I’m sure we’ve all done it. Someone says something, or the radio or television is going and we’re barely paying attention, when passes a phrase that you thought you heard differently, and sounded absolutely wrong in context, possibly with amusing or embarassing results.
As an example, as I was responding to a thread while the TV was going about its business in the background when a public service ad for the prevention of meningococcal meningitis came on. Except when the female voiceover said “meningococcal meningitis” I heard “Ninja cockle meningitis.” Ninja cockles! With meningitis! I have no idea what that is but it sounds painful.
So fess up. What haven’t you heard properly lately?
Oh God. I was telling a friend about how some guy at the bar had been groping me under the table, and she said something like, “Whatever happened to holding hands?” My response: “What the fuck is “the Holy Hand”? Is that what they call it nowadays?”
It’s become our euphemism for… well, you get the picture.
This anecdote has become firmly ensconced in family lore.
When my sister had a job as a hotel switchboard operator, someone phoned in a bomb threat. After notifying the police, she went to a member of the custodial staff and said to him, rather quietly, “We’ve recieved a phone call saying there is a bomb in the stairwell. We need to move people out of the building without causing a panic.”
The man, who was evidently hard of hearing, responded rather loudly, “WHAT’S THAT YOU SAY? THERE’S A BOBCAT IN THE STAIRWELL??? I"VE NEVER HEARD OF A BOBCAT GETTING INTO A STAIRWELL!”
Now, when one of us garbles something that we’ve misheard, the correct response is, “Bobcat in the stairwell.”
My brother and another guy had to bring a water pump to a construction site. In Spanish, the words for pump and bomb are the same and we live in an area with terrorist activity. Also, we put adjectives behind names, so our construction would be “pump for water” and not “water pump”.
They got stopped by police at a routine checkup point. One cop stands a bit far, hand over the little curved bar that protects the trigger of his semi; the other one asks the driver what are they carrying.
Driver: “Ah, I’m going to say it kind of funny, ok? It’s for water. A pump for water. For. Water. OK?”
Cop: “water out of the ground kind, uh?”
Driver: “yessir”
That’s one misunderstanding we’re very happy got safely avoided.
My older son(then 9) asked me is we were going to have Alfredo noodles for dinner. The preschooler looked at his brother and said, “Rob, you afraid of noodles?”
Of course it’s called Afraida Noodles around here now.
The father of one of my friends was telling me about the time he saw a car pull up alongside a pedestrian, who was beckoned to the window whereupon he leaned down to look in and a FISH flew from the window, striking him in the face and knocking him to the ground.
I was just about to ask *'What do you mean? What kind of fish?", when it dawned on me that the word in question was actually ‘fist’.
We live in Rhode Island, among lots of Portuguese people and the Portuguese words for Grandma and Grandpa kind of tickle my husband and me - in a good way. So, we thought we’d start referring to my mom as Avó, which our local Portuguese friends pronounce “Va-Vaw”.
Well, anyway, my mom comes walking up to us and my husband says “oh, here comes Avó!” My mom was all insulted that he called her “the whore”.
My goddaughter is named Teaghan (pronounced “Tee-gan”) and has always been a sweet, but very reserved little girl. Imagine her mother’s surprise to hear disco music playing and peek in the room to see her little sweetie dancing around like a madwoman, arms wide, spinning around and around and singing along at the top of her lungs:
We’ve never told her the real lyrics, because she is our little Dancing Queen. To this day the song makes me smile, and I hear it as “Teaghan”.
A few months back, I heard Moon Unit (9 year old daughter) ask Typo Knig why people had sex on their honeymoons. :eek: ::::
When I questioned him a few minutes later, he explained that I’d misheard - my daughter had actually asked “why do people have second and third honeymoons?”.
My spouse’s answer, “Because they can!”, actually worked well with either interpretation
Y’know, that would have made a much better ad than what was actually on.
“Ninja Cockle Meningitis. It strikes without warning. It is almost impossible to detect, even harder to kill, and is usually fatal. If you are experiencing swelling or discomfort in your cockles, consult your doctor immediately.”
When I was young there was an organization called RIF – Reading Is Fundamental.
Whenever they had an ad on Saturday morning I head it as “reading is fun to mentals”.
I was kind of surprised that they would refer to mentally handicapped people in that way, and it didn’t seem like a ringing endorsement for reading either.
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