QUESTION:
Ryan in China wants to know when it is acceptable to call people by their first names and by their last names.

ANSWER:
Americans tend to allow (and prefer) others to call them by their first names in many or most situations.  With friends and family, nearly everyone calls each other by their first names, unless they are your mother (Mom, Mommy, Mother, etc.), father (Dad, Daddy, Pop, etc.), or other older relations (for example, “Grandma” or “Uncle”). We normally call our siblings (brothers and sisters), cousins, nieces and nephews (children of our siblings) by their first names.

Friends almost always call each other by their first names, or by a nickname (a funny or familiar name).  However, men who are friends sometimes call each other by the last name.  Women don’t usually call each other by their last names, and men speaking to women and women speaking to men don’t call each other by their last names either.  I might say to Jeff, “Hey, McQuillan, are you buying me lunch today?,” but usually this is done in a joking way, with me trying to sound more commanding (in charge) or masculine (like a man).  You may hear both men and women called by their last names at work, however, where the environment is male-dominated or has been traditionally dominated by men, even if it’s less so now, such as in newsrooms (where newspapers and news magazines are written and produced) and factories (where products are made by hand or by machines).

Generally, in a work situation, people who are colleagues (working together, usually at the same level of responsibility) tend to call each other by their first names, not “Mr. McQuillan” or “Ms. Johnson.”  We even call our bosses by their first names most of the time.

One exception is if we are talking about someone in a higher position to someone outside of the company or organization.  For instance, a secretary or administrative assistant may call his/her boss by his first name face-to-face, but call him “Mr. Gomez” to outsiders:  “If you’d like to meet with Mr. Gomez, he’s free between 3:00 and 5:00 tomorrow afternoon.”  Often when we meet a boss or someone in a higher position in our own company/organization or another company/organization for the first time, it’s safer to use “Mr.” or “Ms.” until that person tells us to call him/her by their first name.  This type of conversation is very common:

You:  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Kim.”
Boss:  “Call me Ann.”

If you are a student, you almost never call your teacher or professor by his/her first name.  In elementary school, junior high school, or high school, you would call your teachers “Mr.” or “Ms.”/”Mrs.” (unless they have a Ph.D. degree, then see below) and their last name.  My third-grade teacher was Mrs. Frame and my high school Spanish teacher was Mr. Lopez.  We don’t call them “Teacher,” “Master,” or any other terms used in other countries.  If you are in college or at the university, you would use the titles “Dr.” (doctor) or “Professor.”  (Sometimes graduate students getting advanced degrees are invited by their professors to call them by their first names.) When Jeff was teaching at the university, Jeff’s students called him “Dr. McQuillan” or “Professor McQuillan.”

That’s probably more than you wanted to know, Ryan, but I hope that helps.

~ Lucy

Some people have a difficult time saying, “I’m sorry” when they’ve done something wrong. If you are not sure how and when to apologize, don’t worry: Harvard Business Press, a publishing company, has a book for you called “Failure to Communicate” by Holly Weeks.  It seems that for every supposed (apparent, possible but not necessarily real) problem in the U.S., someone has written a book to solve it for you.

According to Dr. Weeks (she teaches at Harvard), a good apology (1) acknowledges the mistake or fault (thing you did wrong), (2) expresses regret (sense of being sorry), and (3) takes responsibility for the mistake – that is, tells the person that you are to blame for it and admits that you were wrong.  It seems straightforward enough (sufficiently easy to understand), but, says Weeks, many people today think that they’re apologizing but really aren’t.

For example, some people say “I want to apologize for…”  Weeks thinks that this is not an apology, because the fact that you want to do something doesn’t mean that you are doing it.  I want to lose weight, but that is different from actually losing weight.

What about people who say, “I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings” or “I’m sorry if you were offended (hurt) by what I did”?  Again, Weeks says this is a non-apology apology.  You aren’t really apologizing; you’re saying that the other person is being too sensitive (too easily offended) because what you did or said hurt their feelings.  You’re not actually saying what you did was wrong (her Rule #1).

