One of the things some of us did on our own, without getting paid, was individual tutoring. During my term on the faculty at Highlands University, some dedicated students, usually Asians, wishing to “rap,” often visited me.

As members of the humanities faculty, we were often approached, the English language being our bit of expertise. Typically, those seeking tutoring weren’t even my regular students. And they didn’t come to me for a specific task; rather, as one put it, “We just want to ‘rap.’” “Rap,” the operative word, in vogue during the ‘80s and ‘90s, I was happy to do. Two chemistry students from China approached me with “Our English is terrible. Can you help us?”

The ground rules were that we’d, well, rap: no written assignments, no homework, just rapping, with twice-weekly visits following no particular agenda.

But one thing puzzling for any student hoping to master English is the plethora of idiomatic expressions peppering our language. During the first meeting, I realized I’d used a couple of expressions that they said once made no sense to them, terms we English speakers take for granted.

For example, I’d mentioned it was my turn “to fix dinner” that night. Immediately, one of the students asked whether something in our pantry was broken. “Why do Americans say ‘fix dinner’?”

She was correct. My son, Diego, who sat in on one of the sessions, had just returned from Mr. G’s, a downtown shoe store, and like some new-shoes buyers, chose to have the old pair placed in a box and the new Buster Browns on his feet. Diego said that the clerk had in fact asked him, “So you want to wear them out?”

You can see the ambiguity of such a question, whose response — “Yes, but I hope not for a year or two” — drew a chuckle from both the clerk and my Chinese students.

Most of the time, when I take liberties with expressions understandable to English-speakers, I get a glare. Often, the recipient of my attempts at humor will respond and — this part I love — turn the tables (yet another weird expression).

Here are some examples:

I thought my dad had reached his comedic peak years ago when we placed orders in a popular restaurant, the Home Cafe. Because the open-all-night eatery did a lot of take-out business, the checker asked whether the order was to eat in or carry out. “Both,” my dad answered. “We’ll eat it first, then carry it out.”

We use the expression “carry out a plan,” which does not mean we tote it in our tummy or backpack, but rather to execute it. And to “execute” has yet a different slant.

The restaurant exchange had been the funniest retort I’d heard in my youth, but the cashier was not amused, her glare validating her displeasure. I believe that many times people who resent others’ attempts at humor do so because 1) they didn’t think of it first or 2) they’re naturally morose or 3) they believe the laughter is directed at them. As we all know, when we are laughed at, we’re being belittled.

My favorite, when I order a salad, is to ask whether the chef pours the dressing on the salad or places it “on the side.” A few years back, I asked that of a new waiter at Dick’s. I believe he failed to grasp why I wanted the dressing in a separate container, rather than mixed into the salad. After I explained, he caught on, and — almost as if we’d rehearsed the lines — he said, “Oh, I see. You want to pour the dressing on yourself.” My son couldn’t let that revelation escape, adding, “Dad, you’d look funny with ranch dressing poured on your head.”

Over the semester in which we held regular “rap” sessions, my tutees became aware of several expressions — not just the idioms — that puzzle them. These expressions are so common that we tend to use them with no forethought.

What, for example, do “a chip on your shoulder,” “a drop in the bucket” or “a penny saved is a penny earned” mean to people who didn’t grow up with such usage?

We survived the tutoring, and they must’ve been satisfied, as the next semester, two different, very polite Asian students approached me with, “Our English is terrible. Can you help us?”

I fear the tone of this story might strike some as patronizing, as if I really believed their “English was terrible.” It was not. Their struggles were largely related to seeing words they knew, but in a context that required deciphering as to whether the expression was literal or figurative. Yet, their dedication was amazing; nobody ever missed a tutoring session.

Does English have the monopoly on confusing idioms? I’ve dabbled with both French and German and have found them rich in their own idioms.

And to that I say, “C’est tordu” (“That’s weird!”) or just plain “Ach!”

• • •

What is their problem?

My wife and I took her mother, our son and two grandchildren on a cemetery tour Sunday. We wanted to see the damage to the recently vandalized Jewish and adjoining cemeteries. We were all amazed by the wanton destruction; huge monuments don’t just blow over in the wind.

As we walked, for more than an hour around the graves that bear familiar names — Sundt, Ilfeld, Immerman, Nahm, Taichert, Regensberg, Levy, Stern and many others — we were saddened by the pointlessness of such desecration. Clearly, doing the damage had to have taken hours.

And for what? What kind of moral victory did the vandals gain? Did they go home, exuberant over their ability to knock over dozens of headstones that some of our friends had paid for, as reminders of their loved ones? Did the tumbling of memorials to human beings they might not have ever even known help to puff up the vandals’ egos?

We may never know, but as the five of us, representing four generations, left the cemeteries, the question that nagged us — and continues to haunt — is “why?”