11.30.05
I spooked you
Have you ever disturbed someone while he is fully concentrating on something? He may be shocked by your sudden yet friendly tap on his shoulder or gentle call of his name. I had been wondering was there any expression better than “sorry, I scared you”. Today, I found one from the Deperate House Wife TV show — “Sorry, I spooked you“.
11.29.05
Chinese names
In the western culture, people usually call each other by their first names. But for many Chinese, their first names are rather difficult for westerners to pronounce, like “Jianjun”, “Jianqiang”, “wenxuan” etc. In that case, our surnames — which are simple and short — are called instead. But the Chinese pin-yin is sometimes very different from the English pronunciation. A friend, whose surname is “Shen” ([ʂən], where [ʂ] is similar to [s] but with the tongue curled upwards) , is upset about this, because his labmates always shout his name loud: “Shame!” In the same lab as his, there is a Chinese girl, whose surname is “Cao” ([cáo], where [c] is similar to cats). It couldn’t be worse — people call her Cow all the time.
11.28.05
butterface
I was watching “The war at home”, a hilarous American comedy show. Larry got his first girlfriend. But his father, Dave, was very unhappy about the the girl. He described that “the girl has a butterface” — everything is good but her face.
More explanations on this phrase here.
11.25.05
two people got stolen!
A recent incident reminds me that Chinese are not alone in making mistakes in English speaking. A guy from Brazil just moved into our shared house. Upon arrival, the first thing he did was to complain about the youth hostel he had stayed in earlier. “It was dreadful,” he said, “on the first night, two people got stolen!” We were shocked to hear that. But when it became clear that he actually meant “two people got robbed”, all laughed down to the floor (no such a phrase in English) to tears (or use “ROTFL”, see comments).
11.24.05
Hi, stranger!
A British friend told me that the phrase “long time no see” is common mainly in US the US (thanks to Saar), but not in UK the UK (thanks to Saar). The British-equivalent British equivalent is “Hi, stranger!”
11.23.05
long time no see
When I stayed in Singapore years ago, I used to going go (thanks to Saar) to an Indian stall in a hawker center to buy breakfast. The stall owner must know my face very well, because after I moved to another place and came back to the same stall a year later, he exclaimed with excitement: “long time not no see” (thanks to Saar). I was amazed; this expression has the typical hallmark of Chinese-styled English. A more grammatically correct equivalent may be “haven’t seen you for ages” . But I learned today that “long time not no see” is a native English phrase, originated in 1800s during the Chinese/Westerners trade exchange. It is now widely used in English-speaking countries.
put one’s foot in one’s mouth
An Australian minister recently made a remark that many new security measures used in Australian airplanes were ineffectively, for example, changing steel forks into plastic cutlery only makes passengers feel better but doesn’t make an airplane any safer. However, she was strongly criticized by other ministers. One said “she once again put her foot in her mouth“. From the security perspective, I agree with her. But here we only discuss the language.
Put one’s foot in one’s mouth — Say something very wrong. Note not feet.
11.22.05
my first blog
I'm Chinese and have studied English for many years. I got good IELTS
and GRE (verb/writing) scores, higher than many English-native
counterparts. But I am not a good English speaker/listener. I have
tried various efforts, but failed; my laziness is to blame. A friend
suggests me to expose my English on the blog and let people criticize
it. It sounds crazy, but who knows it may turn out to be the very
right way.
