ask the readers: coworkers who got the meaning of words very, very wrong

by Alison Green on August 3, 2017

In the comments on a post from last week, several commenters shared stories about coworkers misusing words in hilarious ways. Here are some examples (and, uh, I just realized all of these are adult in nature, so consider yourself warned):

  • “A coworker of a friend used the word ‘vajazzled’ about an upcoming meeting, thinking she was saying jazzed or something. People told her what it meant immediately, and she was immediately mortified but 100% glad people said something quickly or she would have continued to use it.”
  • “My dad worked on Obama’s campaign. He legit thought that ‘teabagger’ was the correct term used for someone in the teaparty. He didn’t know it was offensive. He didn’t know what teabagging was. I had to explain teabagging to my elderly father.” (Okay, this isn’t a coworker, but it must be included.)
  • “When working for a video game company I had to explain to a very kind older sounding woman why she couldn’t use an abbreviation of her name as a character name. It was something similar to Camila Townsend, and she had shortened it to ‘Cameltoe.’ The sheer level of awkward of having to explain that one.”

I know there are more stories like this out there, and I know the world will benefit from hearing them. Please share in the comments, and entertain us all!

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  1. Cat*

    One of my partners once sent a client an email that said “I’m just glad this story had a ‘happy ending,'” complete with scare quotes. I don’t know if anyone ever got up the courage to tell him what it meant.

      1. Emi.*

        And even with the quotes … some people just put idioms in quotes, I guess so you know they know they didn’t invent the phrase, or something? It’s like “nails on a chalkboard” to me.

      2. Breda*

        If ever there was a story that perfectly demonstrated why you don’t use quotes for emphasis…

        1. nutella fitzgerald*

          I would have to give that one to the sympathy card in which someone wrote:

          Sorry for your “loss”.

          2. Mookie*

            I once got a (recycled) birthday card + $4 check from a relative who scare-quoted my name on the check and the word “birthday” in the card, but this is just unpleasant.

    2. The IT Manager*

      Cat, you seem to have a dirty mind. “Happy Ending” has long been used to describe the ending of fairy tales and stories of all kinds. If someone’s mind automatically goes to the more recent pornographic meaning first, well, that’s on them, but it’s pretty clear that your partner meant the G rated usage.

      3. Cat*

        This comment is needlessly antagonistic. Of course he meant the G rated version. It was unintentionally funny because of the quotes.

                1. SirTechSpec*

                  SOME OF US ARE AT WORK TRYING TO KEEP A LOW PROFILE OKAY
                  …though the rest of the comments make that pretty difficult too. This post is gold XD

  2. Countess Boochie Flagrante*

    Not a coworker, but a good friend of mine growing up was a bit of a nerd for very obscure, possibly apocryphal meanings of words.

    She learned that ‘twit’ referred to a pregnant goldfish (?) and decided she was going to craft her own word so she wasn’t continuing to impugn the intelligence of gravid fish. The easiest way, in her eyes, was to sub out the vowel.

    Thus, as a 10-year-old, in front of her fifth-grade teacher, she jokingly called me a twat.

    1. Gen*

      An american student on my degree course pronounced ‘twat’ so it rhymes with hot rather than hat, so she decided that the British pronounciation was the PG version and used it constantly

      1. Jules the 3rd*

        wait, you mean the British pronunciation rhymes with hat? I could have sworn I’ve heard it rhyme with hot in Midsomer Murders….

          1. Jules the 3rd*

            16 years of BBC mayhem… I checked Urban Dictionary – British usage rhymes with hat or hot, probably by area; US rhymes with squat, but in my particular dialect hot rhymes with squat anyway. So we’re both right.

              2. eee*

                I’m guessing a bit of the w sound in there? Sk-wat is how I would pronounce squat, vs hot like pot.

                1. tigerlily*

                  But that doesn’t change the vowel sound, does it? Both have an “ah” sound. Sk-wAHt and hAHt. Or do people pronounce squat different than I do?

                2. Kathryn T.*

                  The way I pronounce those two vowels, they are subtly different. The vowel in “Squat” is represented by the “ɑ” symbol in IPA, while the vowel in “hot” is the “ɒ” symbol. The second is slightly darker or more covered than the first. If you keep going in that direction, you get the “ɔ” vowel as in “ought.”

          2. Anlyn*

            If you like low-intensity procedurals, you should. It’s a relaxing little show, similar in style to Murder She Wrote. In fact, I mentally call it the English Murder She Wrote, because of the sheer number of murders that seem to occur in little old Midsomer County. :)

            I miss Jones.

                1. Merci Dee*

                  That’s what I’ve been saying for years! It’s like the Angel of Death rides around in that woman’s coat pocket! If you’re a friend of Jessica Fletcher, you’re either destined to die, or to be accused of murder. I don’t see how she still has any friends.

                2. Anon and alone*

                  Actually a friend of mine is of the opinion that she did the murders, that’s how she was able to solve them so easily. Whenever we see a DVD of the show, we call it “Murder, She Did”.

            2. Lissa*

              I love low intensity procedurals and am looking for new stuff to watch…thanks for the recommendation, that sounds right up my alley!

              1. Rose*

                Lisa, watch Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries on Netflix. Like “MSW” but set in the 1920s with some innuendo & sophistication.

            3. Chameleon*

              Hell, I still miss Troy.

              And yes, Midsomer County apparently has the murder rate about five times higher than Chicago. Also, if you know someone who has been murdered recently, get the hell out of town or you might be next!

              2. Emily, admin extraordinaire*

                I’ve always said that if Rosemary and Thyme ever took a gardening job in Midsomer County the body count would be astronomical.

            4. FCJ*

              Joooooonnneeeees. He was in a great short film. YouTube “Tarot Mechanic.”

              My boyfriend and I (Americans) call it “British People Killing Each Other” and come up with scenarios and theories about what everyday life in Midsomer must be like with all the murders all the time.

        2. ABC123*

          It’s a bit too rude for Midsomer Murders, anyway… At least the way I’ve heard it used (and that was always rhyming with hat).

          1. Elsewhere1010*

            I would love to retire to Midsomer County. Sure, there are weekly murders, but only one per town within the county. The upside to the mayhem is that there’s always housing stock coming onto the market, the cost of lodging can be quite low.

            1. ABC123*

              I’m always thinking that those charming old cottages must be terribly drafty and expensive to heat. But then again, it’s pretty much always summer.

        3. Nobody Knows My Name*

          I cannot imagine that word being used on Midsomer Murders! It’s a COZY, for God’s sake! (Which episode?)

        1. Gen*

          I’m in Yorkshire and had never heard it pronounced with an o until university *shrug* it might well be regional then but no one else on the course seemed familiar with the other pronounciation either, they kept asking her what she was trying to say.

        2. Ramona Flowers*

          Brit here. Can confirm we pronounce it to rhyme with hat. I’ve not ever personally heard anyone pronounce it to rhyme with hot.

          1. socrescentfresh*

            American here who briefly lived in the UK. The first times I heard it, it did rhyme with hot, in a song by an English artist who needed the rhyme to work. So until 30 seconds ago I thought that was the correct pronunciation. Better I learned that late than never, I guess.

          2. AnnaleighUK*

            Boyfriend legitimately thought for the longest time it rhymed with ‘art’ but English is not his first language and as I am rather broad of Scottish accent sometimes, I can drawl the ‘a’ without thinking and it does rhyme with ‘art’. Cue one very confused Frenchman when he actually heard the correct pronunciation on a night out.

          3. AMD*

            Julie Andrews’ reading of her audiobook mentions her not knowing what the word meant, and it definitely rhymes with “hot” when she says it.

        3. Sarah from Long Island*

          I am a Brit in the USA… Dual citizen. Accents vary all over the UK, just like in the USA. I personally have only heard this word rhyme with fat/hat/pat. I am *most *familiar with West Yorkshire, Liverpool, Leeds. Manchester, Portsmouth, London and Wales as far as speech goes…. All having their own distinct accents. Again, never heard that word, uttered from UK lips, rhyme with not or squat.

          1. Night Cheese*

            There’s an episode of a UK sketch show called “Big Train,” which starred Simon Pegg, Mark Heap, Kevin Eldon, and Catherine Tate – who calls someone a “fat-handed tw*t” and it rhymes with “that.” You can find it on Youtube.

      3. LizB*

        I once had to tell off a coworker for calling another coworker a twat in front of the elementary-aged students we were working with. Her defense was, “I didn’t know what it really meant, I just thought it was British!”

        1. Typhon Worker Bee*

          I’ve heard Americans say the same thing about not realising what “wanker” means, then using it in inappropriate situations!

          Life would be so much less interesting without these quirkly little linguistic differences.

            1. Specialk9*

              Ha, “bugger” startles me constantly. A weird regional quirk where I recently moved is to call *babies* buggers, like I guess little bugs. When a clean-cut clean-speaking clergyman called my *baby* a sodomizer, I was taken aback. I mean, I guess in a decade or two he might be into that, but it seems to be TMI for his mom. Oh wait, you meant he’s a cute little lovebug.

              1. gladfe*

                I’m from such a region! I still have so much trouble taking people seriously when they use it as an actual insult. No matter how many times I hear it, it sounds exactly like hearing an adult angrily call another adult a cutie-pie.

              2. Julie Noted*

                Whereas in Australia, bugger is the very mild swear word you use to express frustration or disappointment without “really” swearing.

