Tag Archives: andrew

07 Jul

How do you think?

Who taught : Carl and Andrew

Jessy and Me

So, this is my 100th post! Yay! I am pretty excited about it. It has been 4 months and 7 days since I wrote my first post. To commemorate this milestone, I would like to share one of my personal stories. It is about my wife, Jessy. First of all, I am not telling any lie here. Jessy and I went to the same university in Korea. We both majored law. And, back then, she was one of the most famous girls in the school. (I am not saying she is not any more. πŸ™‚ ) Many times, a lot of guys waited for her outside of classrooms where she took classes to see her. How about me? I was just a normal guy whom no girls showed any interests in. Then, I am sure you would have a question you would ask. How the heck was I able to woo her? (The word, “woo”, here is a good expression you can use when anyone is trying to make a girl or a guy fall for him/her.) Well, I actually do not know. The only thing I know is that she was the one who hit on me. She actually told me, “First time I saw you, I just felt that you are the one for me.” What did I do? Well, I think I just did not pay attention to her a lot. Do you know why? I had to study hard to recover my bad GPA. πŸ™‚

So, college students out there! Believe it or not, here is today’s lesson for you.

Girls dig a guy who is enthusiastic about what he does! If you do your best at what you are supposed to do, you are charm enough to woo the best girl!

Now, let’s get to today’s expression, shall we? About three years ago when I first started my work, I was pretty nervous about having conference calls. And, one day, I was in a conference call with a few people from a client and my boss, Carl. They asked me a few questions and I provided a few suggestions. Following the suggestions, I said, “So… how do you think?” Why I use “how” instead of “what”? Probably, it is because I was translating Korean into English. In Korean, we say, “μ–΄λ–»κ²Œ μƒκ°ν•˜μ„Έμš”? (Eu-Dduk-Ke Saeng-Gak-Ha-Se-Yo ?)” and literal translation of “μ–΄λ–»κ²Œ(Eu-Dduk-Ke)” is “how” not “what.” After the meeting, Carl grabbed me and said, “Terry, you should say ‘what do you think?’ If you say ‘how do you think?’, it is almost like insulting because it would mean like, ‘do you even have brain to think about?'”

Man, I was so embarrassed. On that day, I repeated ‘what do you think?’ like 100 times on my way to home. Now? I never even think ‘how do you think?’ at all.

01 Jul

icing on the cake

Who taught: Andrew

Mandie's cake! How cute is it?

Mandi, one of my church friends, has magical hands for making beautiful cakes. Every time there is an event at my church such as baby shower or farewell party, she brings a beautiful cake. A few days ago, there was Leah’s baby shower at the church in which Jessy participated. She took a picture of the cake Mandie brought and showed it to me. That was awesome. Amazing thing is she has 4 little children. How could she make a cake surrounded by 4 children? Well, she taught them really well. Every time she is trying to make a cake, she tells the children, “OK! if you guys are gentle and not touching the cake while mom is making it, I will put more and delicious icing on the cake. If not, I will not put any! Do you hear me?” Well, they hear really well and, based on their experiences, they know that mom is telling the truth. So, they become so quiet and watch her making cakes. Isn’t it awesome? Mandie, I think you should run a business, customized party cake business. I can set up the web site for you and we can be co-founders. What do you think?

For your better understanding, here is the definition of ICING.

Icing is a sweet substance made from powdered sugar that is used to cover and decorate cakes.

Yummy! I love great icing but the most important thing is the cake itself. I mean if the cake is not really good, what is the point of having a lot of icing on it. I think it is the worst cake ever! Having this concept in your mind, icing on the cake is a good expression for you. The definition of the expression is ;

What makes a good thing even better, although it is not something essential.

Like I said, the cake itself should be good to make icing on the cake even better to have. Andrew used this expression the other day but I forgot in what context he used it. Andrew! Do you remember?

Hmm… What would be a good example for you? What about you are having amazing cup cake and suddenly I brought you a cappuccino. Would it be icing on the cake? Well, maybe, it should be icing on the cup cake??? πŸ™‚

Korean equivalent : κΈˆμƒμ²¨ν™” (錦上添花) Geum-Sang-Cheom-Hwa. The literal translation is “flower on top of silk.” Silk itself is already beautiful but if you have flower on top of it, that should be really stunning.

28 Jun

let’s talk about talk!

Who taught: Andrew, Jake, Carol, Pat and Jean

Last week, I went to a bar near my office to have dinner together with my friends. Andrew asked me, “Hey T-Bone! Do you know what small talk is?” Due to that question, we started to talk about a few different expressions in which we can find “talk.”

Reggie Miller

1. small talk

1) Definition (Urban Dict) : Useless and unnecessary conversation attempted to fill the silence in an awkward situation.

2) Example: We all agreed that weather is the most common example of small talk. Jake also said, “You can break the ice by small talk.”

As I think about it, we do a lot of small talks with coworkers/friends, right? What is your main topic for small talk?

2. pillow talk

1) Definition (Urban Dict) :Β  The conversation that happens after making out/sex. It’s infinitely better than normal conversation because there’s touching involved.

