To be honest, I had no idea what “dapper” means even though I could easily figure out that it must be something good. I was thinking, “hmm… is it the comparative form of ‘dap’ or what?”

As I was looking it up in a dictionary, I remembered another word my friend Danny used a long time ago. Before I talk about another word, what is dapper?

Neat and trim in dress or appearance, typically of a man.

So, yeah.. it is a good word to use.

In a very similar situation, Danny used a different word. At that time, he and I were students at CMU and we were in different teams for final projects. On the last day of the projects, we all had to give presentations and demos about what we had done. To give a better impression to judges, we all wore suits. When we met in an elevator, he said to me, “Oh, you look very slick today.” Similar to dapper’s case, I did not know what slick means at that time but was able to decode what he meant.

Now, I think I have at least two words to say whenever I see my friends wearing suits or very neat business attires.

One big difference between these two words is that slick can be used for broader subjects than dapper. For example, if you want to buy an iPad 2, you could say to your wife, “Honey, you should see it. It is so slick.” Oh.. you want to buy a BMW?? Then, you can definitely persuade your wife by saying, “A new 2012 BMW is very slick. The best thing is that it makes you look even slickier when you drive it.”