                I once found myself hanging out with a group of seminarians, many of whom were from overseas. The latter subgroup were hotly debating whether “bugger” or “bloody” were the more offensive word until an Australian interrupted to advise “they’re both fine!”

                1. ArtsNerd*

                  When an Australian told me my outfit looked “daggy” and I looked it up I was so VERY offended… quickly learned that despite its origins it’s actually a mild term.

                2. GlenT*

                  ArtsNerd, please don’t be offended. “Daggy” has gone through a series of evolutions resulting in its dictionary meaning being far from the intent of the term. “Daggy” originally meant dag-like, in the sense of an insult meaning unkempt, smelly pollution of a sheep’s wool around the anus. That’s what the dictionary will say. But it use continued on in meaning “unkempt” to approach meaning “unfashionable, no effort at attire or presentation”. That use now stands so far apart from its original meaning that if you ask most Australians they’ll only be familiar with the current meaning of the term. “Your outfit is daggy” might not even be an insult but merely intended as “unfashionable”. As with many Australian words, the tone and context determine the meaning (“you’re such a dag” ranges from declaration of war to affirmation of friendship).

            3. This Daydreamer*

              I just recently learned, in the UK, that “bummer” is a very rude way to refer to a gay man. Here in the U.S., it just means that something is mildly unpleasant. Oddly enough, I think most Americans would say that something “sucks” as a synonym.

              1. radiator*

                huh, brit here. I’ve never heard of bummer used in any way other than the american one.

                1. yixen*

                  It’s less common than the more usual ‘bumming’ to refer to the, ahem, ‘act’ rather than the person, but yep, it is in use in some dialects here.

            4. Mine Own Telemachus*

              I find “bummer” even more hilarious. I had trouble getting that out of my vocab when I lived in the UK (I’m American).

            5. Ramona Flowers*

              I recently discovered my colleague had no idea what sod was short for. Didn’t think it was in any way rude.

              1. mcbqe*

                I don’t believe ‘sod’ would be thought any way rude to most Australians or Brits – it just describes a difficult or troublesome person. You might even (semi)affectionately call someone a ‘dopey sod’ as a vague equivalent to a ‘silly fool’. Most would likely think the origin of the term in relation to a person would have come from the agricultural meaning of sod (a clod of mud/turf) – very few would even consider that it was short for what you suggest!

        2. Connie-Lynne*

          I had a male acquaintance with a similar problem once. He refused to believe me that it was hugely offensive in parts of the USA “because I’m American and I’ve never heard it.”

          1. This Daydreamer*

            Set him loose in the UK or Australia with a hidden camera. Come back with the results.

        3. SusanIvanova*

          The Absolutely Fabulous cast and crew were rather amused at what got bleeped on US television and what went through – from the British perspective, the naughtier words were the ones left intact.

      4. StrikingFalcon*

        How offensive is it in British usage? Because I’ve heard it in the US pronounced to rhyme with hot, and it’s not noticeably more offensive than twit. It just carries more of a connotation of “annoying” rather than “foolish”

        1. Demon Llama*

          Um…. very significantly more offensive than “twit” in the UK. Do not use in the workplace…

        2. MillersSpring*

          American here. Twat most definitely also means a woman’s crotch to a lot of Americans.

          2. paul*

            ….I always thought it meant ass. As in “they’re being a horse’s ass”.

            Apparently I’ve been wrong a long time, judging by this thread

            1. tigerlily*

              I feel like it means both? Or at least – it is a euphemism for a woman’s crotch, but you mostly call someone that when they’re being a paticular kind of idiot. Just like other euphemism’s for genetalia carry specific meanings. You’re saying something different when you call someone a c*nt vs calling someone a p*ssy – but either way you’re using a euphemism for vagina.

              Does that make sense?

              1. Mookie*

                Yep. It’s like the differing registers associated with ‘d*ck’ as a pejorative. For some Anglophones, it’s a synonym for ‘assh*le,’ for others a fool.

        3. Kyrielle*

          Oh man. US, Pacific Northwest, it is *hugely* more offensive than twit. It may be a tiny bit better than the cu.. word, but not much if at all. (For basically the same reasons.)

          1. Gaia*

            PNW here. It doesn’t tend to illicit the visceral anger that the C word does (note – I won’t even write that one out) but twat is really, really not okay at work.

        5. Specialk9*

          Really f-ing offensive! Swap out the c-word for equivalence.

          Also, “fanny” means the same thing in the UK, rather than in the US, a grandmother’s way of avoiding saying something crude like “butt” or “bottom”. Hugely offensive to many Brits, which is funny bc Americans use it when they are working hard to have clean language.

          1. Electron Wisperer*

            I believe I have told the story of my friend from Glasgow (Important, detail that), and his comment that, having moved to London at age about 12 or so, he got on better in school once he figured out that “Alright you ‘aud cunt!” was NOT a term of mild respect in an inner city London school unlike an inner city Glasgow one!

            I know someone who while working a gig in the US came out with “Keep an eye on this will you? I am just going outside to smoke a fag”, got quite the looks while gigging a gay club (The English translation involves consuming a cigarette)….

            My own finest hour was in a theatre bar during a show build, “Right, first thing tomorrow, you guys hang the blacks while I go and pick up some readheads and blonds for the film crew”, I have no recollection of saying it but was apparently overheard by a punter, and it sounds like a reasonable set of instructions for that stage of the job so I probably did come out with it. Translation out of UK stage terminology “Tomorrow morning you guys get the black curtains hung up, while I go and hire some 500 and 1,000W lights for the film crew”.

            Fanny gets very different meanings across the pond, and walking into a stationers in NYC and asking for a “Rubber” gets you odd looks until they suss out that you mean an “Eraser”.

            1. Quickstepping Matilda*

              I heard a story from a former dance teacher (from England), about her relative who moved to the US, and got a job teaching high school. Apparently she accused a couple of kids of cutting class “to go suck on a fag in the parking lot,” which caused much hilarity.

          2. radiator*

            haha, when I was in the states someone said “i’ll just go get my fanny pack” before we went out. I thought it was something medical, like some kind of vaginal ice pack! I was like that is just TMI!

            1. Mental Mouse*

              I learned fast to call it a “bum bag” when I was taking a cross-country tour with a bunch of British and European au pairs.

          3. Floundering Mander*

            My 60-something Midwestern aunt got quite a few odd looks and giggles when she shouted to my 7-year-old nephew “get your fanny over here!” in the middle of Waterloo station.

    2. RVA Cat*

      Robert Browning infamously used it in his 1841 poem “Pippa Passes.” He assumed from the context in a medieval manuscript that it meant a nun’s hat – let’s just say medieval folks weren’t Victorians….

    3. twig*

      I was almost that kid.
      I just thought it would be fun to make my own word and liked twit, and changed out the vowel for an o: Twot.
      I was a teenager, though. Fortunately a more savvy friend enlightened me after only a week or two.

      1. Elizabeth West*

        I am related to a younger person I’ll call Sue who, in her naivete during her early teenage years, used the word “c-u-m” on Facebook as a stand-in for come (the normal usage of the word, like “Hey you should come over.”). She was trying to approximate textspeak, I think; those early posts were so slangy they were hard to read.

        I alerted Sue’s mum to the error and she had to explain it to her. Her mum told me later that Sue said, “OMG I wondered why all these boys were laughing and making remarks!” Sue’s mum and I nearly killed ourselves laughing over this.

        1. Mookie*

          I distinctly remember fellow kids doing this in the late 80s and early 90s, very amateur hour l33tspeak.

      2. Two Pi Man*

        When I was still a youngling, I was trying to write a silly poem to tell my mom, and I needed a word that rhymed with “muck.” I wracked my little brains but couldn’t think of anything, so decided I’d have to invent a word that rhymed with “muck”. I’m sure you can guess what word I “invented”…

    4. Rhodoferax*

      Weirdly enough, I’ve heard an urban legend that a ‘twat’ is literally a pregnant, or possibly just female, goldfish.

    5. INTP*

      So amazing how much one phoneme can change a word. I taught English to children on an island that happened to have a lot of sharks. They always wanted to know the English word and talked about sharks a lot. Only, they would often mispronounce that last little consonant and chase each other around being “sharts.”

      1. Anonicat*

        A clean version of this: my niece once told us about a kid at daycare getting in trouble for “saying a square word.”

  3. Former Diet Coke Addict*

    I had a coworker who confused the words “monogamy” and “monotony” a lot. Then when pressed, said “you know? Monogamy, the same thing over and over and over again!” Which I suppose was technically true but definitely not the intention.

    2. CoveredInBees*

      I had a bunch of those as a kid because I was a voracious reader and my parents encouraged me to read anything that held my attention, regardless of the intended audience for the book. Context is often a lot more malleable to a child than an adult could ever imagine.

      1. Jeanne*

        I had that problem. I still pronounce some words wrong because of learning them just through context in reading when I was young. I was allowed to read anything that the school library had.

        1. Elizabeth West*

          Hahaha, same here. My mum gave me special permission to check out books from the adult section at the town library. I would get the meaning of words but I didn’t know how to pronounce them. I though Potomac was PAWT-o-mack and 1di0t was EYE-DIE-ote.

          Still have that problem sometimes, actually. So it can be embarrassing when I read something I wrote aloud because I will actually use words I can’t say.

                1. Anonymous because work*

                  I thought it was pronounced “aw-ree”… it was one of the casualties of me learning most of my vocabulary as a kid from reading books. I said it out loud one time and my brother cracked up laughing and eventually composed himself enough to tell me how it was supposed to be pronounced.