There were some disagreements, though, about whether there should be sex or not to become a pillow talk. I am not sure. What do you think? Also, does it really require a pillow or pillows?

3. trash talk

1) Definition (Urban Dict) : In the course of a competitive situation, putting down your opponent verbally or saying how good you think you are, often, involving talk of moms or sisters.

Andrew told me that this talk usually happens during sports games such as basketball. He also told me that Reggie Miller is considered as the best trash talker. I found one good example from the Urban Dictionary.

I’m so fast you couldn’t see me with a telescope

To be a very effective trash talk, you should find a sentence that is really mentally bothering your opponent.

What is your best trash talk?

24 Jun

PUN series 2

Who taught: Alex, Andrew and Nolan

Lady Gaga covering her face (That is better!)

After work, Alex, Andrew, Nolan and I went to a park to play frisbee again. Well, this was my second time to play and I was not able to catch the disc. Looking at this, Andrew was making fun of me, saying “T-Bone! You’ve got butterfingers.” That was not really hard to understand. I believe you would also easily understand what it means, right? If you think of the fingers with a lot of butter on them, you know they will be very slippery to catch something. So, if you have someone who has a tendency to drop something, you can say like, “How could you drop it? You, butterfingers!” When we talk about this butter expression, Alex said, “Hey! I have a good expression for you. Do you know what butterface is?” “What? butterface?” said I. My first thought was it would mean someone who is greasy. Don’t you think it? I mean, if someone has butterface, he/she must be so greasy. Well, I was wrong. But I tried again. “How about someone does not have any hairs on face?” Wrong again! What the heck? My guesses are so close, aren’t they? Don’t you agree? But, unfortunately, they are far away from the original meaning of it. So, my friends decided to give me an example. Andrew said, “I think Lady Gaga is a good example of butterface.” And Nolan and Alex agreed. I was like, “what the heck? What are you trying to say to me?” Then, Andrew said again slowly, “I think Lady Gaga has a good body butterface.” “Say again?” I asked. “But–ter–face!” Finally, I got it! “But Her Face!” Here, I will say again.

Lady Gaga has a good body…. but her face!

Can you get it? Yeah, that is right! This expression is the one you can use only for describing a woman whose body is good but her face is not really beautiful. Then, I had to ask. “How about a lady whose face is good but her body is not good?” Andrew told me, “I have heard that people saying butterbody but I do not think that is quite good enough as butterface.” I totally agree.

So, if you walk with your friends and spot a woman who has really good body from her back but you think her face would not be good, then what you say? Here we go!

“I think she is butterface!”

One rule you should keep in mind is that you should speak it fast, almost like one word, if you want to be hip enough to use it as a good pun.

17 Jun

pull What?

Who taught: Andrew, Pat, Ari and Jean

The first ultimate frisbee in my life! That’s right. I played it today with my friends. To be honest, I thought it would be easy but it is not. It is hard physically as well as technically. Nothing is easy in the world! Don’t you agree? But, that is why it is good to be alive. I mean you gotta love challenges because, at the end of the day, you, not anybody else in the world, are the one who would feel accomplishments if you overcome all of the challenges.

Andrew told me the rules of this game. Instead of my explaining here, I will give you a good link about the game for you in case you are really interested in. One of the rules is very similar to the American football. If one team scores, then each team lines up in their own sides of the field and the team which just scored throws the disc from its side to the other side. For this one, a team member who is good at throwing the disc takes the action. Andrew called this action, “pulling.” Patrick and I were curious about it. “Hey, why is it pulling, not pushing or throwing?” “I think it is because most people do backside throw and it looks like you pull the disc from inside of your body,” Andrew said. It sounds reasonable. Then, hearing that, I said, “All right! Let’s pull out!” “T-Bone! Pull out is different from pull,” Andrew told me. At that moment, I remembered that I had a very similar conversation with Jean and Ari before.

About one year ago, all of the techies in my company went to a retreat together. During a break, we were having a small talk about getting older. No offense to older people than me! But, I now started to have gray hairs and Ari noticed that I have a few of them. “Hey, Terry! You have gray hairs there,” she said. “I know, every time I found them, I ask Jessy to pull them out,” I said. Well, at that moment, Jean said, “I think pull out is not really good to use there.” We were like, “Why? What is wrong with pull out?” “It actually has a different meaning,” Jean said. Well, it turns out pull out has a very very different meaning. Here is the definition for you I found from the Urban Dictionary.

A form of birth control practiced by idiot couples to prevent pregnancy.

It is also called “Pull Out (Withdrawl) Method”.

I do not want to put too explicit ones here but there are bunch of different definitions in the Urban Dictionary and, interestingly, every single of them is the same. The only difference is the degree of explicitness. If you still cannot understand the meaning of it, here is the link for you!

So, to me, it sounds like it is not a good idea to use “pull out” expression. Am I correct? When do you use that expression except for this meaning? In addition, what kind of expression should I use to describe the action of removing my gray hairs? Maybe, take out?