I’m not sure if I agree with Weeks here.  Let’s say that you went to a movie without your friend.  Your friend finds out and gets angry at you.  You don’t think you did anything wrong, but you don’t want to hurt your friend, either.  Should you say, “I’m sorry that I went to the movie” even if you are not honestly sorry?  Is saying nothing in this case better than saying “I’m sorry I hurt your feelings”?  I don’t think so.  I think you can believe that what you did was right but at the same time not want to hurt someone else by it.  I’m not sure how to say this other than “I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings.”

Perhaps part of the reason Americans don’t say sorry as much as they used to is for fear of liability – the idea that if you say sorry, you are admitting that you did something wrong and therefore have to pay for your mistake.  Companies and organizations – and especially doctors and hospitals – rarely say they are sorry for fear of being successfully sued (legally required to pay for the damage that one has caused).  Some U.S. states, however, have passed what are called “I’m sorry” laws, which say that even if you (or your company) say “I’m sorry,” it does not mean that you are accepting responsibility for the problem or mistake.  You’re just being nice.

I’m guessing that Dr. Weeks would not be happy with these “I’m sorry” laws, however, since they violate (don’t follow) her Rule #3 about taking responsibility.

So you can see, the situation is not as easy as it looks.  I am reminded of Love Story, which was not only a really bad book, but also a terrible movie in the 1970s,  which had the line, “Being in love means never having to say you’re sorry.”   Obviously the man who wrote that had never been married.

~Jeff

QUESTION:
Nice from China wants to know when and how to use the word “dish” when referring to meals and eating.

ANSWER:
The word dish is confusing because it has two different meanings and both are very commonly used.

“Dish” as a Container
First, dish is a general term used to mean the container that is used to hold food.  A dish is usually a shallow (not very deep), flat container that is used for cooking or for serving food.  It can be a plate (used for eating), a platter (large plate used for serving), or sometimes even a shallow bowl (something deep enough to hold liquids).
- “My favorite dish is the one with the blue and white pattern.”
- “I need a bigger dish for the potatoes because this one is too small.”

These are common terms using “dish” in this way:

serving dish – a plate or bowl that is large enough and/or looks nice enough to be placed on the table during a meal

baking dish – a plate, bowl, or container used to bake or cook food, usually in the oven
(Often the food is then taken out of the baking dish and put on a serving dish to make it look nice to be placed on the dinner table.)

to do the dishes/to wash the dishes – to wash or clean the plates, bowls, other containers, cups, and silverware (forks, knives, spoons, and other things) used for cooking and eating

“Dish” as Food
Dish is also used to mean one type of prepared food.  For example, if I invite you to eat dinner at my house, I may cook five dishes to serve you: a vegetable dish, a chicken dish, a fish dish, a pasta dish, and a dessert.  (If I were you, I wouldn’t eat any of it!)
- “His favorite dish is spaghetti and meatballs.”
- “I’m full after eating the first dish.  How can I eat two more?”

These are common terms using “dish” in this way:

main dish – the biggest part of a meal. For example, if you ate fish with rice and vegetables for dinner, fish would be the main dish, and rice and vegetables would be side dishes

side dish – a small portion of food, often a kind of vegetable, served with the “main dish”

Note the word “dish” is also used to describe what kind of food is served: “vegetable dish,” “meat dish,” “cold dish,” “one-dish meal” (meaning a stew or other recipe for food where everything for a meal is mixed together in one serving), “Thai dish,” “French dish,” “vegetarian dish” (contains no meat).

Other Uses of “Dish”
“Dish” can also be used as a verb.  First, related to food, we use the term to dish up or to dish out to mean to serve food or to take some food out of a container with a spoon or fork and put it on a plate or in a bowl for eating.
- “After dinner Petra will dish up/out dessert for everyone.”
- “Use this serving spoon to dish up/out the carrots.”

We can use to dish out in other situations not related to food to mean to hand out or to give out.  For example:
- “Every Monday morning we have a meeting for the boss to dish out that week’s assignments.”
- “I don’t think Manny is sincere.  He dishes out compliments to every woman he meets.”