          2. Sandra wishes you a heavenly day*

            determine: DEH-TER-mine.

            But my mom and I read aloud so she was able to correct me before I let that one loose.

        3. Minnock*

          Me, too! I would read ANYthing as a kid. One summer, I announced to my mother that I was going to make all the Whore’s Dovers. She looked horrified. Then she saw the cookbook I was reading.

          1. Bobbin Ufgood*

            I thought that receipt (which I pronounced ree-sept) and “ree-ceet” were two different words for the LONGEST time — like until I was in college *headdesk*. I also thought that approximately meant exactly because you actually can’t really tell from context in a sentence –try it.

              1. radiator*

                Me too! there was a Horrible Science book called Chemical Chaos which I did a talk on at school calling it chay-ows, with a hard ch, all the way through. I was astounded to learn that it was the same word as chaos, I thought chayows was a chemistry word!

            2. oranges & lemons*

              I had the same thing with “segue”–one day I thought to myself, it’s strange that there are two words with the same obscure meaning, “segue” (pronounced “seeg”) and “segway”. I wonder why that … oh.

              2. inkstainedpages*

                Late to the game, but OMG. I JUST learned this from this post. You mean there isn’t a word “segway”? Gah.

              3. Stand Rapt in Awe*

                I did this with the word “misled.” If I heard it, I knew it as the past tense of “mislead” and pronounced it “miss-led.” I was about 16 reading along with the class (thankfully someone else was reading) before I realized that apparently I had been reading it as some imaginary word “mize-ulled” that had the same meaning but a more weasel-like connotation.

            3. Whimsy and Forest Fires*

              That was me with “indict.” I think I was in high school before I finally realized why I’d never actually seen “indite” written down or heard “in-DICKT” spoken.

          2. Elemeno P.*

            This was me with “rendezvous.” I thought the “ren-dez-vuss” was a different thing from a “ronday-voo.”

        4. valc2323*

          I also still occasionally mispronounce words even though I can spell them and know what they mean, for the same reason! Our rule was that I was allowed to read anything I was big enough to pick up (and I realized many years later, could reach) on my parents’ bookshelves — two full rooms, 14 foot ceilings, floor to ceiling bookshelves on an entire wall.

          This resulted in, shortly after reading Lord of the Rings at age 12, picking up Bored of the Rings. Whose headline character is Dildo Bugger. And mom wasn’t home, so I asked dad why it was funny… to his credit, he explained, in medical terms, with a straight face. And I’m sure howled about it with mom later.

    5. sapphire1166*

      Just last month my husband said “Hey, why are our daughter’s initials wrong on this hat? They’re in the wrong order”.

      I replied, “They’re supposed to be like that. It’s a monogram”

      Husband: “What do mammograms have to do with any of this??”

  4. Kristinyc*

    I have several coworkers who say “antidotally” when they mean “anecdotally”. As in, “This didn’t come up in our research, but antidotally we’ve learned that parents prefer…” I cringe every time I hear it but to happened too many times to correct them at this point!

    1. Collarbone High*

      I once worked with an editor who Did Not Know What He Was Doing, and he’d say this all the time to reporters who did know what they were doing to try to sound smart. “I’d go with an antidotal lede on this story.” So cringeworthy.

      (For those who don’t speak journalist: an anecdotal lede is when you open a story with an anecdote.)

          1. virago*

            It’s spelled that way in my office, for the record (journalist with 31 years’ experience here).

    2. Nolan*

      In a similar vein, my boss pronounces the word “frustrating” as “fustrating”. We don’t work in the same office anymore, so I only talk to him once a week now, but when our desks were 15 feet away from each other it was maddening.

      1. many bells down*

        As a preschool teacher, I had a 3-year-old who would pronounce it as “far-us-tar-ated”. “I am very farustarated with this toy!”

        Same kid also told me once that “I call popsicles ‘pocky-pos’ because I can’t say popsicle.” Kids are great.

        2. Steph B*

          My daughter for the longest time pronounced ‘boats’ as ‘butts’. We drove past a marina once and I couldn’t stop laughing.

          1. Red Monster*

            Hah. I had a friend who, when he was a kid, called fire trucks ‘fire f*cks’. That still makes me laugh.

            1. Ktbob*

              My oldest, as a toddler, would leave out the middle “l”s in words. Which made it awkward upon loudly pointing out clocks and flags.

              1. Elemeno P.*

                I was reading books with a friend’s sweet toddler who had the same issue. I was howling with laughter and his dad poked his head in and said, “Oh, is he showing you the clocks?”

                I crocheted him a little rooster with clock arms instead of wings for Christmas.

        1. Payroll Lady*

          OH GOD! I hate this! Way too many people pronounce it with an L instead of an R. In fact, there is a particularly famous family who have a show on TLC where the Mom, who was once a pre-K teacher, says it ALL.THE.TIME! That, and when people say “Lie-barry” instead of Library make me physically recoil!

      3. Squeegee Beckenheim*

        I have a coworker who does this too! He only uses it once every couple of weeks, but maddening is definitely the word.

          1. wealhtheow*

            Many years ago I had a co-worker who said, among other things, “supposably”, “fusstrating”, and “liberry.”

            That last one was the cringiest for me, because we worked in periodical circulation so this person was talking to librarians all. the. time.

      4. valc2323*

        When I lived in New England, a regional variant was “flustrated”, which I found kind of endearing – a combination of flustered and frustrated. They go together so frequently!

    3. Kitten*

      I had a Project Manager mentoring me once who had the most amazing technical skillset. But he kept writing ‘as a pose to’ for ‘as opposed to’ and I never figured out how to correct him politely.

      I was working up the courage to explain it to him before he had to run a presentation in front of the Board, but the presentation got cancelled, so I never got the chance.

      I really hope someone else told him because he was wicked smart and really knew his stuff. It used to make me cringe though!

          1. Ego Chamber*

            Am I being judgmental when I say that everyone I know who does this are people who don’t read, but picked up these idioms from friends/family/media/etc/whatever? (“Ratchet” is a next-level example of this phenomenon.)

            1. Yzma, Put Your Hands In The Air!*

              Ratchet is a real word…I think…a type of tool. Are they trying to say “wretched”?

              1. Salyan*

                …and then there are folks like me who learned to say ‘sprocket’ instead of ‘socket’ by mistake, and now continue to use the incorrect version because it’s more fun to say! ;-)

                1. Yzma, Put Your Hands In The Air!*

                  Well, Mr. Spaceley’s company made them! Anyone else watch the Jetsons as a kid…? :)

          2. MsChanandlerBong*

            THANK YOU. I have been reading books by a new-to-me author, and TWO of them have used “chock up” when they meant “chalk up.” I think the publisher used MS Word as a proofreader instead of hiring anyone, as all of the errors in the book are real words, just not the spellings appropriate in their contexts. For example, they had an employee sitting in her “cubical” at work instead of her cubicle. I feel like writing a letter and telling them I’ll proofread for free if they just give me a free copy of the book!

      2. Dee C.*

        Oof. I briefly had a boss who wrote in nearly every email she sent to me that she and I needed to “touch basis” on some subject or another.

        One of my current boss’s favorite phrases is the idiom he believes is “flush out” and the rest of the world knows as “flesh out” (as in a concept, an outline, etc.). Not toooo egregious, but he says it every. Darn. Day.

        (Why do people who get idioms wrong always do it with such confidence and enthusiasm, though?)

        1. Dee C.*

          Oh! One more that nearly made me die of secondhand embarrassment. I was at a conference not long ago and one speaker’s presentation relied heavily on the idea that a particular tech platform was quickly achieving feature parity with its bigger competitor. Which he referred to as “feature parody,” on every last slide and handout.

        2. yasmara*

          Interesting- I do think there’s a use for “flush out” too, but it’s to expose/discover not to elaborate on.

          1. Garland Not Andrews*

            I’ve seen it used in referring to hunting, as in, using a dog to “Flush Out” the pheasants.

        3. Peter*

          I have gotten into all-out arguments with colleagues, both past and present, on the “flush out” versus “flesh out.” Glad it’s not just me!

          1. yasmara*

            “Flush out” comes from hunting – you flush out game so you can shoot it. I feel like I run across it in the context of mysteries or police procedurals – they are always wanting to flush out bad guys from their hiding places.

  5. AlexandrinaVictoria*

    My team were explaining the word “hangry” to our boss. He stated that he didn’t get angry when he was hungry, but he did get grumpy, so he must be “humpy.”

    1. Callalily*

      I am dying at the possible implications of him saying “I’m feeling humpy” to his staff…

  6. KTM*

    One of my coworkers was giving a practice presentation to a group of us prior to an upcoming technical conference. Part of the subject matter was a hydrophobic surface (a material/surface that’s designed to repel water). He had it printed in text correctly on the slide but when he was talking about it he said it was a ‘homophobic’ surface! He didn’t notice his own slip and continued on in the presentation while we were kind of wondering what the heck happened. Someone had to awkwardly bring up his slip of tongue afterwards. Thankfully it was internal and not at the conference…

    2. This Daydreamer*

      And, of course, hydrophobia is quite a different concept in biology.

      And thank you for the reminder to schedule my cat’s annual checkup.

