It was hot and no electric windows in my car. When I picked up a friend from the airport, today-- he flew in from Taiwan.-- I asked him to crack the window a little and he looked at me strangely and asked, “are you sure?” and I said, “ohhh hell yeah!” so he rams his elbow into the window!!! “WTF are you doing!!!” I said, he said, “just what you asked me to do!” :smack:
So what other slang should I avoid with this guy, during his summer visit???
I’m still not sure what you meant originally by “crack the window”. I’m assuming you meant something along the lines of “open it a crack”.
Well, I hope when y’all figgered it out you dint say “<sigh> Just shoot me…”
You assume correctly. To “crack” something means to open it slightly.
To the OP, I must protest your use of quotation marks. You really asked him to “crack” the window, he tried to crack it.
Must be an American idiom; I am quite familiar with it.
I’m not familar with the idiom at all, but I’d have probably have asked “what, you mean open it a crack?”, rather than assume I was to deliberately effect damage.
I recommend that you try to refrain from exclaiming “Well, fuck me!”
Don’t play Blackjack with the guy. 
Take him to shoot kids playing football with a camcorder.
Minor hijack: There’s an old urban legend about the tragic use of phrasal verbs. As the story goes, a cockpit black box tape recording taken from a foreign airliner that crashed into the side of a mountain has the air traffic controller yelling, ‘pull up!’ with the last words of the pilot asking his cabin mates, ‘what does this “pull up” mean?’
For summer, steer clear of the following:
> If you want to avoid kitchen fires, be careful recommending they ‘toast some marshmallows’.
> Beach activities such as ‘wind-surfing’ and ‘skinny dipping’ will probably result in a blank stare.
> ‘Labor Day’ celebrations have nothing to do with working - or giving birth.
> Keep your anger under control - Avoid using ‘Go fuck yourself’ & ‘Eat shit’.
> Hide all umbrellas before suggesting they ‘bring the sun block’.
If they’re playing football with my camcorder, you’re damn right I’ll shoot them
The UL has the facts munged a bit, but this is based on a real event.
(from http://www.md80.net/yabbse/index.php?PHPSESSID=49c30240e500d733dff41ac6d8907682&topic=78.msg235)
This site also has the above incident (with less details) plus incidents of many other communication problems that resulted in disaster:
http://www.airlinesafety.com/editorials/BarriersToCommunication.htm
HAHAHA!!! these are too funny! And I’m sure if I tried to sit him down and explain why they’re funny, the guy will give me a blank stare! 