MisunderstoodMy other half rang a courier today to get a disc sent over to a client. The courier company asked what it was she was sending. "A computer disc", she said.
Half an hour later, 3 blokes in a van turned up. They looked a little disappointed to be handed a floppy disc: they were all prepared to shift a computer desk across London.
Have you been utterly misunderstood recently?
(
chthonic, Thu 6 Oct 2005, 23:06)
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cantonese capersMy pa lives near Hong Kong, and due to the tonal nature of the Cantonese language, and the inability of the English to properly imitate it, all sorts of hilarity ensues...
When I was 16, and visiting Dad, I was going through a veggie stage. At a restaurant, Dad goes to tell the bloke that I am a vegetarian. After the restaurant bloke looks severely shocked, Dad realised he got the intonation wrong, and told the guy that I eat children(jai in a high tone means vegetables, and jai in a low tone means chldren)...
Dads mother, when visiting shortly after his wedding to a lovely chinese lady, bumped into his new wifes mother in town, who doesn't speak a word of english. Instead of "good morning", she somehow ends up saying in a loud voice, right in her face, the equivalent of "DOGS DICKS".
Also, the nearest cantonese word to "Robert" - my Dads name - is Lobat, which means Carrot. So all Dads chinese friends name him after a root vegetable. His wife even had a bouquet of carrots at their wedding. Mind you his brother in law is called Duck, so I guess it's horses for courses.
(, Fri 7 Oct 2005, 12:35, Reply)
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