Your most potentially damaging miscommunication

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Did something like this happens before? A classic case of miscommunication that almost lead to a explosive confrontation, or some other dramatic showdown? Here’s mine…

So during the Chinese New Year I gotten a packet of bak kwa from a university-based charity club (bak kwa is something like Chinese bacon. They are thin strips of pork blasted over a hot grill for hours until it becomes something oily and leathery).

The quality of the goods weren’t very good, so I complained to the friend who sold me those bak kwa. " He said he’ll feedback to the vice president of the committee in charge. After a series of emails, my friend called me up one day in the wee morning.

“The vice president of the club sent me a SMS,” he began.

“What did she say?”

“She said <some mumbling> no more on this matter,” was my friend’s reply.

“What?”, I exclaimed, “She said no more on this matter?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“Then you better give me her mobile number,” I fumed.

So later I called her, and restraining myself, I talked about my complaints. Surprisingly, she entertained my call. I finally asked her, “So, anyway, my friend said he received a SMS from you and you said ‘No more on this matter’”

“I wouldn’t have said anything like that!” she protested.

I thought so too. So I checked back with my friend.

What my friend was saying initially was…

“She wants to know more on this matter”

:smack:

2

My brother in law has massive scars on one shoulder from the surgery to correct a little problem he got while sticking his arm in some industrial machine. The guy over yonder at the switch missed the first word in “DON’T TURN IT ON!”

3

One night, back when I was in high school, I walked into the kitchen just as my dad was gesturing emphatically with a cigarette, and he accidentally stubbed it into my forearm, giving me a nice burn.

The next day, I’m sitting in Spanish class, and the girl next to me sees the burn and asks me what happened. I casually respond, “Oh, my dad burned me with a cigarette.” As soon as I say it, I realize what it sounds like, and I quickly assure the horrified girl that it was completely accidental.

Still, if I hadn’t caught myself, or if a teacher had overheard part of the conversation, it could have gone very bad for my dad.

4

My hearing is slowly but surely leaving me, my wife and I are constantly bittering back and forth thusly:

Honey, would you please make the coffee?

Me - No honey I don’t know anything about Omar Khadafi.

wife -> :confused:

wife: Honey, do we need milk?

me- I swept up all the seed ilk from the bird feeders yesterday!

wife -> :confused:

wife: Hey are we going hiking today?

me - I haven’t spoken to Mike in a while why???

wife - :confused:

Nothing exceedingly damaging, but funny when it happens.

5

Chinese doesn’t have verb conjugation – words are given past tense by adding “done.” It would be like saying “I did eat” or “I did go” all the time, if English didn’t have words “ate” or “went.” TokyoWife, a native Chinese speaker, often forgets to use past tense in Japanese. She’ll say “I am hungry,” after we finish a meal, instead of what she meant, that she had been hungry.

I’m used to it now, but it did through me when we were first going out, especially when she said “I really love my ex-boyfriend” :eek: instead of "I really loved my boyfriend.

6

Back in high school, my younger brother and a friend of ours were walking home from the mall when we saw a guy that we knew from school and a couple of friends of his way down the street. We thought that it would be funny to yell out his name and then duck into a store to hide, leaving him puzzled as to who called out his name. So we counted “1, 2, 3!” and then all three of us yelled out his name.

His name was Algert.

The group of friends that he was walking with were all black.

You can imagine what they thought they’d heard.

7

Back when we were dating, my wife (Japanese) and I went out for dinner in Roppongi, which is a neighborhood of Tokyo known mainly for being a pick-up place for foreign guys. While we were people watching from the restaurant’s patio, she asked me “would you ever pick up girls in Roppongi?”

I answered, “Well, if I were single I probably would.”

She gets quiet and starts looking down at her food. I few seconds later I notice the tears coming down her cheeks.

She had interpreted “single” as hitori (one person) instead of dokushin (unattached person), which turned my answer into “Well, if were here by myself, I probably would.” :eek:

8

But does she end each sentence with “aru”? :wink:

9

I was waiting to play DDR until after this really mammoth chick finished. Apparently the chick’s friend noticed me waiting, so she invited me to join her friend play for free on the next song. I didn’t realize it, but she was apparently trying to hook me up with Miss Piggy. I am not into large women, but you know I’m clueless and also like free shit, sooo… So we dance together to the tune of “Butterfly” and had a fun time. After that the friend said “wow, you two make a good couple” I felt embarrassed and quickly said, without thinking, “Oh no, I dont think so.” Well Behemoth thought I was insulting her weight, and almost punched me in the face. That was probably my worst miscommunication ever.