We also use to dish informally to mean to provide information, often when we talk about gossip.  (We use “dish” as a noun to mean the information or gossip itself.)  For example, if my friend went on a date over the weekend and I want to find out what happened, I may ask:  “When are you going to dish about your date?” or “Give me the dish.  I can’t wait to hear what happened.”

Thanks for the question and I hope this is useful!

~ Lucy

QUESTION:
Yana from Russia wants to know the meaning of the phrase “mind over matter.”

ANSWER:
Mind over matter refers to the ability to use the power of our thinking, or of our brain, to overcome (succeed in dealing with) some difficulty related to our body or the physical world in general.  We often use mind as a synonym for “brain,” “thoughts,” and other things related to thinking.  For example, when we want to ask what someone else is thinking, we can ask:  “What’s on your mind?”

Matter is anything that has a physical form or shape.  In science, for example, astronomers (scientists who study space) may talk about studying matter in outer space, the area away from the Earth and its atmosphere.

We can use “mind over matter” in many situations.  For example:

Jeff:  “How can you resist eating that cake?  It’s your favorite kind.”
Lucy:  “Don’t worry.  For me, it’s simply mind over matter.”
…
Lucy:  “You’re too sick to be at work today.”
Jeff:  “It’s a case of mind over matter.  If I believe and behave like I’m well, then I’ll get well more quickly.”
…

QUESTION:
Parham from Canada asks: “What does ‘relationship chicken’ mean?”

ANSWER:
In this situation, chicken refers to someone who is a coward, someone who is not brave, someone who does not have courage to do something, or someone who behaves in this way.  A relationship chicken, then, is someone who is afraid of being in a romantic relationship.

You can call someone a “chicken” for any perceived (what you see as) fear or weakness.  For example:

Used as an adjective:
A: “Let’s not go to school today and go the beach instead.”
B: “I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”
A: “Why not? Are you chicken?”
…
Used as a noun:
A: “Here’s my new pet snake.  Do you want to hold it?
B: “No way!  I’m a chicken when it comes to snakes.”

…

QUESTION:
Robert from Czech Republic asks: “What does ‘not even close’ mean?”

ANSWER:
Not even close means not nearly, far from the answer, or far from the truth.  Here are a few of examples of how this can be used:

Lucy: “Are you done recording this week’s podcasts?”
Jeff:  “Not even close.  I haven’t even finished the first one!”
…
Lucy: “Jeff, you’re so smart. You must read 10 books a week!”
Jeff:  “Not even close.  I only read five books a day!”
…
Lucy: “Try to guess how old I am.”
Jeff: “You’re 60.”
Lucy: “You’re not even close.  I’m 29…still!”

…

Thanks, to all, for the questions.  I hope this is helpful.

~ Lucy

In Jesus Christ Superstar, a rock opera and movie from the 1970s, there’s a song called What’s the Buzz? In the song, the apostles (disciples, Jesus’ followers) ask Jesus the same question again and again:

What’s the buzz?
Tell me what’s a-happening!

They wanted to know what everybody was talking about.

Have you ever walked into a room full of people – perhaps at a party – and listened to the sound of all the conversations in the room? You can’t hear the words, but you can hear the buzz (activity, noise, excitement) of all the conversations.

Buzzwords are words that quickly become fashionable, or popular. They are words people use frequently, sometimes to impress other people. They show that you know what’s going on (what’s happening in the world around you).

Buzzwords don’t usually last (continue to be used) for a long time. In fact, we often get tired of hearing them and wish they would go away. On the other hand, buzzwords can tell us a lot about what people were talking about at a particular time, like last year.

Some buzzwords become a regular part of the language. Usually they begin as colloquial words or expressions – informal, everyday words that are used in casual conversation but not in formal speech or writing.

This morning several buzzwords from 2009 were in the news. One of them – unfriend – was named the word of the year by the people who publish the Oxford dictionary. Unfriend is a verb that means to remove someone as a “friend” on Facebook or some other social networking site.

