Today, a colleague, while showing me something on facebook, said that it is a "very allergic website". It took me a while, and some more statements from him, to realize that he meant that it is very addictive.
I remember in school, when we had just learnt the meaning of the word 'vocabulary'. After that, a classmate always asked the teacher, "What is the vocabulary of..." whenever she meant to say, "What is the meaning of..."
There are also times when we say innocuous statements that just don't sound right. Like the time when I had asked my HR team to source a female management trainee, and getting no response after a fortnight, reminded them thus, "Any progress on the search for a girl for me?"
There are also instances where people who are not conversant with English try to translate their thoughts verbatim, leading to amazing howlers. My father likes telling us about his Hindi teacher who used to tell his students not to make noise "in front of my back" and asked three students to leave the class thus, "Both of you three get out".
The most hilarious one was used regularly by an ex-colleague who nearly always started speaking with the sentence, "My telling is that..." (remember that the next time you say, "Mera kehna hai ki...")
The stunned silence of the teacher as well as the entire class left me non-plussed.
It was only after what seemed like a full minute of giggles from the girls and laughter from the lads following this explanation that the actual meaning of what I had said dawned on me!
So, any bloopers you can think of?
I am sure all of us have inadvertently committed such bloopers where we use one wrong word, changing the meaning of the sentence completely.
I remember in school, when we had just learnt the meaning of the word 'vocabulary'. After that, a classmate always asked the teacher, "What is the vocabulary of..." whenever she meant to say, "What is the meaning of..."
There are also times when we say innocuous statements that just don't sound right. Like the time when I had asked my HR team to source a female management trainee, and getting no response after a fortnight, reminded them thus, "Any progress on the search for a girl for me?"
There are also instances where people who are not conversant with English try to translate their thoughts verbatim, leading to amazing howlers. My father likes telling us about his Hindi teacher who used to tell his students not to make noise "in front of my back" and asked three students to leave the class thus, "Both of you three get out".
The most hilarious one was used regularly by an ex-colleague who nearly always started speaking with the sentence, "My telling is that..." (remember that the next time you say, "Mera kehna hai ki...")
There is one 'exchange of word' blooper of mine which still brings a wry smile to my face. I was in school, in Std. 9, learning bigger words, proper grammar (Thanks - Messrs Wren & Martin) along with the other interesting things that people at that age learn. Our (beautiful) Social Sciences teacher asked the class why do we have to clean foodgrain after we buy it (remember - those were the days of the PDS). Being the bright kid that I was, I immediately raised my hand and replied, "Because the ration shop owners commit adultery".
The stunned silence of the teacher as well as the entire class left me non-plussed.
After a while (either after she figured out what I meant or after recovering her poise - I don't know which), the teacher said, "Very Good Mubin. Class, as he said, the ration shop owners adulterate the foodgrains with heavy and non-edible substances, which we have to remove by cleaning before cooking."
It was only after what seemed like a full minute of giggles from the girls and laughter from the lads following this explanation that the actual meaning of what I had said dawned on me!
So, any bloopers you can think of?
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