Who taught: Phil, Kelly, Kaley, Rachel and Shawn

Sometimes, life is so funny. We plan things and try to prepare for the future ahead. Yet, we do not know what is ahead. Every day is full of surprises.

Really should enjoy a new day given to me. Nothing to complain about at all! Carpe diem!

Last week, Jerome and Patricia threw a party to celebrate the acquisition of the company that I used to work. I used to work at the company for three years before I joined Carnegie Mellon University. It was so fun to work with smart people there. I got to solve a lot of interesting problems which eventually made a lot of clients happy. No wonder why another company wants to buy this great company.

It was so nice seeing all the people including current and former employees at the party. There were great foods, drinks and music.

I walked around, talking to as many people as possible and at some point I sit down with Phil, Kelly, Kaley, Rachel and Shawn. And, Phil told me something which I had no clue at all. I had to say to him, “what did you say?,” many times.

He said, “Hey Terry, Are you three sheets to the wind?”

Let me challenge you, my non-native English speaking friends! Can you guess what it means? Even after I got the words that Phil said, I still was not able to understand. Worse, I could not even guess.

Well, my friends told me that it simply means “are you drunk?” Of course, I was not. But, the question is why does it mean drunk? Well, no one knew why.

Once you use a language as your mother tongue, you use a lot of expressions without even thinking about why, right? In my opinion, it is because people learn those expressions by just hearing and trying to use later. That’s actually amazing. So, these days, I try really hard to learn English as if I am a new born child. You know what I mean? Just listen and use them.

Well, about 30 minutes later, I had to sit again. (You know, I am getting old.) I sit next to Kaley and she actually googled for its origin and showed it to me.

Not surprisingly, the expression is from sailing. There are a lot of expressions that originated from sailing and this is one of them. Here is a very good one for you.

Sheets actually refer to the ropes that are used to secure a ship’s sail. If the 3 ropes used were loose in the wind, the sail would flop around, causing the ship to wobble around, much like a drunk.

As soon as I saw this origin, this expression totally made sense to me. What a perfect one to describe “drunk!” Wouldn’t you agree, my friends?

So, next time if you have a drink with your friends, you should try to say, “are you three sheets to the wind?” instead of saying “are you drunk?” They will love you. 🙂