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! 🙂