What was probably being referred to was the word “humorous,” which is NOT a specifically Cananadian spelling, where “humourous” would be.
So, in other words, nothing.
Oops, or maybe it was “the University,” being that Canadians don’t talk about “going to college,” but “going to university.” Even so, “the University” implies (to me) a use of “university” as a specific place, rather than a concept of a place…so the answer is still “nothing.”
And psychomonkey had already used the word “college” anyway.
I was walking home one night with my ex-roommate (who is a very, very smart person in nonmathematical, nonscientific matters, by the way, and I’m not just saying this because she reads the boards):
Ex-roomie: That’s a three-quarters moon, isn’t it?
Me: Yes.
X-R: You’ve been to Europe a lot, what do they call a three-quarters moon over there?
Me: :: blank stare ::
X-R: I mean, they can’t call it a three-quarters moon, right? Because of the metric system.
Me: Er, no, you can have quarters of things in the metric system.
X-R: Well then, why do they call a quarter-pounder with cheese a “Royale with Cheese”?
I asked a few more questions and discovered that she thought you always had to use decimals with the metric system and fractions with “English” measurements – that they somehow went together. Unfortunately, I suspect a lot of people emerge from American schools with this impression.
Should have told her it was a “.75 moon.” 
I’ve told this story before, but it never ceases to make me smile:
My coworker was ( still is) a very intelligent person, but there was a glitch in the Matrix when she said this:
" My parents are looking for a cell phone to take with them in the RV in case of emergencies. I told them, why don’t you just take the cordless phone with you instead."
Her family has never let her live it down.
(Oh, and thanks for the link to the Ino, Jerry Lewis -Jerry Lee Lewis post. Classic.)
And, until not long ago, I never knew what three-quarters or a third meant when used in polls. Math is not my forte.
My husband patiently had to show me in a quick diagram.
No, it’s 75 centimoons.
There are towns in Tennessee named Moscow, Milan, Bolivar, Bogota, etc. (Pronounced all to hell.) A coworker when I worked in Tennessee went to Alaska for a vacation. When she came back, after she finished enthusing about the natural beauty, she added, “But it’s really funny how many towns in Alaska are named after towns in Tennessee.” I suggested that they might both have been named after older cities, like Milan. She gave me a long bovine stare and asked, “What’s Milan named after?”
Not exactly what the OP was looking for, but probably close enough …
Some years ago I belonged to a group of 6-10 middle managers that ate lunch together most days. I was the (slightly) senior member and quasi alpha dog of the informal group.
One of the younger ones was a 23-year old true blonde from a small town in Texas. Sweet as could be and with all the brains and sophistication and education of a 10-year old. This despite having a 4-year degree in a sensible major from a readily recognizable college in Texas. She was (in)famous for her naivete, which bordered on criminal stupidity. Sweet though, very sweet. Her Texas ack-SAAAY-ent was especially endearing as we were on the West Coast.
One day at lunch we were all discussing sailing on the nearby lake and the idea of speeds measured in “knots” came up. She asked what that was, and I explained (sloowly) that “knots” means nautical miles per hour and that a nautical mile was the unit of distance for boats and it was 15% longer than a regular land mile like in your car. She said “Okaaay …”, her internal wheels obviously spinning at max RPM without getting much traction.
The conversation moved on to other topics and about 5 minutes later she announced in that big child voice of hers: “Oooh, I get it!”. Everyone froze; this promised to be real humdinger.
After 15 pregnant seconds of silence I gently asked, “OK, Lisa, what do you get?”
She said “I know why the boat miles are longer than the car miles!”
“Why’s that, Lisa?”
“Because out in the ocean there are big waves and while the boat’s going up the waves it slides backwards some. So the extra 15% takes care of that.”
I nearly pissed my pants. Somebody else at the table was unwise enough to take a drink just as she started to answer. Soda everywhere.
I left that job a year or so later; I sometimes wonder whatever happened to her.
Water boils at 212 F. I am always amazed how many people don’t know this. (Don’t write back nitpicking about how it would be different at the top of a mountain–that’s not what’s going on when people say, “Uhmmm… 150?”
Water boils at 212 F. I am always amazed how many people don’t know this. (Don’t write back nitpicking about how it would be different at the top of a mountain–that’s not what’s going on when people say, “Uhmmm… 150?”)
I’m amazed that people don’t know how to prevent double postings…I’m totally joking, don’t get mad
A couple things:
Bowling will never be “smart”, even if the bowling lane has a Frenchish/exotic name, they take out full-page ads in Town and Country and Cindy Adams writes it up breathlessly in her column. End of discussion.
Bowling will never be smart? I think that is the point. Drinking, smoking, eating greasy foods and wearing someone else’s shoes.
The last true undiluted American Past Time. 
An American friend of mine was quite astonished at the notion that there’s more than one Irish accent
Like Baker’s predicament, when we moved back to the US, Papa Tiger went through Guam just to renew his Guamanian driver’s license so he’d have a valid US license so he wouldn’t have to do all the testing and stuff. So he comes into the Columbia County, GA driver’s license bureau with a license that has “United States of America” across the top, and ended up having to persuade the woman helping him to call headquarters in Atlanta to verify that, yes, Guam IS part of the U.S.
Have you ever noticed that New Mexico license plates these days say “New Mexico, USA”? I understand they got tired of being taken for a foreign country!
I think there’s actually the germ of an insight there, albeit an insight totally unrelated to the actual problem being discussed… but if you imagine drawing the surface of the ocean from the side, it would look like a sine wave. And if there were miles and miles of sine wave, a very small boat that had to keep going up and down the waves would end up travelling further, as measured by (for instance) revolutions of its propellor, than a boat sailing along smooth water.
Which of course has nothing to do with knots vs. nautical miles vs. miles
I got one.
A while ago I studied abroad in New Zealand with a bunch of other Americans. One day we were eating lunch in a park and watching cows walk lazily up and down a hillside, and it reminded me of this story:
Me: “Heh. This one time, my friend’s uncle convinced her cousin that there was a special breed of California Hill Cow whose legs were shorter on one side of its body, so it wouldn’t fall off steep hills.”
A girl at the table pipes up “But there are actually cows like that!”
Me: 
Her: “Yeah! That old Maori guy the other day was telling me about them!”
Me: “He was kidding. There’s no breed of cow that has legs of two different lengths.”
A couple minutes of her insisting there is such an animal pass.
Her: “But they could EVOLVE that way…”
City slickers. For a moment there I thought this was going to end with one of us walking into a library and finding a book on cows.
Maybe she was thinking of a haggis. They have one set of legs shorter than the other, which lets them run around the mountain tops very fast and makes them hard to catch.