Tag Archives: Phil

27 Jun

Korean PUN series 1

Who taught : Kelly and Phil

Sigh! This world cup is totally done for me. The teams I was rooting for all lost yesterday. Maybe, I am the one who brings bad luck. Every time I watch a game, the team I am supporting loses. Phil, Kelly and I watched South Korea vs Uruguay game together at Phil’s place. After the game, we were all preparing to go out to a Rock Bottom restaurant to watch another game, US vs Ghana. Phil changed his pants. While we are talking about something I noticed that Phil’s zipper was still open. So, I said, “Hey Phil! You gotta zip it up.”

Hearing it, Kelly told me, “Oh, you can say, ‘Kennywood’s open!’ for that.” “That is a Pittsburgh thing. More generic one is XYZ,” Phil added. Do you know what XYZ stands for?

Examine your zipper! (XYZ)

So if you see someone’s zipper is open, you can whisper to him, “Hey! XYZ!,” especially if you are with many people and do not want to embarrass him.

But then I have two questions.

1. Why does “Kennywood’s open” have that meaning to Pittsburgh people? What is the origin?

2. Can I use “XYZ” to women if their zipper is open?

남대문 (Namdaemun) in Korea

Having said this expression, I realized that there is a good Korean pun you can use if you get to have a chance to speak to Koreans. In 1398, Korean people built the walls surrounding Seoul and also four main gates in four directions. One of them, as you can imagine, was in South. The official name of the door is Sungnyemun. But a lot of people call it 남대문 (南大門). In English, it is “Great Southern Gate.” This is one of the most beautiful unique Korean architecture made of wood and stone with two-tired roof. Sadly, there was a fire in 2008 and the door was seriously damaged.

Anyway, when your male friends’ zipper is open, you can say, “남대문 열렸어!” It means, “You’ve got open Great Southern Gate.” Why? Here is the reason! 남자(男子) means men in Korean. Can you notice it? Yes! As you can see, the first characters of 남대문 and 남자 are the same. It is 남. And, of course, they have the same pronunciation. And, as I told you, 남대문 is one of the gates. Imagine that your zipper is open! Then what? It is basically you open your door to &%!@&* (I will let you imagine what it would be here!). If you look carefully at the Chinese characters, you can easily find that you could make a new combination of the Chinese characters to describe your open zipper, 男大門. Does it make sense to you? FYI, you can only use this Korean expression to men! Well, next time I get to see your open zipper, I will use this expression. Hope you would understand what I mean! 🙂

24 May

play hookie

Who taught: Phil

Dog playing hooky

This morning, I got a text message from one of the golf courses I have been. A while ago, I subscribed for their text message service. It reads, “play hookie and golf!” It was weird that the golf course is encouraging me to play hookie for golf. The definition of the expression is

To miss school or work without suitable excuse, for example, saying you are sick or you have a death in your family.

“Play hooky” is also the same thing you can use. It is just a different spelling but the same pronunciation. Not sure which one is more common though? As always, I was very curious about the origin of the expression. Here is the one I found which sounds very reasonable.

The first printed use of the phrase is 1848 and it is related to the 19th-century phrase “hooky-crooky,” which means “dishonest or underhanded.” The parent of this phrase is “by hook or by crook,” meaning “by any means necessary.” (source : word detective)

Then, my question is do you guys still use “by hook or by crook” expression?

When you use this, you should be really careful with your pronunciation or spelling if you are writing this because there is also another expression, “nookie.” Nookie means sexual intercourse and knowing the meaning of nookie, you can easily figure out what “play nookie” would mean, right? Well, who knows? There might be some people who play hookie to play nookie. I found very funny cartoon from the Internet. You know, even your dog plays hooky. 🙂 I have to be honest. Days like today are very hard to resist to play hookie! Have you ever played hookie? I guess the answer would be yes, right?

16 May

pink slips


Who taught: Phil and Alex

Terry and James in control

Yesterday, for the first time, I went to Autocross with James, Mike, Brian, Kim and other friends. Oh, FYI, autocross is a form of car race, competing based on time. And, for safety, one car runs at a time. Here is the more detailed information about autocross. It was a total new experience for me. I have been driving my car, Mazda miata, for 2 and half years but have never driven in that manner. When James showed me how to drive in autocross using my car, I thought my car would roll over. It was so scary. But then I kind of picked up the way of driving in autocross and finally beat 50 second. My record was 49.16 seconds when other experienced drivers hit around 44 seconds. Well, I guess it was not bad after all. If you like cars, you should really try it. It is so much fun.  The only thing you need to worry about is tires. By the way, my miata was the most famous car in the autocross. Everybody loved it.

Oh there were two tricks I learned from James with regard to autocross driving. First, always two hands on the wheel and second, try not to use clutch and instead stay in the second gear.

Phil was also thinking to come. So last Friday when I talked to him, he said, “Racing for pink slips?” Well, I knew what “Race” is but I did not know what “pink slips” are. So, “What is racing for pink slips?”, I asked. He told me that if any people race for slips or pink slips, then winner gets the loser’s car. Alex told me that it originated from the title of the car which is also called slip, or a small piece of paper. I was also curious about the origin of “PINK” color and I found one good explanation from the wikipedia. It says,

The “pink slip” reference is based on California state vehicle titles that were printed on pink paper. It was referenced in the 1978 film Grease and also on the Speed Channel racing series Pinks.

So, if someone says, “Do you want to race for pink slips?”, do not say just “yes” unless you really want to do it. I think when Phil said that, I should have said yes because I do not have title slip due to the fact that my car is lease. He’s got a bimmer. Who knows I might win. Phil, let’s race for slips next time, shall we? 🙂