Who taught : Bob

Rag (source: http://inphotos.org/)

How was your Christmas, my friends? Hope yours was wonderful! Mine was great. It was so nice spending some time with family. Right before Christmas, I had two plumbing problems with my house. So, I hired a plumber to take care of them. Luckily, he came before Christmas and fixed them but, on the other hand, I experienced an embarrassing moment. Well, of course, it was related with a new English expression.

As he was working on rusted valves in my basement, he asked me a question, “Do you have a rag?” Sadly, I did not get it. Do you already know it? All right! Good for you! In my defense, I have never heard of this word, rag, yet. I thought he was talking about a rug. Well, I do have a rug but it does not make sense that he wants to have my rug to fix the valves. So, I said, “What? A rag?” I carefully enunciated the word. He said, “Yes, a rag. You know sort of cloth that is used to clean things. I need it to wipe some water and dirt here.” With that, I got what he meant.

I talked to myself, “Embarrassing but interesting. I have never questioned myself about an English word for Geol-Re (걸레) which is the Korean word for rag,” as I was walking up the stairs to get a rag.

Maybe I should clean my house more often and ask this question, “What is an English word for this tool?”, to myself every time I see a new tool. Don’t you think so? Also, one day, I should go through all of the tools I have in my shed and think about their English words. I am sure I won’t forget what rag is from now.

My American friends, feel free to try me later if I still know the word or not. 🙂

EDIT: Following up Phil’s feedback, I looked up the urbandictionary. I would not include all of the definitions here. (You can easily find them out by clicking here.) Also, after my initial post, Jason pointed out that Geol-Re(걸레) also means a slut in Korea. Interestingly, according to the urbandictionary, rag could mean a woman in the U.S. but not in a sense that she is a slut. When a woman have a period, they need to use a thing which is kind of similar to a rag. For this, when a woman is on her period, we can also say that she is on her rag. Keep in mind that this is considered to be offensive to women. So, my recommendation is do not use this expression to women. 

P.S.: I am not sure I will have a chance to write another post before the end of 2011. If not, I wish you a very Happy New Year! Don’t forget! Life is learning.