In high school I was on a local quiz show as part of a team. When my teammate buzzed in on one question, he looked at me in a sudden panic and said, “Who painted Whistler’s Mother”?
I can never remember the name of the highway that connects 75 and 35 in my city. I used to end up saying: “You know that highway that runs right north of downtown? The one that connects 75 and 35?” It’s actually called Woodall Rodgers, but to me and everyone who knows me, it has now become the Samuel L. Jackson.
Technically, squid have two testicles and eight, er, whaddaya call 'em… ah… like legs, but they go on the other side… ar-something… arrppendages…? No, not that… armoires? Arachnids? Oh damn, I can’t remember!!
I had to buy a letter opener once, and I totally blanked on what it was called when I got to the store. I had to haltingly ask the clerk for “the long pointy thing, like you would stab someone with.” His bored expression never changed, and he never said a word, but he led me right to what I was looking for.
In a playoff round of a national high school quiz tournament, in response to a question about two characters made famous by being featured in Alice in Wonderland, a teammate buzzed in and answered “Tweedledum and…and…Tweedledim?”
I read books in English all the time, I work as a programmer so i’m writing in pseudo-english eight hours a day or more, as a result I sometimes can remember the word I’m trying to say in Spanish. This ends with exasperated and saying things like “como cuernos se dice “desktop” en español?” (how the heck do you say ‘Desktop’ in Spanish?)".
Spanish is my first language, but I think i’ve started to think in English…
I’ve a colleague from Ecuador, who speaks good English overall, but who would occasionally stumble over a word. I’d ask him what the word was in Spanish, and almost invariably, you could get the English word just by chopping off the -io at the end.
Is not true that troy pounds as a unit of trade is no longer recognized (and even outlawed in most places)? Meaning that an ounce of gold weighs less than an ounce of feathers (because troy ounces are still used) but a pound of gold weighs the same as a pound of feathers?
I’d never been to a particular bar and grill, but a person who invited me to go there with her told me what it was called. Later on I was telling someone at work about my plans for the weekend, and I was all, “We’re going to this bar, I don’t remember the name, but it has something to do with the color red. Something rouge, maybe? Possibly scarlet something?”
What she actually said was “In the spinny thing”, meaning the lazy susan. But what I heard her say was “In the skinny thing.” After a beat I thought, “Oh, she must mean the skinny cabinet next to the refrigerator.” So I looked there…and there it was.
Later I teased her for calling it “the skinny thing”, and she said, “That’s not what I said. I said ‘the spinny thing’.” “You mean the lazy susan?” “Yes, that’s it.” “Well, it wasn’t there, it was in the skinny cabinet. Right where I thought you said it was…” Weird, man.
I’ve told this story before, but I once had a conversation almost exactly like this. Sadly I hadn’t seen the skit at the time!
For some reason I’d mentioned that my uncle was an extra in the movie Logan’s Run, and had gotten the job because he was pale from working nights and thus looked right for a citizen of an underground city. My friend said “I saw some movie on the Sci-Fi Channel about an underground city, what was that called?”
Me: “It may have been Logan’s Run.” Her: “No, it wasn’t. It was about this underground city and everyone there was young, they’d kill you when you got too old.” Me: “That’s Logan’s Run.” Her: “It wasn’t Logan’s Run. Anyway, the main guy was about to be too old, so he was trying to escape.” Me: “That’s exactly what happens in Logan’s Run.” Her: “It wasn’t Logan’s Run. Mostly what I remember is everyone had these crystals on their bodies that changed colors as they got older, and that’s how they knew when you had to die.” Me: “THAT IS TOTALLY LOGAN’S RUN!” Her: “NO IT WASN’T! I’ve seen Logan’s Run, and this was different!”
She insisted that the movie she’d seen looked like a '90s production and not something older, and claimed the color-changing crystals were on the people’s foreheads instead of their hands. To this day I don’t know if she was conflating Logan’s Run with some other movie or if there’s a movie out there that’s a shameless rip-off of Logan’s Run. I initially thought maybe she’d seen a Sci-Fi Channel remake, but there doesn’t seem to have ever been any such thing.
I forgot the word for “tea-towel” today.
“You know … that thing … the piece of fabric … in the kitchen …” makes scrubbing gesture
“Tea-towel?”
“Yes! Where is it?”