I went to high school with a young man from Liverpool. He once related a stort of his Scottish grandfather visiting, and at dinner, speaking in an incomprehensible burr. In order to not appear i,polite, the family would make vague sounds of agreement whenever he spoke. What was mysterious was that he became progressively more agitated as the meal continued.
Finally, he slapped his hand against the table top and said, as distinctly as he was able: “Would ye all stop yer mutterin’ and pass the damn butter?”
Or that a lot of people who use wheelchairs actually can walk a little. They just walk with pain, or exhaustion, or are in danger of falling and not being able to get back up. I’m amused when a certain friend of mine gets up and steps from her chair to a chair at a restaurant, or stands briefly to get something from a shelf in a store. People actually audibly gasp sometimes.
A lot of people in Indiana think that the word “Baptist,” the denomination, is spelled “Babtist,” and cannot be convinced otherwise.
I get asked a lot if Jews still sacrifice animals in synagogues.
People also frequently ask me if Deaf people are allowed to drive, then, as a follow-up question, if they can park in handicapped parking spaces.
A guidance counselor at my high school put a new student from South Africa in remedial English, because the counselor didn’t know people from South Africa speak English.
I think I’ve posted it on the boards here before, but it’s worth repeating.
I was talking with my college-bound cousin and one of her friends, so they were both probably 17 or 18 years old. I asked my cousin if she had thought about what her major would be.
She replied “I’m not sure, but probably something in the liberal arts”.
Her friend turns, jaw agape, and says “You mean, like, karate?”
I once went into a doughnut place and ordered a dozen of them. The counter person asked me what “a dozen” was, so I helpfully filled her in on the facts, then left with my 24 doughnuts.
Continuing on the list of “teachers who shouldn’t have been”, my 6th grade math teacher. We had to memorize a demo for the first time; those of us with analytical mindsets were having serious trouble with it. I asked “how do I know what the next step is, other than ‘just learn it’? There has to be some reason it’s that step and not another one!”
Her answer: “stop trying to look for logic. There is no logic in mathematics.”
“Spain? Ah, yes, right next to Colombia!” (at least he got that there is a relationship with a Colomb-something)
being threatened with calling the cops on me for having a Visa type which was not in a rentacop-turned-receptionist’s list (the list included H-1A and H-1B, but those are different pathways to get the same type of visa, an H-1)
that banker who insisted that foreigners can’t have US SSNs and if I did have one then I was an American citizen
that HR person who was surprised to find out that people get different SSNs from the SSs of different countries,
a Spaniard-born-in-Venezuela coworker who almost got thrown to the floor by our simultaneous responses of “that’s a movie, you idiot!” after claiming that the moon landings were faked
a Spanish property agent who tried to apply sales law to a rental, and
several agents (multiple nationalities, or at least calling from different countries) who have told me that a Dutch company cannot hire the services of a non-Dutch one.
Obama DID tell NASA director Charles Bolden that improving the self-esteem of Muslims ranked among NASA’s highest priorities. That strikes me as merely silly, but a lot of conservative commentators found it utterly outrageous, and lashed out at the President for it. It’s probable that some of them exaggerated or distorted what Obama actually said, and that your friend picked up some variation on it.
My real name is not Lauren, but I was named after one of the actresses from Charlie’s Angels. My sister, who was about 10 when my mom was pregnant, watched the show and suggested the name to her.
I mentioned to an acquaintance that my sister watched Charlie’s Angels and suggested the name to my mom. Her reply, “Is she an older or younger sister?” There was a beat while I wondered if she was joking, and when I saw she wasn’t, I managed to choke out, “Older, I mean, how could a younger sister have suggested a name when my mom was pregnant with me?”
Her reply: “Well, she could have watched Charlie’s Angels in reruns.”
Not that daft really- a lot of bird species normally need a male present to trigger nesting or egg laying, chickens are unusual in their egg laying habits.
Not me, but my mother was once asked by a normal looking middle aged woman if monkeys laid eggs.
I’ve seen a parent getting very angry at a small child (who was holding a snake at the time), because he said he could feel the bones, and “Snakes don’t have bones, stupid!”
So after I got married, I had to add my married name to my passport. Went through the whole rigmarole - sent my passport away to passport gods and it magically returned with my married name added to the back page or something.
Next trip out if the country, the kiosk wouldn’t read my passport. We showed the attendant my ticket and official, passport agency made name change at the back to which she sighed and said, “You have to get this changed through the passport agency.”
A video rental clerk in RI asked for a driver’s license to set up an account, and I gave her my Alberta (Canada) driver’s license.
“This is a weird license!”
“I’m Canadian!”
“I’ve never met someone from… Canadia?”
In a waiting room I was seated across from what my brain decided was a 13 or 14 year old boy and his grandmother. The young man was wearing a large ornate pendant and the woman said it looked like something Henry VIII would wear.
She then told him that Henry cut off his wives’ heads.
She: …and that’s why they call him Henry the 8th
He: Why?
She: Because he cut off eight of their heads.
Actual Email exchange from a middleware Developer client and me:
Client: “The new Help files are very bland, have plain typewriter-looking text, are very heavily indented, have no artwork or screenshots at all, and have nonsense text in brackets everywhere.”
Me: “Did you perhaps open those HTML files in Notepad?”
Client: “OK, the problem appears to have been fixed.”
Colin Powell and Jesse Jackson were doing a series of debates, and tickets were available through Ticketmaster and such venues. This was before everything was online, so I called the 800 number [del] bimbo [/del] customer service representative to purchase tickets.
“Hi, I’d like to order two tickets to the Colin Powell - Jesse Jackson debate at <location> on <date> please.”