Here are some other 2009 buzzwords that were considered (thought carefully about) for word of the year:

• sexting – sending sexual messages or pictures by mobile telephone
• birther – someone who believes that Barak Obama wasn’t born in the U.S. and, as a result, shouldn’t be president
• netbook – a small, very portable laptop computer for going onto the Internet
• death panel – a committee that decides which patients receive medical treatment or, supposedly (used when we aren’t sure), are left to die. Some people in the U.S. believe that death panels were included in the new health care program introduced by President Obama, but they weren’t.

If you want to see more 2009 buzzwords, look at the lists from The New York Times and Time Magazine. Another interesting list is the annual (yearly) list of Words Banished from the Queen’s English for Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness. These are buzzwords that some people are tired of hearing and want to banish (tell people to stop using).

~Warren Ediger – a student of many things, but especially language, learning and teaching, and technology; mentor-teacher; musician; husband and father; and creator of successfulenglish.com.

Image by Wael Attili; used by permission.

QUESTION:
Benjamin in Thailand wants to know what this sentence means: “You give me the creeps!”

ANSWER:
To give (someone) the creeps means to make someone feel frightened or uncomfortable. For example, if you ride the subway every morning and the same woman sits across from you and stares at you with the same strange look on her face, she may give you the creeps. Walking by a dark empty house at night might also give you the creeps.

Interestingly, if we use “creep” as a noun by itself, it has a slightly different meaning. A creep is a person who behaves in a way that other people don’t like or who bothers other people. We often use it to describe someone who does things that we find distasteful or dishonest. For instance, someone who often tells you things you want to hear so that he can get something he wants from you, can be called a creep. We usually associate (relate) a creep with someone who is disagreeable (easy to dislike; nasty), obnoxious (does things to annoy other people), or offensive (does things to hurt or upset other people).

I’ve only heard men described as creeps, not women. Perhaps it’s because we may also use “creep” to describe someone who makes unwanted sexual advances or who treats women disrespectfully. A woman walking down the street who encounters a group of men shouting comments about her appearance or making sexually suggestive comments might yell back at them, “You creep!”

“Creep” can also be used as a verb to mean to move slowly and carefully so other people will not see or hear you. If I wanted to steal Jeff’s candy bar off his desk, I would creep into his office while he isn’t looking and take it.  Similarly, if teenage children come home past their curfew (the time that parents say their children must be home by), they may creep up the stairs hoping their parents won’t hear them.

Thanks for the question, Benjamin, and I hope this was helpful.

~ Lucy

I’m by no means (not at all) an expert on British English, but anyone who has been to London can tell you what the phrase “mind the gap” means.  It is an announcement heard on the subway/metro (called the “Tube” in England) when the doors to the subway trains open and close.  Mind, in this case, means to pay attention to something, and gap means the space between two things. It is a reminder for people to be careful of the space between the subway train doors and the station platform, the flat area where people wait for the train to arrive.

In American English, we don’t use “mind” in the same way.  Yes, we do use “to mind” to mean to pay attention to something, but we use it in a very specific way.  In the U.S., you may hear parents or adults say to children: “Mind your parents,” meaning do what your parents tell you to, or “mind your manners.”  Manners refer to social behaviors, so we talk about people having good manners or bad manners.  When parents tell their children to “mind their manners,” they mean for the children to behave well, such as to say “please” and “thank you,” and to not eat with their mouth open at the dinner table.

Another phrase you’ll hear is, “Do you mind?”  We use this in two ways.  First, we use it to mean, “Is it all right?” or “Is this acceptable to you?”  Here are a couple of examples:
- “Do you mind if I meet you at 2:00 instead of 1:00?”
- “Li asked me if we would mind if they sat with us at the concert, and I told her that we wouldn’t mind at all.”

Another way we use the phrase “Do you mind?” is to express our displeasure and to tell someone to stop doing what he or she is doing.  For example, if you are on the bus and someone leans over to read your newspaper to the point of getting in your way, you may say to him/her, “Do you mind?” meaning “stop doing that!” This is a pretty forceful statement and is usually used when we’re annoyed or angry about someone else’s actions.