  7. moink*

    I work for a British company in Germany and am the only native English speaker on the team. Once, I had to explain to my manager why the much older male colleague in the UK insisted she not use the acronym FANNY for a project, but wouldn’t tell her why. She then called all the people in the project team and was very explicit about giving them the translation.

    Another colleague called someone’s outfit “slutty” when he meant “sloppy.” The two words have the same German translation.

    2. LizB*

      Fun fact: “slutty” and “sloppy” used to have basically the same meaning in English as well. They emphatically do not have the same meaning anymore.

      1. msmorlowe*

        A friend of mine had older parents, and her mother would call her a slut if she hadn’t cleaned her bedroom…

        1. Not Australian*

          My mother’s definition of a slut was someone who left her washing out on the line overnight. I think the word they’re confusing it with is actually ‘slattern’…

          1. Jay*

            My mother’s definition of “slut” was a woman who smoked cigarettes outside on the sidewalk. She was horrified once NYC passed its no-smoking-indoors law. All those loose women out on the street, dressed just like everybody else….

          2. fposte*

            No, it actually predates “slattern” in that usage. “A woman of dirty, slovenly, or untidy habits or appearance,” says the OED.

        2. only acting normal*

          My mother still uses it like that too (e.g. “I haven’t vacuumed all week, I’m such a slut!”) To be fair that used to be the meaning, but really really isn’t any more!

    3. moink*

      Remembered another few : Germans use the verb “pimp” in the sense of “to make extravagant” (like “Pimp my Ride”) and are often unaware of its other meaning. This has made for some confusing propsals to pimp various products, projects, etc.

      I also have had to explain the slightly salacious connotations of “hump day”.

      Once at a conference a different non-English native presented about his “Adaptive Sampling System” and repeatedly used the acronym. No one said anything.

      1. Lily Rowan*

        On the flip side, I worked with someone who insisted on pronouncing GIZ as “jizz,” rather than gee-eye-zed.

          1. Lily Rowan*

            Sorry, it’s the abbreviation for the German international aid organization, like USAID or DFID in the UK. (My colleague and I are both American.)

      2. Emi.*

        Wait, “hump day” is salacious? I thought it just meant you’re “over the hump,” as in the worst is over.

            2. Anonicat*

              Tonight we’re gonna make love.
              You know how I know?
              ‘Cause it’s Wednesday
              And Wednesday night is the night we usually make love
              …
              Conditions are perfect.
              There’s nothing good on TV – conditions are perfect!
              – Business Time by Flight of the Conchords

          2. This Daydreamer*

            No wonder everyone one was unhappy with that blasted camel. Mike Mike Mike Mike Mike Mike!

        2. Persephone Mulberry*

          I think it’s more of a “snickering like a 12 year old” interpretation rather than salacious in and of itself – sort of like the road signage that calls them “speed humps” instead of “speed bumps.”

          2. Snork Maiden*

            When I went to Britain we had a quiet giggle about the first “Humps for 10 metres” sign we encountered

          3. Falling Diphthong*

            I live in New England, and have never figured out the difference between speed humps and speed bumps. I’ll encounter both on one drive–I can’t swear they are on the same road in the same town, but it feels that way.

            1. nofelix*

              I can enlighten you: speed bumps are smaller, around a few feet across. Speed humps are longer.

              Generally, when driving over a bump your front wheels will clear it around the same time your rear wheels first hit it. When driving over a hump however, all wheels will be on the hump at the same time before you cross it, leading to a gentler rocking motion.

        4. DaniCalifornia*

          We say this all the time. It’s hump day to me (and those who I’ve interacted) has always meant what you described. Wednesday. There’s even that commercial with the camel saying it. I don’t think it’s salacious.

          2. Elizabeth West*

            Haha, at Exjob we used to quote that commercial at each other.
            “Hey what day is today?”
            “Mike Mike you know what day it is!”
            “Oh yeah, thanks.”

        5. An AAM Fan*

          I honestly think this is the meaning most people give it. You’re climbing the hill until Wednesday, and it’s all down hill after that.

          But, honestly, it seems like *anything* can be turned into a sexual innuendo. And, yes, I do know what “hump” means in other contexts. I’m 100% sure, though, that most people I know who use the term “hump day” do not mean it that way.

      3. Ramona Flowers*

        I once decided not to apply for a job as an Advice Session Supervisor. They abbreviated it right in the ad and I just knew I wouldn’t get through the interview without laughing…

        1. strawberries and raspberries*

          Oh my God, my first temp office job when I was 19, there always used to be mail for “[Company Owner’s Name] and Ass.” and I always used to bust up laughing, like every single time. SO IMMATURE but like JUST WRITE ASSOCIATES IN FULL.

            1. Lauralyzer*

              Many years ago I became an assistant manager at a women’s gym, and my boss would refer to me as the “Ass. Man.” and even address notes to me that way … *eyeroll*

          2. Kyrielle*

            I worked at a company at one point that had character limitations on email addresses and wanted clear, quick group names.

            Sales and Marketing was s&m@….

            I never, ever saw an email that included them without either giggling or having to fight down a giggle. Luckily I was not *on* the s&m team, so I didn’t see them very often.

            1. NCKat*

              Hahaha!

              Many years ago we had an HR system that imposed character limits on position titles. The convention was to put the function first, then the title. For example, an HR manager would be entered as “Manager HR”

              You can imagine the fuss than ensued when analysts saw their titles as “ANAL ” listed in our company intranet site. Of course I giggled like mad at the time.

              1. Coalea*

                A company I used to work for used abbreviations in their time reporting system, so my time sheets would indicate that I spent the majority of my days engaged in “anal” (aka analysis).

                Also, my classmates and I had to explain to our (non-native English-speaking) professor that “CLIT” was probably not the best abbreviation for his comparative literature course.

                2. LJL*

                  A former colleague wanted to name the center where I worked to the Center for Learning and Instructional Technology. It wasn’t until I made him spell out the acronym that he turned beet red, giggled, and said “Oh, no, we can’t have that!!”

              2. Lissa*

                The college I work at uses abbreviations on class schedules, and it uses the word “Method” to indicate if it’s a lecture or a lab. So a lot of student schedules have “METH LAB” written on them.

                1. Specialk9*

                  Oh wow, this made me laugh till I got tears in my eyes. Student meth labs… Very enterprising of your school!

                2. So Very Anonymous*

                  Academic friend said his university had a department (can’t remember which one now) that taught an analytic methods course that got abbreviated as ANAL METH.

              3. SusanIvanova*

                The 8.3 filename limits resulted in some significant giggling when the Unix file named “emulation” got truncated to “emulatio”.

              4. Chaordic One*

                I used to be the admin in the HR department at one of my former employers. We had this one contractor who was kind of difficult to deal with. Her paperwork was almost always late, sloppy and incomplete and it resulted in a lot of extra work for me. I had to nag her to get it turned in in the first place, and most of the time I had to send it back to be done correctly.

                Shortly before I left that job she returned some of her paperwork in an envelope addressed to:
                “Chaordic One, Administrative Ass”

                I really think she did it on purpose.

            3. travelandi*

              I used to work for a company called S&M (the owners initials). Thankfully it was so long ago I no longer need to include it in my resume.

              1. save me from the job portals, srsly*

                I’ve been applying for jobs in academia recently, and seen a lot of drop-down menus where you can list your position as ‘Ass Prof’…

          4. oliviacw*

            One of my early jobs was titled “Computing Information Systems Associate”, which was too long for the HR system so I was listed as “Computing Information Systems Ass”. This was pointed out to me multiple times by people, so I finally upleveled it to HR and requested that it be changed to “Computing Info Sys Associate”. (I think they eventually settled on “Comp Info Systems Assoc” for some reason, but at least it wasn’t “Ass” any longer.)

          5. Ama*

            We used to see a lot of “Ass. Professor” in academia, usually from staff or students that were new to the environment. Interestingly, if they did get a comment it wasn’t usually for the entendre but because “Ass.” doesn’t tell you if it is an “Assistant” or “Associate” Professor and some people get *very* touchy about the difference.

          6. eee*

            we had a presentation at work the other day about screen reader compatibility. The woman presenting included “don’t shorten continued, it sounds bad on a screen reader.” Moment of silence as everyone mentally pronounced cont. out loud.

            1. The yellow dog of workplace happiness*

              As a screenreader user, I can attest to this. A contributing factor to this is that most screenreader users progressively train themselves to cope with faster and faster speech. I still have to pause for a second when navigating through menus when I pass over the “Your account” option.

              Tangentially related, I’d like to discourage people from masking profanity. It’s very jarring and distracting when you’re listening to something and you hear “he couldn’t give a s h asterisk t what I think”. I often have to go back and reread word by word, then letter by letter for the weird word only to find it was a regular word that’d been munged. Either that or just having to go back and reread because by the time my brain figures out what it was, I’ve now missed the next sentence.

              1. yasmara*

                Super interesting – I never thought about screen readers having a hard time with masked profanity and I’ve done accessibility & screen reader training…probably because we wouldn’t swear in technical documentation (no matter how much it might feel like we should). A lot of people probably do it so they won’t be caught by filters, but now I will be more aware of the potential impact on screen readers!

          7. Lefty*

            As a Resident Assistant in a large dorm at a state university, I once had to explain why referring to our group as the “Resident Ass. Faculty” would be concerning, especially when the parents of freshman were sent to the “Resident Ass. Faculty” office.

            It was also incredibly funny when our director urged us to really own our work as Resident Assistants, “Show them what a Resident Assistant can do here. Embrace your role as an R.A! Grab your RA-ness with both hands and show it to the world!”

