Tag Archives: carnegie mellon university

10 Oct

robber barons

Who taught: Anonymous

Rockefeller (source: wikipedia.org)

Last weekend, I went to the Niagara Falls with my parents-in-law and Jessy. This was my sixth time to see the falls and I was still amazed by its size and the amount of water that is falling continuously. Every time I see this type of amazing nature, I once again realize that there are a lot of evidences of God’s existence, surrounding me.

To remember God, we all went to a local church on Sunday with my friends, Jason and Ashley. Since we are visitors, many of the church members asked me some questions like where I am from and what I am doing, etc. So, as you know, my answer is pretty simple. I am from Pittsburgh, PA and teach at Carnegie Mellon University. I said the same to an old person who asked the questions. Here is another thing that kind of surprised me again. He asked this question, “Carnegie Mellon University? Who established it?” He basically does not know CMU. Well, I’ve always thought that everybody in the U.S. would and should know CMU. Well, I was wrong.

So, I told him that CMU is established by Andrew Carnegie in 1900. Guess what? Do you know what was the first word that I heard from him? He said, “Oh! One of those robber barons!”  When I first heard, I was thinking like, “Wait. What? Is he now talking about Barone family of Everybody Loves Raymond show? Why is he saying that they are robbers?”

As usual, I asked him. He then kindly explained it to me using an example of Rockefeller who made a lot of fortune by selling oil at an extremely lower price than his competitors back in late 1800s.

We all know what robber is. The real sarcasm of this expression comes from this word, baron. Baron means a member of the lowest order of the British nobility. They sort of got into this nobility by making a lot of money but the way of making money was a robbery. Do you know how much wealth Rockefeller was able to accumulate? According to Wikipedia, it is estimated that his personal fortune was equal to 1.53% of the total U.S. economy in his day. Wow. That is an unbelievable figure!

Now I know there have been a few robber barons in history. But, can I use this expression in any other cases?

 

31 Jan

Is it in the bag?

Who taught: Kim

Money in the bag (source: http://cicmusic.wordpress.com/)

As you know, I teach at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). A few days ago, I stumbled upon a youtube video that is about the stereotypes of CMU. Typically, the workload at CMU is intense and heavy. Students spend a lot of hours in libraries and meeting rooms. From the comments on the video, I found one very funny saying among CMU students. They say that the campus was made up of two types of people “the fruits” (drama, fine arts) and “the vegetables” (science, engineering). Sadly (??!!), I was one of the vegetables because I graduated from the School of Computer Science (SCS). Consequently, I am now a vegetable grower since I teach computer science students. Well… vegetables are well known as healthy food. I will do my best to grow nice organic ones so that they can help people.

About two weeks ago, I heard a very happy news from my friend, Kim. She applied for the Fulbright scholarship program a few months ago. She changed her status on Facebook, saying that she passed the first round. I do not know how many people know the program but it is actually a huge one to get as a student in the U.S. I was so happy that I commented saying that, “Awesome! So happy to hear that!” Of course, there were her other friends who added comments. She replied, saying, “It is not in the bag yet. But I will keep you posted.”

Not in the bag… That was a new one to me. I am sure you guys can also understand what it means, right? So, I replied to her, “That is a new one and it will be going into my blog.” That is what is happening now.

If you know the etymology of the expression, you will definitely be able to feel the expression. Based on my research, this expression is from the 16th century. At that time, bird hunting was famous and hunters go out with a bag. When they finally retrieve a bird and put it in the bag, they now can declare that they catch a bird for sure.

Can you feel it? This is the question Jean asked me when I say that “In the bag is the new one to me!” I now feel the expression a lot better after knowing the etymology. How about you? Don’t you like to know etymology of new expressions? Here is today’s homework! Why don’t you ask your American friends whether they know the etymology of this expression? I bet many of them would not know which is not surprising at all. We just use many expressions of our mother tongue without thinking about their origins, don’t we?