Talking to a girl in college it somehow came about that she really liked corn. She asked me if I liked corn. Well…sure! “Awesome!” she said, flashing me the devil horns and nodding in understanding. “Wow,” I thought “she’s really into corn. Cool!”
Yeah, she was talking about the band.
On a somewhat similar note, as a kid I told people that I was born in the Middle East - which I thought was an accurate geographical description of Virginia.
My husband is from Switzerland. When you say goodbye to people, whether on the phone or in person, you have to say it, in slightly different ways, at least 4 times. This gives the impression that you are very sorry to be leaving them and are lingering as long as you can. Sincerity is optional, but you have to at least pretend to want to stay longer. So a normal Swiss farewell goes like this. “Goodbye Andrea! Hope to see you soon. Farewell! So long darling. Andrea, it was great spending time with you. Cheers my love. Bye bye.” Then you can possibly leave.
This of course is never explained, just assumed. I insulted my in-laws several times by ending a phone call with, “Great talking with you Andrea, good bye.” (hang up). It was a slap in the face to them, being so eager to get off the phone. It took a while to repair relations, and for my husband to explain that Americans are just more business-like about good-byes.
nm
Growing up in the 60’s and 70’s in suburban America, we didn’t have have food delivered like you would in a big city. Domino’s was just spreading across the country in the late 70’s and early 80’s, and when I moved to Atlanta, GA in 1981, I was 19 and sophisticated.
I would work in my garage restoring cars as a hobby every night, and call Domino’s for a pizza about 5 nights a week. Back then, a pie was about 5 bucks & change, and I would always tell the driver “keep the change”. Wow. 48 cents. Thanks, dude.
It never occurred to me to tip the driver. :smack: Sure, I knew what tipping was, but that’s for restaurants and bellhops. Eventually, my girlfriend set me straight, and I began tipping the delivery driver.
What a maroon.
See, this is going to be me in a couple of months. First time in the US and I don’t know the etiquette of tipping. Mind you, isn’t 10% a reasonable tip for that time?
Everyone has their habits, but for delivery tips I don’t use a percentage, I go with a flat amount. Minimum three dollars just for coming at all, and up from there depending how much stuff it is/how many people are eating. In a sitdown restaurant, 20% of the total bill for me.
In the late 70’s / early 80’s, ten percent was an adequate (barely) tip on a restaurant meal, but not for delivery.
I guess this kind of fits in here, I heard a while back there was a new movie coming out called “Django Unchained”. Knowing nothing else but the title, I assumed it was about Django Reinhardt, and high time, or so I thought. I haven’t seen the movie yet, but my children assure me, it’s not about him. 
I’ve been pretty fortunate most of my life to have steered clear of cultural catastrophes. As a kid though I had my fair share.
Moving from the UK to Canada isn’t that terribly different, but it was different enough that I had a few adaptation issues.
The first time I played baseball during recess I barehanded a grounder from roughly the second base position with people yelling “Throw the ball! Throw the ball!” which I did. The guy running to first base wasn’t too pleased when I nailed him in the skull with it.
Same thing with my first attempts at hockey. I was a terrible skater, not having learned that skill first, and soon found out you couldn’t just grab the puck and throw a pass to your teammates as you flopped on the ice.
Oh, the first time traveling in the US as a kid I thought restrooms were places where tired travelers went to take a nap before hitting the road again.
My sister was convinced that the national anthem which begins (Oh, Canada. Our home and native land) was “Oh Canada. Are oh men oh to flen.” And that’s the way I sang it for months. I doubt anyone noticed though.
Last week, my friend brought some visiting Germans to our run club. We were getting along fine and discussing the weekend race that we had all run. They mentioned a bridge near the end that was difficult for everyone, and one emphasized its steepness by raising his hand in front of his chest, in a kind of saluting motion. I laughed then said “yeah, to me it felt like THIS!” and extended my right arm fully in front of me at a high angle, palm down.