          8. Red Monster*

            I work for an Association. We sometimes get mail that’s abbreviated…I also giggle.

          9. Garland Not Andrews*

            A few years ago I interviewed at a CPA’s office. The business name was Name Name CPA and Associates. When the senior partner Ms. Name Name stepped out of the room, the junior partner told me that Ms. Name Name was the Name Name, she (junior partner) was the Ass and everyone else were the Oh Shits! I worked there for one tax season. Fun place!

        2. Christmas Carol*

          I was once employed as an Account Services Specialist, but after a while they deleted the Services from our department name.

        3. That would be a good band name*

          This reminds me of when the online grading system at my son’s school abbreviated assessment by just leaving off the last four letters.

          1. Ego Chamber*

            I’m confused, what’s dirty about “assess”? That’s the basis of the word “assessment.”

        4. zora*

          One place I worked one of the admins always abbreviated Assistant as Ass. instead of Asst. It drove me insane, but I was just a temp there so I didn’t want to say anything.

            1. Elle Em En Oh Pea*

              I saw one of those black and neon lettered signs advertising for retail jobs… including Ass Man.

        5. Elizabeth West*

          That reminds me of that book Up the Down Staircase. The principal’s bureaucratic assistant, J.J. McHabe, would sign all his memos “J.J. McH, Admn. Asst.” The teacher characters started referring to him as Admiral Ass.
          The abbreviation is forever ruined for me. :’D

      4. Tiny Orchid*

        Someone I know worked at a Fortune 100 company, and was heading up a new department. The name “Advanced Server Systems” got through several levels of review before he decided it needed to be changed due to the acronym.

        1. Teach*

          Teacher here: the files that follow kids from year-to-year are called “Cumulative Records” and teachers often verbally shorten that to sound like “kyoom folders” but I have to write out the full term on emails and to-do lists because I have a dirty mind.

          2. anonanonanonymous*

            I definitely did a double-take the one time I saw “Check ****’s cum file” on my to-do list, even though I wrote it myself the day before.

        2. Attie*

          “ASS” is the legit generic name for aspirin in Germany. Printed in large font on the package and everything. (“acid” is “säure” in german so ASA turns into… yeah.)

          My local supermarket sells a frozen package containing both fish balls and meat balls. They ring up as “ASS BALLS” on the receipt.

    4. Lily Rowan*

      Oh god — years ago, I was the youngest person in a team at work brainstorming the name for a new program for young women. Someone suggested “Outside My Box,” and it was really starting to catch on with the group, and I finally had to say that there were slang connotations to “box” that they wouldn’t want, and it was SO MORTIFYING.

      1. Artemesia*

        In a piece on innovation and change, I saw someone use the phrase, there are lots more pitchers than catchers and sort of run with that metaphor of pitchers and catchers throughout the planned presentation. We had to suggest that maybe not.

    5. Observer*

      I get why the coworker was embarrassed, but your manager was right on the money, if you ask me.

    6. Polymer Phil*

      I heard a funny story from a British friend about an American making this mistake in the UK. In American English, “fanny” is a cute term for “butt,” innocuous enough to use in front of children. In British English, “fanny” is a vulgar slang term for female genitalia!

      1. LabTech*

        Did not know the UK meaning. (Also didn’t know some of the UK synonyms mentioned upthread.) Good to know!

      2. many bells down*

        There’s a lingerie shop in San Luis Obispo, CA called “Fanny Wrappers”. An employee once told me that British and Australian tourists are absolutely amazed that we can just write that on a big public sign and no one blinks. They’d line up to take photos of it.

        1. Gen*

          I was horrified (as a Brit) to get a misdirected email about ‘feedback on your Jiffy Lube experience’ to my work email. Apparently it has something to do with cars (I think?) but it triggered our filters so that was a fun conversation with IT

          1. Chimingin1x*

            You are right, it’s a chain of quick car servicing shops specializing in oil changes for the most part (although they’ll change out a number of other vehicular fluids too).
            Jiffy = quick, i.e. “Be done in a jiffy!”
            Lube = oil + other motor lubricants

            They are just about everywhere in the U.S.

            1. Treecat*

              My Australian husband gets a HUGE kick out of “Roto Rooter” and any other plumbing service with “Rooter” in the name. Root/rooting is an Australian slang term for having sex.

              The “root for the home team” line in “Take Me Out To The Ballgame” also reduces him to fits of giggles every time. He’s lived here since 2010.

              1. Indie Accountant*

                There’s a clothing and leather goods brand in Canada called “Roots”, and their products have the name and logo (a beaver!) prominently displayed. I’ve heard that Australian tourists get quite a chuckle from it. It’s an expensive brand, too, and has been around for decades.

            2. starsaphire*

              The town where I lived about fifteen years ago got a new Jiffy Lube on a semi-vacant corner. They painted it to match the business that shared the same parking lot…

              …which was a very disreputable massage parlor that got mentioned in the Police Reports all the time.

              We never, ever ran out of jokes about that. :)

              1. JulieBulie*

                Right, but what is the British meeting? Why is “Jiffy Lube” so shocking? Is “Lube” the problematic word?

          1. Floundering Mander*

            I knew a guy who was in a band called “Sofa Kingdom”. It took me a long time to work out the joke.

        3. INTP*

          I learned the UK meaning when I said to a group of fellow travelers that I might pick up a fanny pack for the beach. Their first thought was NOT a small waist pack for carrying a phone and money.

          I have also learned not to talk about being “bummed” or mention that something “bummed you out” to UKers, lol.

          1. Floundering Mander*

            I had this brilliant business idea that I would sell bum bags at music festivals in the UK full of feminine hygiene supplies (and maybe condoms, ibuprofen, etc.) that you might have forgotten to bring with you. Of course they will be called Fanny Packs, but I figured that in the context of a music festival this will be seen as funny and hip and lead to more sales.

            My British husband was unimpressed with this idea.

      3. DDJ*

        Yeah…my friend’s Mom married someone from the UK and the first time we met him, one of us mentioned something about a “fanny pack” and he was absolutely gob-smacked. So then he explained to us that we didn’t want to use that phrase, and that “bum bag” would be more appropriate. But we were sputtering because “No, fanny means bum! You know, like “Oh I gave her a little tap on the fanny. Nothing dirty!”

        And so he, of course, turned to my friend’s Mom and asked, “So, can I give you a little tap on the fanny?” and winked. And we were mortified.

        1. Ego Chamber*

          When I was a kid in the 90’s, “fanny pack” never made sense because everyone I knew wore them on the front—and then I learned the UK definition of “fanny” and it all made sense (and then I found out they were called “bum bags” in the UK and I was so confused again).

            1. redwitsch*

              In Czech we call it ledvinka, which literally means small kidney and in context it can be translated as kidney pack, because it is worn where your kidneys are. 8D

    7. Dan*

      You may have the same issue with people speaking American English, because I had to google what inappropriate meaning “fanny” might have. In the US, it’s an old term for “butt”, as in “fanny pack” but isn’t used much any more… at least not where I live.

    5. Eats, Shoots and Leaves*

      I once made the mistake of telling my much older aunt that I was going to go lay down. Nope. She immediately responded, “You are not going to lay down; you are going to lie down. Remember that you have to lie down to get laid.”

      I think my young teenage self blushed ten different shades of red. On the plus side, I never (ok, rarely) mixed up “lie” and “lay” again. I also spent the rest of her life threatening to put “Here lays dear Aunt Emma” on her tombstone.

  9. Gen*

    An older manager know for hating swear words loved to call foolish people ‘berks’ for about three decades before someone explain that ‘berk’ is (via rhyming slang) a synonym for c—. She had hysterics

              1. Mookie*

                Hmm? Apart from US Americans, I’ve never heard anyone pronounce Berkeley but with ɑːr. (For the purpose of the slang, though, it’s as you say.)

        2. Catalin*

          Please note, (Cockney or other) rhyming works in long form: i.e. Berk= Berkshire Hunt =Thing that rhymes with the SECOND or LAST part of the slang.

      1. Anlyn*

        Never knew that either, though due to the Avengers movie, I learned that “quim” is also a synonym.

        2. many bells down*

          I could not believe they used “quim” in that movie. I guess it kept the rating from being R? And probably most people didn’t know what Loki was saying as it’s pretty archaic. But I choked on my soda, “he just called Black Widow a whiny c***?!!”

          1. Anlyn*

            Yep, the director admitted on the commentary that’s one of the reasons why he chose it. Very few people had ever heard of it.

            1. Lauralyzer*

              I had the SAME shocked reaction. And it still rocks me when I re-watch the movie. Then again, that’s an appropriate response to the scene.

              1. Blue*

                It was super jarring for me, too! I studied 18th century sex work in graduate school, so while I was used to seeing it my historical sources, I had literally never seen nor heard it used in a modern context. The friends I was with hadn’t heard it at all.

                1. Ego Chamber*

                  Ikr? I’m only familiar with the word from Victorian pornography (but I suppose if anyone’s going to say it in a modern setting, it would be Loki).

                2. Drew*

                  I first ran across that word in high school senior English during a unit on the Canterbury Tales. We were reading and I stumbled over that word and looked up to ask my teacher what it meant. When I saw the utterly horrified face she was making, and heard a couple of my better-read (or at least better-guttered) classmates snickering, I knew it was naughty, but I still had to go to her after class to find out WHAT IT ACTUALLY MEANT because I wouldn’t let it go.

