Overheard by me today: "The only rule in this class is ‘No humping’ ".
This made perfect sense in context (which didn’t stop several people nearby from giggling). If you can guess what sort of class it was, I’ll give you a gold star.
What things have you heard that would get a :dubious: from someone who wasn’t there?
There’s a program at work called HEAT (HTML Editing something something), which I’m fairly sure was named that just so people would have conversations like “Wait, are you in HEAT when you’re doing this?” and “I don’t think she’s ready to be in HEAT.”
At a company I used to work for, there was a position called Regional Inventory Manager. Several inventory specialists worked for the RIM.
One day I heard one of these specialists expressing her desire to eventually move up in the company. But, she explained, “I wouldn’t want the RIM job. It’s too stressful.”
This is a simple matter of terminology differences between countries, but it’s a story I’ve always loved to tell.
In 9th grade, we had a science teacher who came from England. One morning she cheerfully began by saying “Well, class, we’re having an examination today, so I hope you’ve all brought your pencils and your rubbers!”
Not just giggling, but much snickering and some outright guffawing followed.
I had a friend from England who enjoys telling the story of the time she went to Staples on a search for rubbers - then couldn’t find them, and loudly asked an employee where they’d be. She couldn’t understand why he kept trying to direct her to the Walgreens across the street.