Music | yingwen

Come As You Are

Monday, March 17, 2008 – 12:07 pm

“We are having a party tomorrow, nothing fancy, just come as you are.”

“She soon came to understand that, to her, religion was a ‘come as you are’ party, with no need to pretend to be anything but your own true self.”

“The meeting is at noon and is a come-as-you-are event.”

“The vibe is low-key and come-as-you-are. The tables don’t have cloths, and diners on either side of us wore Red Sox warm-up jackets and baseball hats.”

Come as you are means “informal; relaxed; not dressed up or wearing formal attire.” If you tell someone to “come as you are,” you are saying that they don’t need to wear anything special or formal. You will often hear this in relation to parties.

You will also hear come-as-you-are used as an adjective to describe an atmosphere (of a restaurant, for example) or to describe an attitude (a relaxed, informal, accepting attitude).

Come as you are also has an accepting, non-judgmental connotation to it: “you don’t need to pretend to be someone you are not — you can just be yourself, without pretension.” It has this feeling to it.

One of the most famous rock songs of the 1990s is called “Come As You Are” by Nirvana:

Come as you are, as you were, as I want you to be.
As a friend, as a friend, as an old enemy.
Take your time, hurry up, the choice is yours, don't be late.
Take a rest, as a friend, as an old Memory ah
Memory
Memory
Memory

Come doused in mud, syruped in bleach, as I want you to be.
As a trend, as a friend, as an old memory ah
Memory
Memory
Memory

Well, I swear that I don't have a gun
No, I don't have a gun
No, I don't have a gun

Memory... Memory... Memory... Memory...

Well, I swear that I don't have a gun
No, I don't have a gun
No, I don't have a gun
No, I don't have a gun
No, I don't have a gun
(Memory...Memory....)

Don’t try to figure out what it means.

Posted in Idioms, Video | Tags: music | No Comments »

Driving Vocab

Monday, March 17, 2008 – 11:08 am

back-seat driver - NOUN: 1. A passenger who constantly advises, corrects, or nags the driver of a motor vehicle. 2. A person who persists in giving unsolicited advice.

Examples:

“Stop being a back-seat driver! I know how to drive.”
“My girlfriend is such a back-seat driver. She is always telling me what to do when I’m driving.”

road hog - A driver whose vehicle overlaps the traffic lane used by another car. You are “hogging the road” when you don’t stay in your own lane and you drift into the lanes next to you. “Hog” is another word for 猪.

Examples:

“Look at this road hog. He is halfway in my lane!”
“Stop hogging the road and stay in your own lane.”

Note: You can use “hog” as a verb to mean “to try to get something all to yourself” (like a pig eating food). For example, “Stop hogging the chips!” (Stop eating all of the chips — stop preventing other people from eating the chips.) “That guy always hogs the ball.” You will hear this in basketball — a player who refuses to pass the ball and always wants to keep the ball is called a “ball hog.”

running on empty -refers to an automobile being used with a low fuel supply (”the gas tank is empty”), but can more generally be used as an expression to denote exhaustion.

Examples:

“I’m so exhausted from working all of the time. I’ve been running on empty lately.”
“I haven’t slept in two days. I’m really running on empty right now.”

There is a famous song from the 1970s called “Running on Empty” by Jackson Browne:

Looking out at the road rushing under my wheels
Looking back at the years gone by like so many summer fields
In sixty-five I was seventeen and running up one-o-one
I don't know where I'm running now, I'm just running on

Running on - running on empty
Running on - running blind
Running on - running into the sun
But I'm running behind

Gotta do what you can just to keep your love alive
Trying not to confuse it with what you do to survive
In sixty-nine I was twenty-one and I called the road my own
I don't know when that road turned onto the road I'm on

Running on - running on empty
Running on - running blind
Running on - running into the sun
But I'm running behind

Everyone I know, everywhere I go
People need some reason to believe
I don't know about anyone but me
If it takes all night, that'll be all right
If I can get you to smile before I leave

Looking out at the road rushing under my wheels
I don't know how to tell you all just how crazy this life feels
I look around for the friends that I used to turn to to pull me through
Looking into their eyes I see them running too

Running on - running on empty
Running on - running blind
Running on - running into the sun
But I'm running behind

Honey you really tempt me
You know the way you look so kind
I'd love to stick around but I'm running behind
You know I don't even know what I'm hoping to find
Running into the sun but I'm running behind

In the song, the singer is looking back on his life. He feels exhausted from “running.” “Running” here is used in abstract way — running through life. He feels like he is behind everyone else in the “race” of life in some way, but that everyone is just running with no real purpose. They don’t know why or where they are “running” to.

Posted in Video, Vocabulary | Tags: cars, driving, music | No Comments »

On The Rocks

Wednesday, March 12, 2008 – 12:28 pm

“Their relationship has been on the rocks for a while.”

“They have been married for 20 years, but there are rumors that their marriage is on the rocks.”

“Bartender, get me a whiskey on the rocks.”

As you can see, the idiom “on the rocks” has two different meanings.

1. having troubles or likely to fail – this meaning is usually applied to relationships or marriages. You will also hear “rocky” applied to relationships. For example, “We have always had a rocky relationship.” This means “We have always had a problematic or difficult relationship.” When applied to relationships, smooth is the opposite of rocky. So if you said, “We have always had a smooth relationship,” it would mean, “We have always had a good relationship without many problems.”

2. with ice. The “rocks” are ice cubes. In this sense, you normally only use “on the rocks” when referring to alcoholic beverages. It would sound a little funny to say, “I’ll have a Coke on the rocks.” (It isn’t wrong, but it sounds like you are trying to make a joke.)

There is a famous song from 1980 called, “Love on the Rocks” by Neil Diamond.

Love on the rocks
Ain't no surprise
Just pour me a drink,
And I'll tell you some lies
Got nothing to lose,
So you just sing the blues, all the time  

Gave me your heart, you gave me your soul
Then you left me alone here
With nothing to hold
Yesterday's gone
Now all I want is a smile  

First they say they want you
How they really need you
Suddenly you find you're out there
Walking in a storm  

And when they know they have you
Then they really have you
Nothing you can do or say,
You got to leave, just get away
We all know the song  

Love on the rocks
It ain't no big surprise
Just pour me a drink
And I'll tell you my lies
Yesterday 's gone
Now all I want is a smile.....

You can see that the song is playing on the double meaning of the phrase “on the rocks.” He is singing about a relationship that is “on the rocks,” but he also uses the phrase “pour me a drink” which is associated with “on the rocks” also.

Posted in Idioms, Video | Tags: music | No Comments »