                  She handled it very well and I promptly added it to a list of words I would never, ever, ever in my life use. (It was a long list. Then. I’ve since loosened up considerably.)

                3. Nic*

                  So I had to, and just googled it. Wiktionary indicates that it may be related to queme, meaning “to please” from Old English cweman “To gratify, satisfy, please”.

                  That…er…tickles me pink. Pun intended.

                4. Jennifer Thneed*

                  OT, I know, but please tell me more! Were you studying sex work in a specific location? Or of a specific type?

                  (I haven’t seen the movie, but I do know the word, probably just because I’m a word geek and grew up reading old stuff for geeky fun. Oh, and I worked at the Ren Faire during formative adult years. :) And unrelatedly, I’m currently listening to Count of Monte Cristo. Fun stuff.)

              1. yasmara*

                Oh wait, maybe it was Canterbury Tales! I took a series of British Literature classes in college so we covered it in order (by time – early to later) over the course of a couple of semesters.

      1. Schnapps*

        There’s the “How to Train Your Dragon” Netflix show. The place they live is called “Berk”. And they are the Dragonriders of Berk.

        1. Susan Calvin*

          Is it? How curious – I’ve only ever seen HtTYD in German dub, and was under the impression the place was named Berg, meaning mountain, because it’s, you know, a little mountain sticking up out of the sea I guess? I was actually wondering what it was called in English, because Berg in German works as a place name the same way that Shire does, but I didn’t think Mountain sounded likely.

          Er. Sorry for the tangent.

      1. Becky*

        It is actually quite common that when words are borrowed across languages or dialects, that associated taboos do not follow the word, so a word offensive in one culture is not offensive in a different culture, even if they, nominally, speak the same language.

    5. Perse's Mom*

      Huh. I’m familiar with it from tabletop gaming of all things where it was used to simply mean idiot/fool/impressively naive. Even Miriam-Webster just flags it as idiot or fool.

  10. Mike C.*

    To be fair with the “teabagger” comment, even members of the movement called themselves that for the first few days until someone told them what it meant, so it can happen to any of us!

    1. Countess Boochie Flagrante*

      And those were some gloriously funny early days, before things got scary.

    2. frog*

      Yeah, thanks to them I had to explain to coworkers at two different companies why the Tea Party’s use of “teabagger” to self-identify was so amusing.

    5. Ego Chamber*

      The way I’ve heard the story, they were incited into doing that by some IRL trolls who had infiltrated their protest groups and started saying it (I can’t decide whether that’s better or worse than if they came up with it themselves).

    6. Jiya*

      And that’s why I, too, had to explain the true meaning of “teabagging” to my parents when we were watching The Daily Show together at the time. Horrors.

  12. Amber T*

    Ooh I’ll do one for myself! My mom always used the phrase ‘hooking up’ to mean ‘meeting up with’ or ‘getting together.’ While it’s not something I often use, it’s something I also picked up on. I’ve always understood that the phrase also meant… what it actually means, but I also thought my way was commonly used. There were a few times I would say “we should hook up with Teapots Inc. to discuss” or “Boss should hook up with Client to go over…” I’ve stopped myself 99% of the time, but it still slips out.

    1. Buffy Summers*

      I’ve heard it used both ways and, honestly, I say things like “We’ll hook up later.” or “I’m hooking up with Willow later at The Bronze, wanna come?”
      I don’t even think about and I intend to continue using it. Cause I’m a total rebel. I don’t need no stinkin’ rules.

      1. Amber T*

        I’m wondering if it’s a regional thing, but in my specific region now, it has been pointed out to me that it does not mean “meeting with.” Oops.

      2. TootsNYC*

        actually, it also used to just mean “hang out together” or “flirt.”

        It morphed into meaning “have sex” later–it was a confusing time, because it kept showing up in the stuff I edited or read in order to keep current with slang, and it was REALLY confusing. Especially when teenagers or pre-teens were using it, and the context sort of didn’t make you think “yep, sexual intercourse.”

        It came about as a way to talk about sexual activity (of many differing intensities) without having to be specific.

        1. Emi.*

          At my college, a “hookup” usually just means a drunk makeout, which some people refer to casually enough to totally scandalize their visiting friends.

        2. Sparkly Librarian*

          I remember scandalizing an adult by using it in the “met and socialized with” sense, as a teen. It seemed perfectly straightforward to ME in the context of the story (I wasn’t having sexual escapades while on tour with my school group in another state, and if I had been I wouldn’t have casually mentioned it to this grownup!).

        3. Specialk9*

          Yeah, in my day it was a deliberately non specific term, that could cover lots of activities.

      3. Breda*

        Yeah, this is something that I think is perfectly fine both ways – it’s pretty clear which meaning you intend. But maybe it is a regional thing, as Amber T suggests.

      4. Catalyst*

        I just want to say, I am a Buffy fan as well, and I love that you used a Buffy reference in your comment along with your name! :)

    2. Isben Takes Tea*

      My mom did this too! I finally told her that there had been a cultural shift in the usage and that she needed to stop saying members of our Girl Scout troop would be hooking up later!

      1. Ama*

        Ah, the shift in cultural usage. I remember the summer my siblings and I had to beg my mom to stop referring to flip flop sandals as “thongs,” after she yelled across a parking lot to my youngest brother to “please get my thongs out of the car.”

        1. Katie Sewell*

          Ohh, yes. I went on a short-term mission trip with a very conservative organization as a very conservative teen, and was shocked to receive a packing list that included “thongs”. They meant flip flops for the showers. We asked them to update that for the next team.

    3. D.W.*

      I definitely saying “hooking up”. I believe the context should be more than enough explain what I’m saying. If I say, “Jeff and I are hooking up later at the Taqueria”, you should know I mean we’re going to grab a bite to eat.

      That being said, if I think about it before I say it, 80% of the time I will say “link up” as to not ruffle any feathers, but I think it’s perfectly fine to continue using either.

    4. Alex the Alchemist*

      I used to do this. My mom knew of the other meaning. I just recall saying to her, “Yeah I’ve been hooking up with this guy from my class” in the sixth grade and her COMPLETELY freaking out because what I said and what she thought I meant were NOT matching up AT ALL.

    5. Artemesia*

      When we moved to the south I discovered that ‘hook up’ was the phrase used for car pools and kid pick ups at school; always; they had a rules for hook ups, a hook up line and the phrase was commonly used for other sorts of non sexual meetings as well as in ‘we’ll hook up later.’

      I think the campus use to mean casual sex actually came later.

      1. yasmara*

        Yeah, I’m a GenXer and I have just noticed recently that I really need to stop saying “hook up with” as a substitute for “meeting up in a nonsexual sense.” I started typing the phrase, “maybe we can hook up later” in a text and the light bulb went on – that was not at ALL what I meant (happily married old lady 2 kids, 2 cats). Luckily, I caught it before I sent it & now I’m self-policing verbally more carefully!

    6. HighOnPoker*

      My mother tutored SATs. When I was in high school, she called me down to introduce me to one of her students who was going on the same upcoming youth group trip with me. My mother said, “You two should hook up there.” We both had to explain to her what that meant. A bit awkward, and we never did get to hook up, despite my mother’s best efforts.

  14. Valentina*

    A couple years ago my manager submitted my yearly evaluation, describing at length my interactions with various stakeholders. Only she’d consistently spelled it ‘steakholders’.

    1. Lady Jay*

      Oh, I have a couple like that! I have students who write papers about gender roles, only they spell it consistently as “gender rolls” – it gives me visions of blue-and-pink rolls in a bread basket! :)

      1. Emi.*

        I will never have a gender-reveal party for my babies, but if I were to, it would include pink and blue gender rolls.

      4. Ashie*

        An event planner at OldJob invited craft vendors to our location at Christmastime and put out flyers inviting everyone to our first annual “Holiday Shopping Bizarre”

        1. Snork Maiden*

          OK, I laughed out loud at this one. Although holiday shopping can get pretty bizarre…

      5. nonymous*

        Well if you grade by hand, it might be worth drawing the cartoon to help them remember. Or a quick doodle on the whiteboard/slide deck if your classroom management is open to levity. A good giggle all around my be an excellent memory prop.

      6. CrazyEngineerGirl*

        Okay, I just spent an embarrassing amount thinking about the different kinds of gender rolls… traditional gender rolls, modern gender rolls, split top gender rolls, whole wheat gender rolls, buttered gender rolls, sourdough gender rolls… Help! I can’t stop!

        1. So Very Anonymous*

          Possibly also a sushi option? “Yes, I’ll have a California roll and a gender roll, please…”

    2. Jules the 3rd*

      It baffles me how common that is. I’ve seen it from three or four professional colleagues.

    4. Snark*

      I’m just imagining someone walking through a hallway in a cube farm, very matter of factly carrying a large porterhouse with them to various meetings.

      1. Pickles*

        Cracking up in my office alone at this! I should go shut the door so I can snort quietly without the neighbors hearing.

        1. NotThatGardner*

          ack! yes, that too! i don’t know if i’m just an insufferable snob (see my voila vs…. in another part of comments) but man, that stuff gets to me. spell check does not equal context check!

      2. This Daydreamer*

        Their are alot of those. Its defiantly annoying. I have a manger at work who speaks English as a second lanaguage and its hard to keep quite about some of her typos.

