Should have been at post.above..My Most embarrassing momnet with the English/American language

J

joanietoo

Well-known member
was in the States with my 10 & 11 year olds for the first time.

I was on the look out for a wee gift for them to take back to their friends at school.

My husband and I had seen some (of the following) when in the UK before and so we had decided they would be a great gift and so were on a mission to get them.

SOOOOooooo the 3 of us headed on down to the mall (recommended by my friend we were staying with) and made our way to the said store.

Once there we looked and looked and finally I asked for help.

I found a young lady assistant (she seemed about 18) and asked her to show me their 'rubbers'. She looked at me as if I was from Mars....????....and suggested I went somewhere else to find a DRUGSTORE????

Now in Africa we had just had a BIG thing going on in the paper...a new shop had opened called a 'Drugstore' that sold ice cream sodas amongst other ice creams and fizzy drinks.

In South Africa, being an Afrikaans nation....(those in authority often had little or no English)........ anything with drugs, apart from medical, was banned ???!!!

The end result was the store put a huge A over the U and so the "DrAgstore" was accepted......OK, the authorities didn't actually get the meaning of "DRAG" in those days....(English and well traveled folk knew the meaning of drag, of course)

Sooo back to me.

I was completely taken by surprise. Why on earth was I being sent to a drugstore???

What on earth was I being treated as if I was a bit of dirt and I especially got the feeling they were wanting to seperate my kids from me......By now a couple of the other assistants were there behind the young lass.

My girls were on either side of me hanging onto my arms, as young kids do, were eagerly anticipating finding their school friend's these gifts and so I asked the young lass if I could speak to the manager (after all she wouldn't look at me as if I was an alien...would she?)

The manager came over and asked what it is I wanted.

I explained, with a rather emphatic use of my hand...."I am looking for rubbers with stars and stripes on, you know, they are about this size and you use them to RUB out with"...using a sort of up and down motion deffinately NOT used in polite society in the wrong context ...

(HELP)

She told me that if I did not leave the shop forth-with she would call the cops....

WHAT????

My poor sweet little girls by this time were tugging on my arm saying 'Mum, let's go, let's go'. So we did.....

I was too embarrassed to say anything to my friend we were staying with and pushed the whole episode to the back of my mind.

We found the rubbers in the UK on the way home and they girls were happy as were their friends......

Some 6 years later we were now cruising and in this anchorage we met with some super American folk.

We were on their boat for supper one night and the subject turned to how I was schooling them, how I got suplies etc.

I said we were doing very well with the Calvert school from Baltimore but the only rubber they had, had dissapeared overboard so they had to cross out their school work out instead of rubbing out.

These American friends fell about laughing and as they did that I went totally

MORTIFIED........

all those years previously the stationary store thought I was looking for condoms with stars and stripes on that I wanted to (graphically) use to ...move up and down".....

If only I had known and used the term ERASER!!!!!!

 
LOL!!! If this wasn't a bit too racy, you could submit it to Reader's Digest.

oh my goodness, what a good laugh I had on you Joanie.

 
Tears rolling down my cheeks. I totally get this, as I had a very good

friend that came from England and we spent many an hour discussing the embarasing moments because of definitions of varies items. Thank goodness I no longer worry about "ladders" in my stockings!!!LOL

 
That is just SO funny! Many many years ago, I was in Liverpool, and some of the locals

I had made friends with offered to take me "clubbing." I asked if jeans would be OK or if I should wear nice "pants." They're probably still laughing.

 
Oh Joanie, this is worse than my little faux pas in the UK...

We had been there about 2 weeks or so, and were still living in a hotel - so I went to meet OH and his colleagues at a pub after work, and in casual conversation about how we were doing, I mentioned that the laundry had brought back OH's khaki pants... well they all fell about laughing and someone was kind enought to whisper in my ear

khaki is pronounced car-key in the UK
cac-cy is well... you know

pants are underwear in the UK as opposed to trousers which are pants

So I had announced that his poo-ey pants had been returned form the laundry...

Classy, eh?

 
San, I'm picturing Madeline Kahn's line in Young Frankenstein:

(Bedroom scene at the end of the movie:)

The bathroom door opens and the Monster steps out. He is dressed in elegant silk pajamas and a handsome robe. Even though his electrodes still stick out from his neck, he appears well-groomed. Elizabeth gets into bed and waits for him.

ELIZABETH
Did you see? I put a special hamper in the bathroom just for your shirts. The other one is just for socks and poo-poo undies.

MONSTER
MMmmm.

************
Maybe you can get a special hamper for OH's poo-poo pants?

 
Too funny! This works in reverse as well...