Here’s another example: Jeff walks away from his desk at work and when he returns, I’m sitting there, looking with interest at the chocolate bar he’d left there.  When he sees what I intend to do, he says to me, “Do you mind?!” meaning, “Stop trying to eat my candy bar!”  Of course, Jeff wouldn’t say that.  He is too nice of a guy, and knowing how much I like chocolate, he would probably share it with me.  Right, Jeff?

~ Lucy

QUESTION:
Benoite from France asks: “I would like to know what’s the difference between (in a work situation) “to be terminated” and “to be made redundant.”

ANSWER:
To be terminated is to lose your job, meaning that your company or boss tells you that you no longer have a job there, that you can no longer work there.  “To be terminated” is a formal and official way of saying this.  The more common and conversational phrase is to be fired from a job.

In a job interview, you may be asked why you were terminated from your last job.  If you lost your job because the company closed or reduced its staff (group of workers), you would use the term “to be laid off.”  To lay (someone) off means to dismiss a worker, sometimes temporarily (for a short time), because there isn’t enough work; to be laid off means to lose your job for this reason.  However, if you lose your job because of something bad that happened, than you were terminated or fired.  For example:
- “There was a letter in her work file indicating that she was terminated for stealing.”
- “I was fired from my job because my boss didn’t like me.”

In the U.S., we don’t use the term “to be made redundant.”  It’s used in Britain and many Americans aren’t even familiar with this phrase.  Redundant means that something is no longer needed or useful. We can use it this way:
- “Now that we have computers to do that job, these workers have become redundant.”
- “This student’s long essay is filled with redundant information and, in the end, only had one or two real ideas.”

You’re probably familiar with the Terminator movies.  One thing you’d never want is to be terminated by the Terminator. His job is to take away more than just your job!

~ Lucy

In any language, new words appear all the time, and sometimes just for a short time.  I’ve come across some new words recently to describe men and their friendships.  Fortunately, these are not too difficult to figure out, because they simply combine two words that formerly (before) didn’t go together.  Let’s take a look at two of these.

BROMANCE (bro + romance = bromance)
The word bro is short for brother, and is used as an informal greeting, usually between two men.  For example, when Jeff sees his friend, he might say, “Hey bro, how’s it going?”  This is very informal and typically used among younger people to greet good friends.  You use “bro” in a similar way to “man” and “dude,” as in:  “Hey man, where have you been?” or “Hey dude, good to see you!” “Bro” is now a little dated (old-fashioned) and we don’t hear it as much anymore.

Romance is the feeling of excitement between two people in love.  When we put “bro” and “romance” together to get “bromance,” we are referring to two heterosexual (men who like women and women who like men) men who have deep feelings of admiration and friendship with one another.  We can say that these two men are buddies, a more common word, meaning that they are very good friends who probably spend a lot of time together.

The term bromance is often jokingly used to refer to two men who spend so much time together and like each other so much that their relationship is like a traditional romance, where the two people who are in love want to be together all the time.  We might say, “Jeff is always over at Warren’s house after work.  Is there a bromance between them?”
…

HIMBO (him + bimbo = himbo)
A bimbo is a negative and insulting term for a woman who is young and attractive, but who is not smart, and may be a little too interested in men.  Some may call the characters that Marilyn Monroe played in movies bimbos.

We put “him” together with “bimbo” to get “himbo.”  A himbo, then, is a man who is attractive, but not very smart.  The stereotype (a generally-believed, but too simple idea) of male models is that they are himbos, though I’m sure that’s not true.
…

What do we call a bromance between two himbos?  A “himbromance”?  A “brobomance?”  I don’t want to think about it.  I’ll leave it to the gossip magazines!

~ Lucy

A teacher, Robert, just sent me a link to something called 50 Questions, which is a website where you are asked to answer 50 questions about yourself and what you are doing (or have done recently).  I’m not sure what the purpose of these questions really is (most of them are a bit silly or stupid), but for some reason they have become very popular on YouTube, with people recording their answers to the 50 questions for others to see.  If you go to YouTube, you can listen to different people respond to these exact same questions.  There are dozens of videos with these answers.

I went on this website and answered the 50 questions.  My responses are below, along with some explanation of the questions themselves, where needed.  I’m not sure if you really know more about me after seeing my answers, however.

~Jeff