        I love her to death and she really is very intelligent. But I have to bite my tongue when she reminds everyone to rinse out cans to avoid getting nets.

        1. Anonicat*

          One of the reasons I love my boss – English is his FOURTH language – is that he regularly swings by my desk to ask about some new Australian idiom he’s heard. He’s just delighted by the quirks of language. “Flat out like a lizard drinking – haha, zis is perfect!”

          1. Becky*

            I once did some editing work for a woman who spoke about 4 languages, Hungarian being her native language, and explaining which English prepositions you can or can’t use in certain situations and how different prepositional phrases can have slightly different meanings was HARD!

            Trying to say why in a specific sentence you want to use “care for” vs “care about” vs “take care of” was mostly just me stumbling through saying–“no this one is the right one, though I can’t explain why”.

        2. Julia*

          I see there/their/they’re and similar misspellings from native speakers much more often than from non-natives. I guess because us non-natives had to learn the actual rules and know that they’re means they are etc.

    6. Typhon Worker Bee*

      Love it!

      My favourite typos from grant proposals: “the leaders of the different groups will use pier-to-pier communication methods” – um, Semaphore flags?

      and “security breeches”

        1. Sailor Veela*

          I have a shirt from Splunk that just says “Drop your breaches.” I get looks every time I wear it.

    7. Specialk9*

      Steakholders. Am I right in thinking that to this day, when someone uses the term stakeholder, you imagine someone standing there, arm outstretched, with a big ole slab of meat in their hand? Lol.

    8. Interrupting your regularly scheduled Anon*

      Going super anon for this in case my SIL or brother ever come here (they’ve heard it). My mom was trying to get something done in our town (I think get a stop sign installed at a dangerous corner) and phoned city hall. She called to talk to the town prosecutor, but that’s not what she called him. In her defense, it DOES start with a P and sounds similar, but I’m pretty sure he was not amused to be called the crude term for a “lady of the evening” (with an “r” on the end).

      1. Interrupting your regularly scheduled Anon*

        *Sigh* That’s what I get for not reading all the comments. My mom asking for the town “Prostitutor” is not new. Oh well, it was funny to us.

    9. only acting normal*

      Our senior management issued a business plan with a Forward instead of a Foreword once.

  15. AnnaleighUK*

    A former co-worker got ‘incorrigible’ and ‘encouraging’ very mixed up, so our department head was very confused when he received an email from her saying about me ‘Ani is an incorrigible trainer and I am glad she has been incorrigible when working through some of the more challenging aspects of the role’. I just about died. I hope I was encouraging and not incorrigible!

    2. Artemesia*

      IN a similar vein, back in the day I mixed up ‘notorious’ and ‘famous.’ I actually oddly did not know the negative meaning of notorious and thought it meant very famous. I embarrassed myself memorably.

      1. Owl*

        Dusty: “What does that mean? Infamous?”
        Ned: “Ah, Dusty! Infamous is when you’re more than famous! This guy El Guapo is not just famous, he’s IN-famous!”

        1. many bells down*

          I was called “infamous” in my high school yearbook. I still have no idea why; I was a drama geek but otherwise known as “that weird nerdy girl”. And I didn’t know the guy who wrote the article.

          1. Lissa*

            I’ve heard “infamous” used in a slangy/cutesy/joking way to mean ‘well-known’ before. I think it’s similar to how people say “my partner in crime” to mean significant other.

  16. Lionheart26*

    When I worked in Vietnam, I had to explain to our business manager why it probably wasn’t a good idea to call the “Sales & Marketing” team “S&M”

    1. TootsNYC*

      and when working on a weddings publication, we couldn’t shorten “Save the Dates” (though on web posts, I’ve written it as “StD”)

      2. H.C.*

        That abbreviation is more common than you think in nonprofit industry, especially amongst staff involved with planning fundraiser events. My colleagues didn’t even blink an eye when the director yelled across the open office about getting those STDs out pronto!

          1. Geometric Percolator*

            My coworker had to submit timesheets under the STD category while she was on parental leave.

            I mean, yes, technically, that is the original STD….

      3. Kristobel*

        The best part is that it is the same number of syllables…’save the date’ and ‘ess tee dee’…you’re not saving any time!

        1. H.C.*

          Indeed, I think it started out as email/chat/text shorthand then just floated over to actual dialogue.

      4. That Would Be a Good Band Name*

        After working in payroll for the last few years, I no longer flinch when someone is off work due to STD (short term disability).

        1. Anonicat*

          Our lab assigns study participants an ID made of a number followed by their initials, eg 1000XY.

          There are a surprising number of people with the initials BM or BO.

        2. yasmara*

          At a former job, my husband’s department was Strategic Technology Division…they kept it. I snickered every time.

      6. Kimberly*

        Schools use Std as an abbreviation for students. Had to explain to principal why that was a bad idea. Not as bad as one I had later that insisted Thomas Jefferson single handily wrote the Declaration and Constitution. The man had never read the Federalist Papers. He told me they were a fraud manufactured by liberals.

    2. Amber T*

      We frequently refer to individuals by their initials, and often start emails with “AB & CD” (whatever the initials are of the individual(s) on the email). I was copied on an email chain where someone was responding to two individuals that started with “BD & SM.” I don’t know if anyone said anything, but their names were spelled out in later emails. Still, it stuck around in the chain and I laughed every time.

    3. Jules the 3rd*

      There’s a school in North Carolina, called the North Carolina School of Science and Math.

      The school administration has been trying to stop alumni from calling it S&M for *decades*. I think once some of us grew up, SnM did become more popular, but S&M is still very common.

      1. MAMaS*

        I went to the Massachusetts Academy of Math and Science. All the alumni call it MAMaS, but the administration is no fun and tries to get us to use MAMS. (Not as amusing as S&M, of course, but legislating acronyms seems to be a common practice.)

        1. Kristobel*

          I went to the Alabama School of Math and Science (ASMS)! Not funny, unfortunately. Although a lot of students did call it “ass-mus.”

          1. Stand Rapt in Awe*

            Arkansas School for Math, Science and Arts is ASMSA (formerly ASMS). Nice to see other alums from similar schools on here!

        3. Nic*

          I went to the Louisiana School for Math Science and Arts (LSMSA). Neat to see someone who went to a similar school!

      2. Lies, damn lies and...*

        The Virginia state tests are the Standards of Learning or SOLs. I’m hoping someone did that as a joke.

        1. Any Moose*

          I used to work for an attorney. At one point he had a note tacked to the wall that said SOL with a date. I asked him what it meant. He said “statute of limitations.” I said I thought it meant “shit outta luck.” He laughed and said “same thing!”

        2. Countess Boochie Flagrante*

          Oh my god, I remember cracking up over those in high school. “If you don’t pass these, you are one!”

        3. Ama*

          A few years back, the NYC subway system extended the “M” subway line, with the M replacing the J train at several stops. To save time and money they changed the signs by putting stickers of M line decals over the J train symbol at the relevant stops. The day after the signs changed, people started posting pictures of the stop where this change made all the signs read “FML.”

          I’ve never seen anything in the subway get fixed so fast.

          1. Nolan*

            Every time I’m in a station that accesses the BDFM lines I do a double take. Every. Damn. Time.

        4. Typhon Worker Bee*

          There’s a store in Vancouver that used to be called “SOL CONVENIENCE”. There was a picture of a sun on the sign, but still. Last time I went past they’d changed the name, unfortunately

      3. mousie housie*

        There is a professional organization in Canada of music educators that until fairly recently went by the name of Canadian University Music Society. They tried to salvage the abbreviation by appending the French version, but CUMS – SMUC almost made it worse..

        And the kicker – the professional journal review was called CUMR.

        Quite a group of innocents!

        http://www.muscan.org/en/about-us/history

        1. Long time lurker*

          The academic journal of the National Academy of Sciences is PNAS. Pronounced how you would expect.

        2. Withans*

          The Cambridge University Music Society suffers a similar problem. And anecdotally, I heard that the Cambridge University branch of what was then called the Naval Training Service was pretty pleased with their acronym. The Netball Team was less happy…

      4. Jillociraptor*

        Are y’all seeing all of these commercials for Universal Technical Institute, aka uti.edu? Come on.

        1. ThatGirl*

          My office is a couple miles down the highway from a UTI branch and it makes me laugh every. single. day.

        2. Betty Cooper*

          A relative of mine goes to UTI, and I giggle every time I get their parents’ Christmas letter.

      5. Demon Llama*

        On the other hand, I’ve always wondered if the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons actively chose a name that shortens to BAAPS. But either way, it makes me so happy on such a basic level.

        (Which I now realise may not mean much to readers who don’t know that “baps” is a British term for breasts.)

      8. Annie Moose*

        I went to a school district that was the BR Area Schools (very very small town, so I’ll leave the town name as initials). For some strange reason, they never used the acronym on letters home.

        Then we got a new superintendent and we were all intensely amused at the first couple letters sent out from his office, using the acronym. Mysteriously they reverted to using the full name after that.

        1. yasmara*

          OK – this didn’t nest how I thought it would…North Carolina School of Science and Math…

    4. Ramona Flowers*

      I worked for a university that had a Student Central Advice Team. If you don’t know what that acronym is also a word for, note that it is not remotely safe for work. It involves bodily excretions, shall we say.

      1. Jillociraptor*

        Yeah, my hometown is in a county that begins with the letter S, so our local bus system was called “SCAT” — S. County Area Transit. :/

      3. Specialk9*

        Really? Scat is scandalous? I thought it was a mild biology term for animal poop, of the same level of “poop”. Not true?