I had a dear friend in Austria who worked for a very large construction corporation. Since Claus spoke fluent English, he was frequently sent to other countries where English was the language business was conducted in and the company supplied him with English as well as German language business cards. In German, the word "aufgericht" means to build or erect something and its noun form on his business card was Chief of "Aufrichtungen." The Austrian company literally translated his title as Chief of... you probably have already guessed.

Everytime he passed his card out to English speakers, he waited for the smiles, giggles, and guffaws of laughter. He thought it was amusing and a great ice-breaker, so he never mentioned it to his company.

 
Sandra.....

That is one we laugh at a lot but then so is this one......and now we tease the Americans we meet when they ask us....

"where can we go party"?????? Well, we used to say..."This is a party, you and us make the party"??? Odd question this when you are with a group doing a bus tour or a boat trip???

Then they follow it up with "No, No the 'little girl's room'"

The first few times we heard this we were in hysterics when we realised...Large Adult folk asking for the 'potty'.
In the English parlance that is the small round thing with a handle that is kept under a tiny child's bed.

 
Oh dear Lindy..here is the meaning of 'jumper' to us......

learnt at yet another embarrassing time.....
The first American school was setting up here on island, the parent school was from central states and I know it gets very cold there....

A meeting was called for all parents to discuss school uniform and they were telling everyone that uniform would be this colour and that shade and the 'jumpers' would be this...Well, I stood up and said that uless there was seriously cold air-conditioning, jumpers certainly wouldn't be necessary,the other English mothers all nodding sagely at my observation.
The spokes-person was very polite to me, and said that if the girls did not wear jumpers what else would I suggest...no, I said, no other suggestion (well jumpers are jumpers aren't they) I was a wee bit shy with the reaction and no other parent spoke up so I sat down and thought to listen to the rest of the meeting.

Right...jumpers are jerseys to us.... pinneys or pinafores are jumpers to you!!!!!!

All through the ages there must have been such confusion with these unknown language differences .

 
and anyway...my 'pud' has been the ridicule here on FK and at Epi...I am still waiting to hear....

an American say 'your' meaning to me in the course of conversation...though, I guess it isn't really 'polite' conversation.

Every time the grandies ask me what's for pud when they come to supper I have a quiet chuckle to myself of what I learnt here. Lol!

 
This is such a funny thread! I have a story from the UK and Australia

both of which are quite dated, when I was a child. When I went to the UK, I believe I was about 8 yrs old, and we asked the hotel management if they could put a cot in our room for my younger sister. We returned to our room, after dinner to discover a crib set up. My sister and I were laughing hysterically. Not sure if it still translates the same, but cot = crib.

The Australian story was also about the same time period. My Dad was entertaining a co-worker from Australia. Mom and Dad schooled my sister and I on the importance of good manners, good listening skills, etc. Well, about 1 hour into my Dad's co-workers visit, he asked to go on a short walk. SOOO, being the responsible hosts, we all proceeded to put on our shoes (maryjanes), and walk around our neighborhood. For those who know NJ, this was South Plainfield, which is a lovely community, but does not really require walking...Come to find out, that he wanted to go to the bathroom....He barely made it back to the house...Literally running to our home. ((I am sure our neighbors were very confused to see us all trotting around the block, in our fancy clothes, as if it was a normal occurance!!))

Again these stories are dated, so not sure if they still apply, but they made us laugh so much when they happened!! Thanks for the trip down memory lane!

 
Loved this thread. Joanie, I did a search and below is a good explanation of pudding. I don't know

that we ever use the word "pud" but numbers 2 and 3 are what pudding is, to me. I've learned a lot from you!


pudding Definition pud¡¤ding (po̵od¡Çi©¯)

noun

1. Scot., North Eng. a sausage made of intestine stuffed with meat, suet, etc. and boiled

2. a soft, mushy or creamy food, usually made with a base of flour, cornstarch, cornmeal, etc., and boiled or baked

3. a sweetened dessert, usually of similar consistency and usually steamed or baked, variously containing eggs, milk, fruit, etc.

4. Chiefly Brit.
any dessert
the dessert course of a meal

http://www.yourdictionary.com/pudding

 
oh the memories of my 20's!

my roomy was a brit and was always explaining their definitions to me.

we both took the same subway to work in the morning but my stop was before hers. as I was getting off one morning, I yelled back to her and said: "Robert said he'll knock you up this evening." as the doors closed, the expression on the other passengers as they stared at her in disbelief and her expression had me rolling all day.

then, we were invited to a cruise on the Queen Elizabeth the second. of course, Yvonne had already told me what my name means in europe. as the young brits danced with me they would ask my name...... I looked sweetly into their eager eyes and said: "I'm Randi" oh my, talk about a stiff upper lip and sweaty palms! and one brave chap decided to ignore the "I'm Randi" and tried to take the conversation elsewhere. he then asked: have you ever been abroad? again, I smiled sweetly and said: all my life......

thanks for bringing back memories that still get me rolling!

 
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