In the post office..
..the other day a woman asked the assistant how much it would be to post a package to Australia. When told the price she said, "it's not in the EU then?"

An old guy I worked with years ago told me that all the stars are planets.

And one of my own; when I was a kid I thought that sealing wax was ceiling wax. I couldn't figure out why people would want to wax their ceilings.
(Haywood Manley, Fri 19 Mar 2010, 9:20, 6 replies)

I did the last one too -
I thought it was for plugging up holes and scratches in ceilings.
( Bob Todd whee, Fri 19 Mar 2010, 11:44, closed)

Same here,
but I always thought that ceiling wax was for posh types who liked shiny ceilings- that's why Puff the Magic Dragon's friend little Jackie Paper brought him it (to keep his seaside cave nice and shiny)...

I thought this until 19- when I finally got round to checking out the lyrics to the song.
( uberdeity Wondered why Owen Lars knew of the term "hell" on, Sat 20 Mar 2010, 12:41, closed)

Same here
I always heard it as "ceiling" wax. But there's a good reason for this.

Ceiling is pronounced as it is - with a "see" sound at the beginning.

However, the word "sealing" should correctly be pronounced "sear-ling" - with an "ear" sound.

Verb = seal
Noun = sealing

Just like "feelings":
Verb = feel
Noun = feeling

It's "fear-lings", not feeeeeelings

Unfortunately, the singers of Puff, The Magic Dragon pronounce the word incorrectly, as if it had an eee sound. And because seeeeling sounds like ceiling, the confusion is natural.
(EuroSong I love horse meat: best of all the animals, Sun 21 Mar 2010, 19:16, closed)

Unless your dialect is rhotic
(e.g. Welsh, Scottish) in which case you'd just get funny looks.

"Whit dae fuck is a 'searling', Hamish?"
"Nae clue, Fergus."
( shinyshinyscalp less a man, more a way of life, Mon 22 Mar 2010, 17:24, closed)

OK, but...
Do they really pronounce it as "seeeeeeeling"?

I understand the fact that if a rhotic-accented speaker read the text "searling", then they would pronounce it searrrrrling, as they pronounce their mid-word Rs rhotically...

But you know what I mean. I don't know the phonetic symbols, so unfortunately I had to make do with the approximation of phonetic spelling in RP English.

Now, surely no-one except people singing songs actually pronounces "sealing" with a "seeee" sound - including the rhotic-speakers.
(EuroSong I love horse meat: best of all the animals, Mon 22 Mar 2010, 17:46, closed)

people singing songs...
..and those living in East Yorkshire.
(Haywood Manley, Mon 22 Mar 2010, 23:10, closed)