This is the Ringworld character.
These are the Steely Dan lyrics.
Other than both containing “Wu” they don’t really match up. But I was reading the Ringworld series at the same time I was listening to the then-new Steely Dan album, and I really wanted them to connect.
My freshman year dorm had a woman named “Mee.” That caused me all sorts of confusion for a few days until I figured it out. John and Mee are going to BK for dinner. I was thinking of joining them. Wanna come with? Huh? What is going on?!?
Heh…don’t forget The Simpsons!
In Louis Wu’s time, since boosterspice extends human life to hundreds of years, it is not uncommon for a person to have quite a number of different professions over the years.
So he could well have been ‘Dr Wu’ for a while.
Rather like Lazarus Long in the Heinlein book.
Where the hell is my boosterspice??
Thank you, this thought pleases me.
During a school play rehearsal, one of my classmates forgot her line, so (per theater protocol) she shouted “Line!” to the director. Unfortunately, the line she had forgotten was “What?”.
A few minutes later, it happened again - except this time, the line was “No!”.
This is how it should work: Three men freeze to death in a friend's backyard and aren't found for three days - #295 by silenus
LOVED that.
Heard an interview recently on NPR of a doctor whose last name was Wokter. Doctor Wokter.
The interview lasted about 20 minutes, and the interviewer had to address the person as Dr. Wokter several times. She didn’t giggle once. She must have practiced a LOT to get that out of her system.
Did the interviewer happen to say “Dr. Wokter, gimme the news.”
I’m guessing it was Dr. Wachter.
“Can’t you see I’m burning, worning…”
When I was a kid, my family was in downtown Cleveland, and my dad was taking us to a restaurant. I asked the name of the place, and heard “Who cares?” in response. I kept asking why he wouldn’t reveal the name of the place, and continued to receive the same answer. When we finally arrived, I saw the big neon sign, and the light went on, so to speak.
Just a few days ago, some prospective buyers of the four-unit building in which I reside were checking out my apartment, and noticed my dog. “What’s his name, and what kind of dog is he?” “Ishi.” Before I could explain further, I received the apology. “Sorry, what kind of dog is SHE?” “No, his name is Ishi, short for Ishmael. He’s a rescue who was purported to be a Papillon, but is actually a Pomeranian-Maltese-poodle mix, at least according to a DNA test.”
Tech support is on the phone with a customer in Canada:
Tech support: Press ctrl-a to bring up [some menu].
Customer: I pressed ctrl, eh. Nothing happened, eh.
Reminds me that there was a restaurant in my town called My Brother’s Place. Confusion ensued.
For confusion over places, it’s hard to beat this little corner of Porter’s Lake, Nova Scotia, where directions to your house might be “Turn right onto This Street and then left onto That Street. If you get to The Other Street you’ve gone too far and will have to turn around.”
Edit: the link preview moves the location I’m linking slightly, you’ll have to look a couple blocks south.
We have one here in Portland called “My Brother’s Crawfish”. We get the same sort of confusion.
There’s a beach off the coast of New Hampshire named Weir’s Beach. Nothing remarkable about that if you’re familiar with it.
Once my family, long-time NH residents, was driving along the NH coast along with our houseguests from Maryland. There was a sign for Weir’s Beach, and my dad, just thinking out loud, absent-mindedly made a note of it, saying, “Ah, Weir’s Beach!”
One of the guests responded, pointing to the ocean, “there’s the beach.” My dad responded, “yeah, of course, Weir’s Beach.” Leading to a rather frustrated response from the guest, “there’s the beach!”
It took three or four repeats of this dialog before everyone figured out what was going on.
One of my middle school plays was Our Miss Brooks, a play about a school class who are putting on a play. During an actual performance, one of my fellow thespians forgot her line. The line she forgot was “I’ve forgotten my lines!”.
The director, who was also an English teacher, said that he had to invent an entirely new category of literary irony for it.
The coast of New Hampshire is only 11 miles long. It’s not like they ran out of better names for beaches.