So there I was, giving what looks like the Nazi salute to three Germans. They were kind enough to roll with it and didn’t say anything. My Jewish friend laughed at me when I told her about it later.
I felt like Basil Fawlty. “Listen, don’t mention the war. I mentioned it once, but think I got away with it.”
I went to high school in a heavily Korean neighborhood. Many of my female friends would frequently refer to a male friend as “Oppa.” I thought that must have been his Korean name. So I decided to be cool one day and said, “Hey, Oppa!” This caused all the Koreans in the vicinity to bust out laughing at the sight of a white girl casually calling a Korean boy “big brother.”
In Spain, I made a bit of a cultural faux-paus when I drank from a wineskin that was being passed around the table during Christmas lunch. Apparently, this is only something men do!
I also encountered the common preservative/preservativo mix-up: I assured my roommate that the open package of hotdogs was probably still good to eat, because hotdogs have a lot of condoms in them.
I am often so clueless in the culture I was raised in, that I tremble at the thought of international travel.
I was in basic training in IDF, and my Hebrew, though adequate, was not perfect at that time, especially my knowledge of slang. During one forced march, close to the end, when I was falling-down tired, stumbling along, one of the guys in my platoon grabbed my arm to keep me from falling, and shouted in my ear “Tachzik maamad, akhooi”. Well, “tachzik maamad” is “hang in there”. But the “akhooi” I didn’t take well, considering that it sounded like he was calling me a “dick” in Russian (there were enough Russians around in Israel at the time that you could hear Russian spoken often and Hebrew does have quite a few Russian swear words in it). I got mad, but couldn’t do anything about it at the time.
A bit later I remembered and told a friend about it. He told me that “akhooi” means “my brother” in Aramaic, and is used in Hebrew slang with that meaning. Boy was I glad I kept my mouth shut back then.
Heh. When I was a kid, and we went out for dinner, I was allowed to get an entree and a glass of milk. That was it. When I was ~16 our French class went to the CIA for a French lunch and there I encountered the dessert tray for the first time. Someone said “I’ll have the <whatever>” and I thought “Hmm, what happens if someone else wanted that? I guess I need to choose from what’s left”. So my faux pas was to go ahead and try to be helpful, and take the dessert from the tray to pass to the orderer. :smack: I figure it was the CIA – they need to learn how to handle weirdos like me. 
Thank you all for making me feel better
This one is extremely embarrassing.
In high school I played in marching and symphonic band (trumpet and cornet). Someone invited me to participate in the weekly Jazz Band session. I’d never been to this, and was PROFOUNDLY ignorant of jazz.
So we’re playing along, on pieces I was totally unfamiliar with, and I notice that there’s a huge “rest” marked between two measures with “52” written above, and I think “Thant’s an awful long rest. Why did they do that?”
We hit that speed bump, and the guys around me are continuing to play. And it’s not anything that’s written on the music charts. I literally had no idea about what jazz was or the mechanics of writing it down.
If you’re aqs clueless as me – this was point at which we were suipposed to be improvising.
Yeah, some of my friends had trouble grasping the concept of NYC food delivery.
When I first moved to NYC, I had a couple friends from home come visit. We were pretty hungover the next morning from drinking all night. So my friend is like “ugh…what are the odds of someone just walking in here and giving us food?”
I’m like “Dude. This is New York. The odds are like 100%. There’s a stack of take-out menus right behind you.”
Here’s my contribution. I was in middle school and one of my friends across the street was Jewish.
He came by and asked what I was doing that night and I told him we were going to a barbecue and he should come along.
He politely declined and I kept on and on about “C’mon man, it’s really good! You should come!”. :o
I’m still ignorant of most religions… 
Gah! I just did something yesterday.
I was re-inking my ink pad at work and one of my coworkers came to talk to me. She had a huge, black smear on her forehead and I said “heh, you look like you’ve had an accident with your ink pad!”
Yesterday was apparently Ash Wednesday. :smack:
I love it!