There is also the time I was mugged in Japan, but that was due to OVERcommunication if anything.

10

I feel your pain.

11

Albert? :confused: :confused: :confused:

12

I’m guessing the stressed first syllable and the sound “ERRRRR” were the only coherent parts, rendering it not unlike a group cry of “NIGgerrrrrrrrrrrrrs!”

(Sorry if that offends, but I refuse to use “the n-word”. Dumbledore says calling things by their rightful names gives them less power over us. The word is nigger, and we can be more powerful than it, darn it!)

13

Years ago, a friend picked me up at the airport, where we encountered a girl that she was acquainted with but whom I only knew by sight. On the way back, my friend asked me what I’d been up to over break. Well, among other things, I had been catching up on some TV shows my mom had recorded for me. I forget the name of one of the characters, but it was an unusual name, so I’ll say Yolanda.

I went off on a tangent about what a bitch Yolanda was, and how everybody hated her and I couldn’t believe she got away so much…Friend looked at me aghast and said, “Yolanda who’s sitting behind us?”

:eek: :smack:

“No, Yolanda on [TV show]!” I had mentioned the name of the show in passing, but Friend may have been distracted when I said it. Fortunately, the RL Yolanda was also familiar with the show, and knew I did not mean her. But it still knocked the wind out of me. I mean, I’d had zero idea her name was Yolanda, and you just don’t meet too many of them! Plus, her name was practically synonymous with the show’s title, and I’d just figured I didn’t have to specify that I meant Yolanda-on-TV-show. (She did say, incidentally, that she’d loved her name right up until the character became prevalent, but now she wanted to change it to Mary Jane.)

14

Nailed it. I always assumed that they heard the second syllable, GERt, and had enough to assume the worst. We ducked into a bike shop and all three guys got in our faces, asking us “WHAT did you say?!?” in a tone that lead me to conclude that what they heard was “Nigger(s)!” The three of us sheepishly explaining that we’d yelled out “Algert!” with the intent of playing a trick on him defused an otherwise tense situation.

15

A long time ago at one of my first jobs, we hired a new supervisor whose *last * name was Wayne. We also happened to have a long-time employee whose first name was Wayne.

New Wayne was apparently having some marriage speedbumps (the size of small mountains), including problems with his drinking. At the time I only knew him by his first name, and had no idea that his last name was Wayne.

Two days after he started, things…uh…sorta happened. It was midafternoon and it is the end of old Wayne’s shift. He declares he is going drinking after work. Yeah great. It is also the start of new Wayne’s shift.

The telephone rang; I pick up and the line is garbled. I hear something like “…is (unintelligable) Wayne there?” And naturally I say no, she juuuust missed him. The woman on the line is confused - and insists that “Wayne’s” shift runs until the evening. I tell her that no, he just left and gosh I think he was headed for the bar. Naturally, I was saying all this to the new Wayne’s wife.

Ooops.

She freaked, and wound up bawling out her husband via the phone once I realized my mistake. And she absolutely postively refused to believe how the mixup occurred. I’ve never seen a guy look so utterly beaten down before and I’ve been nervous about taking names over the phone ever since. They (unhappily) divorced some time later.

16

Not me personally, but a co-worker just related this story to me about another co-worker. We’ll call them Jim and Salvador.

Salvador is from Mexico and his English is rocky at best, with a thick accent that makes him difficult to understand sometimes. Salvador was talking to Jim and then put a question on him - Jim just sort of absently nodded since he didn’t know what he was saying.

Then co-worker #3, who is also Hispanic and thus presumably has powers to better understand Salvador’s shaky English than the rest of us approaches Jim and says, “Jim, do you realize what Salvador just asked you?”

Jim shakes his head no.

“He asked if he could borrow your car. Salvador doesn’t even have a license.”

17

When I started at a new school, someone was asking me about myself. I was leaning back in my chair and answering the usual questions; why’d you move on your own, etc etc until she asked ‘What does your Dad do?’

Now, to preface; I have no idea. He does some mix of IT security management consulting and other stuff but at the time I had no idea what he was currently working on. So I shrugged and said;
“Beats the crap out of me.”

She looked aghast and gasped “He beats you?”

I laughed and stopped using that expression in that context.