A couple of years ago my husband and I were living in D.C. I ended up having to go to the local emergency room. The E.R. doc was baffled by my health insurance which was Blue Cross of Washington and Alaska. He finally asked me where I was from, when I told him Seattle he said “Oh. Well, I geuss that is close to Alaska.” I was in too much pain to even try to give him a basic geography lesson.
I once met a tourist in Shakespeare’s birthplace who couldn’t understand why everything looked so old when it “only” dated from the reign of Elizabeth I.
After a long and somewhat pained conversation, it emerged that she thought monarchs with the same name came consecutively in chronological order, so Henry VIII was immediately after Henry VII, who was immediately after Henry VI, and so on. It therefore followed that Elizabeth I was on the throne until 1952.
A fresh-out-of-college co-worker and I were talking about places we’d like to visit, and I mentioned India. She said, “Oh, I’d love to go to India! They don’t have wars there, right?”
That said, I have to confess that I’m 29 years old and up till about 8 months ago didn’t know how to order from a drive-through restaurant. It just never came up before. So I pull right up to the window and start going “Hello? I’d like to order!” I hadn’t noticed the mike on the menu board.:o My mother always said I’m an absent-minded professor.
On the same note as one of the first replies–I was talking to a girl, about WWII, and I was saying how Winston Churchill’s statue was electrified to keep off pigeons.
“Churchill… Who?”
“You know, Prime Minister of Britain, leader of the british…”
“No, actually I’d never heard of him.”
She hasn’t lived it down yet (it was in grade 8, but we WERE in the AcTal (Academically Talented) class.
Well, I’m doing pretty good so far, only missed a few, but I always get old time celebrities confused anyway. Well, I had a ::cough couhgh:: friend, and well, my friend, NOT me, didn’t realize until this year that girls wiped every time, whether it was a #1 or a #2. He just didn’t bother to consider that girls can’t “shake.” But luckily it didn’t come up embarassingly. Phew.
I got in a arguement with a friend of mine, trying to convince him that no, your bellybutton can’t come unknotted and your guts will fall out if you play with it too much, and yes, it is a scar.
I’ll keep posting if I think of more.
whew
You have no idea how much of a relief it is to hear that.
I just had Shpherd’s Pie made with beef!! WTF?? Do American shepherds herd flocks of cows? Do they have cow dogs?
They’re called Cowboys, and they drive herds of cows. Yes, they use cattle dogs. Wonderful dogs – crosses between Border Collies and Dingo’s (IIRC). They are called ‘Blue Heelers’, after their tactics. They nip at the heels of the cattle to move them.
BTW, if you are in Europe, you may soon see a lot of conglomerate type foods made with beef, due to BSE. Cheaper ingredients, you know.
Wait a minute. Say that again. BSE is going to cause foods to be made with beef? Because the beef will be cheaper? Or am I reading you wrong?
I’ve only read through the first two pages of this so far, but I had a great one happen just today.
Coworker A mentioned that he had a CD that was made in England. Coworker B asked how he played it, since they’d have to record it differently somehow, because Europe uses that “other electricity - 220 something.” I was still blinking at that one when coworker C asked what on earth she meant by that. We explained that you have to have adapters when you go to Europe to deal with the different voltages, etc, etc. Her response? “That’s dumb. Why do they do it that way?”
I sarcastically pointed out that they also drive on the wrong side of the road, which elicited this gem: “Well, that’s different. That’s their problem.” Apparently, the different voltages, OTOH, dramatically affect our daily lives, though she had never been aware of it until today.
Ouch.
Okay, I have a couple of good ones.
When I was in high school my sisters and I (we are triplets) were getting on the bus, down those narrow little isles, and this idiot boy Made this joke “Oh, look the are like three little ducklings, all in a row.” To which I replied, “Oh you are so witty.” He then spent the rest of the ride saying " Oh you are sssoo witty." in a mocking tone. Finally at the very end when we were getting off the bus he turned to me and said, I swear to God, “What does ‘witty’ mean anyway?” I nearly died, I was laughing so hard. I then patiently defined it for him.
Another good one is when I was talking to my boyfriend about when I was born and I said that I had been born by C-section, and he then asked “Your sisters too?” Note that i am a triplet. It was pretty funny. It took him about two seconds to realize how stupid THAT question was.
Well? Don’t keep us in suspense. Were they?
But it can be SO much fun to watch them try…
When I was a kid of 8 or 9, my sister and cousin taunted my brother and me by saying, “You slumber in your sleep.” “Nah, nah, nah, you slumber in your sleep!” We went crying to Mom and Dad and told them Diane and Bruce said we slumbered in our sleep! After they picked themselves up off the floor from where they landed from laughing so hard, they patiently explained to us that slumber actually means sleep.
Not that stupid, actually; there are many examples of multiple births where the first child is born vaginally, but there is difficulty getting the next out, so they do an emergency C-section.
What? You mean it comes out where they pee? Ewwwwww…
The post I was replying to mentioned shepards pie made of beef. I’m speculating that ‘conglomerate’ type foods may be more likely to be made with cheaper ingredients. By ‘conglomerate’ foods I mean dishes with meat, where the meat is not readily recognizable visually. Shepards pie, lasagna, goulash, soups, TV dinners, whatever.
The whole theme of this thread is what some people don’t know. I’m betting that the makers of prepared foods know that many consumers who avoid the butcher’s counter won’t think twice about buying cheap meat pies. These are the same people who didn’t make the connection between cows and steaks in the first place.
I believe the price differential makes all this inevitable. Unless there are strict labeling laws (this product contains beef, and may be contaminated with BSE), it’s likely that beef will end up in all kinds of products that rely on cheap animal protein. And certain that people will gamble on the tiny chance of infection to save a buck.
These aren’t TOO bad; at least, not as bad as some of the ones previously posted, but…
A (fellow Chicago-native) friend was having dinner with my folks and me during the World Series where they presented the 100 greatest baseball players. Cy Young was announced, and my friend turned to me and said, “Cy Young was a person?” My dad looked at her incredulously and said, “Were you born in America?”
Same person: While in a chat room, we asked a fellow chatter where she lived. When we saw her response, my friend asked me, “Where’s Tuck-sun?” She meant Tucson, AZ.
I hope she doesn’t read this.
Now, this doesn’t directly relate to what you have said,(nor is it directly related to the OP.) but you seem to have a fair bit of knowledge about BSE. BSE is not transferred to people through regular beef products, like steak. But, through beef-by-products such as brain. Correct?
That is the understanding I had from an NPR radio report. Is this true? Is this new knowledge? If it isn’t new, it seems like the media has not reported the entire story, because before that report I was under the impression that actual steak would spread the disease. (Perhaps, that is something that would put me into this thread. :))
Also, as far as labelling goes, I have read that starting Sep 1, 2000. European beef was to be labelled, does this not refer to beef that is inside food such as Sheperd’s Pie?
pat
I read somewhere (a pathology text, I think) that U.S. 120V household voltage is about the most dangerous voltage that could be devised: strong enough to kill you, but not strong enough to produce the knockback effect that sometimes saves people who touch higher voltages.
I have no idea if this has anything to do with why higher voltages are used in Europe.