You Know, I Don't Get It, Either

While Zhuo and I were waiting for the completion of the incubation of the DNA-lipofectamine complexes, he asked if I liked two other people in the lab, Cherry and Vivian (a post-doc whose Chinese name I don't know). The three of them sit in the same vicinity, and are the people I know best, seeing as they are all under Dr. Yu's guidance.

'Do you think they are cool?' Zhuo asked.
'Yes, I think they are very cool,' I said.
'Yeah, they don't like to talk to talk very much because they are scared their English is bad. And how do you say it, I think they are shy?'

I was wondering why he was trying to justify their behavior, because I thought they were very likeable folks.

'I think they are very nice and very cool,' I said.

Zhuo look confused.

'So which one is it?' he asked.
'Both,' I said, realizing as the words came out of my mouth that he meant cool as a bad thing.

'Ohhh,' I said. 'Zai Meiguo, 'cool' you hao de yisi.' (In America, 'cool' has a good conontation.)

He looked thoroughly confused, as did Ping who was sitting at the hood behind us performing experiments.

Zhuo said he thought cool was a bad thing, and if someone said that, it possessed a negative connotation, as if that person was too good to be bothered with anyone else.

And then I thought about it. 'We say 'cold.' 'Cool' is good, 'cold' is bad.'

But then I thought about it again, and in some instances we also say 'cool' for someone aloof or standoffish.

They both looked lost, and I can't blame them. I didn't even really understand. I guess you never really think twice about how completely counterintuitive our slang is until you have to actually explain it to a student of the language.

'So cool is good, cold is bad?' Zhuo asked.

I said yes, even though at this point I wasn't even sure anymore. No wonder non-natives have trouble learning English. It doesn't even make sense to me. Stupid slang.