        1. AMD*

          I believe that generally scat is a mild biology term, but is also a term you would use if looking for fetish material involving it? Not 100% sure, but I think that’s why it’s mildly scandalous.

      4. nonymous*

        In grad school our coursework and other major milestones were approved by our Program of Study committee. Somehow it seemed appropriate for higher ed degrees to require authorization by the POS committee. I don’t swear much in front of parents, so my mil gave me a few raised eyebrows.

      5. Annon for this*

        Try being kinky and having to sit through a psychology lecture on CBT! I have no idea how I kept a straight face.

        For those that are wondering, CBT is cognitive behavioural therapy and cock/ball torture.

    5. moink*

      There is a technique in my field called Particle Image Velocimetry but I read a lot of articles discussing sex and every time I read PIV I think penis in vagina.

    6. Allison*

      I work in talent acquisition, and last week I had to stifle a giggle when my manager shortened it to “T&A”

    7. Kyrielle*

      …you should have told a previous job of mine that before they made that their email address! LOL!

      1. JaneB*

        There’s also a Cambridge University Music Society… and apocryphally a university in northern England undergoing rebranding had to scrap about 20,000 sheets of headed notepaper when someone pointed out how the abbreviation for City University of Newcastle upon Tyne looked

        1. JaneB*

          And my favourite university world acronyms – FEC – full economic costing (usually written feck or fek, there is a milder form of f-u-c-k derived by transcribing the Irish pronunciation…) – is a very frustrating paperwork exercise entirely meriting the acronym, and when serious men from the finance team in suits lecture us on having insufficient FEC capture it makes me giggle

          The second one is Faculty Approvals Panel. Getting emails inviting me to a FAP day or asking me to “sit on the Maths FAP” amuse me hugely especially as most of my UK colleagues have no idea there’s a nsfw meaning to the abbreviation…

          1. msmorlowe*

            Jsyk, ‘feck’ isn’t the Irish pronunciation of the other f-word: we have both and feck is a milder form, like how people say ‘ship’ or ‘sugar’ instead of the other s-word. I’m not 100% on its origin, but it likely comes from the Irish word ‘feic’ meaning ‘to see’ and was borrowed as a swear. It’s at about the same strength as ‘arse’.

            On using Irish words, my little brother once asked our father if ‘focal’ was a swear word (it means ‘word’). Dad says no, bro runs away and he just hears him scream ‘focal off!’ at our brother.

          2. Don't turn this name into a hyperlink*

            Now I’m imagining a scene from Father Ted where Jack is running a University Senate meeting…

            Granted, he could probably get the party crowd to stop by and get engaged just through using most of his other vocabulary too, so maybe that’s not really a bad thing

        2. Purple snowdrop*

          I didn’t believe that story about what is now Northumbria university for years but apparently it’s true. There are pictures on the forum skyscrapercity. But seriously!!!

          1. Floundering Mander*

            Why oh why did they change it? As a person who has adopted Gateshead as my hometown I can imagine the locals loved it! LOL.

        3. Drew*

          The University of North Texas student radio station is KNTU for, apocryphally, the same reason.

    8. Geillis D.*

      My children’s school was getting ready for Valentine’s Day dance, and the organising committee sent all volunteers an email regarding the upcoming Grades K-4 VD Dance. Luckily this got corrected quickly.

      1. Nolan*

        There’s a diner I used to frequent, it’s named after the town it’s located in, and that name starts with V. So it’s the V____ Diner, aka the VD.

    9. AP*

      All time favorite: couple coworkers are telling a story and someone says “It’s just awful- they live in squalor”. Another person, known for her occasionally accidental misuse of words, totally seriously asks, “Where’s that neighborhood?”

    10. Mischa*

      There is a private Christian university in Kansas called Friends University. FU is pretty great on its own, but the school used to be called Friends University of Central Kansas. I can’t imagine the sweatshirts sold well there.

      1. Michigan Sara*

        There is a school called Finlandia University in northern Michigan. Good ol’ FU. Their hats (with just the initials) were VERY popular at the other university across town.

        1. Miranda*

          Yes, though not until they changed their name to Finlandia, it used to be Suomi up until 2000 (I went to the university across the Portage canal, it’s technically a different town) FU is in Hancock, the not as interestingly acronymed one, MTU is in Houghton. (also, dang I feel old realizing that 2000 was 17 yrs ago) We students guessed the name change was due to a desire to sell more university apparel.

  17. Nee*

    I had a coworker who used to use the word “flagrantly” all the time to mean “very.” Like not trying to be hyperbolic either – she was dead serious and would say things like “The view from my office is flagrantly tempting,” “this client is being flagrantly polite.” It was bizarre and uncomfortable.

      1. NaoNao*

        I guess because “flagrantly” has negative connotations. Like when you’re “flagrantly” showing off or you’re “flagrantly” breaking the rules. It indicates a purposeful, dramatic show offy move.

    2. OhNo*

      There was a student in a few of my grad school classes who used “per se” to mean anything from “you know what I mean”, to “if you get my drift”, to “do you understand?” It was always tacked on to the end of a sentence, and never once did I hear him use it for it’s actual meaning.

      Like your coworker, he was dead serious, and the rest of us found it bizarre. Judging from his occasional smug expression when we were all trying to parse his sentence, he thought he sounded terribly smart. I don’t think anyone ever corrected him, because he used it that way right up until our last semester.

      He also spelled it “per say”.

      1. Sparkly Librarian*

        How aggravating! A coworker in my former job was very fond of “criterias” — the single form (rarely occurring) was of course “a criteria”. AUGH.

        1. Demon Llama*

          Did you ever correct her? Because I just… that is like fingernails down a blackboard to me and I know its petty but it hurts my eyes… so if you managed to point it out nicely can I borrow your script please?

        2. HireThisLady*

          Oh, I had a boss who used “criterias” and “curriculums” all the time!

          Most frustratingly, however, was how she used “brain freeze” in meetings to mean “I forget something.” She obviously wanted to avoid saying fart in a meeting, but apparently thought that brain freeze was a normal substitution for brain fart. No one ever corrected her, but I always saw people looking at her hands to see what she was eating/drinking and getting confused.

          1. HireThisLady*

            The atmosphere in my office was such that people actually started using her odd phrasings rather than correcting her because she was so easily offended. Coworkers actually used “notate” to mean “to note” rather than simply using “note.” They would ask me to “notate on that invoice the date we received it.” It drove me crazy! Most of the odd wording came from people trying to sound smarter than they were without educating themselves.

            1. Tongue Cluckin' Grammarian*

              My boss uses “notate” all the time! Also “orientate”, which while technically a real word, it’s never used anywhere around here (area of US) and everybody else uses “orient”.
              Going from “orientation” to “orientate” certainly seems logical, but American English often isn’t…

              We’ve had an ongoing list of funny ways she says things (some are from her Arkansas origins, some are just a logic path her brain follows), and sometimes she’ll ask us when we last updated it, haha.

              Between her and another high-level employee, I get lots of opportunities to use my English degree, despite working in medical. I edit all our formal and outgoing communications.

            2. Not So NewReader*

              Partition vs. Petition. I could not get a coworker to hear the difference in the pronunciations.

            3. Mookie*

              Fitment (pronounced for some reason as fita-ment) for fit. Nails on a chalkboard in my head.

          2. Specialk9*

            I don’t know, I figure the percentage of people who have studied Latin enough to know the -um/a singular, -a/ae plural thing is becoming rare. It seems like it may just be time to let it pluralize in a less elitist way. (NB: I won an actual medal for Latin, so I’m grouping myself in the elitist camp.)

        1. CM*

          It’s funny, my husband’s beloved grandmother did this too. Makes me realize that context is everything — I would be so annoyed by a coworker who punctuated their speech with inappropriate “per se”s, but found it endearing when she did it.

          Also, this thread is teaching me all sorts of bad words from other languages!

      3. JeanB in NC*

        Someone needs to print up little cards, like business card size, that say: You keep using that word – I do not think it means what you think it means.

      4. NoMoreFirstTimeCommenter*

        This is extra funny for me as perse is an uglier word for butt in Finnish…

      5. Typhon Worker Bee*

        They did this in a South Park episode, and my husband I did it ironically for a while

        (We recently started noticing exactly how many South Park references we use when we’re talking to each other. It is A Lot).

        1. Drew*

          “Honey, do you mind doing the dishes?”
          “Screw you guys, I’m outta here.”

          My sister once tried to get my mom to watch the South Park movie with her. My mom made it precisely 25 seconds into “Uncle F*cka” and turned it off. This was Christmas, so I was also home, and Mom looked at me and said, “Can you believe what your sister was trying to get me to watch?” Mom wasn’t thrilled when my first question to sis was “How many times have YOU seen it? I’m up to seven.”

  18. Leelee*

    I have two that immediately spring to mind:
    1. A co-worker proclaimed she was going to “go totally commando in the office”. She meant “kamikaze”… She wanted to make big changes in her department.
    2. My boss OFTEN says “we need to get them down on all fours” when discussing someone she wants to get to agree with her. I did mention to her that maybe she means “square them away” instead but she just looked puzzled at me.
    Still, it livens up the day.

    1. Gen*

      Oh gods I had a manager who used the second one but absolutely meant the rude version. It was just way of saying that we’d get a good deal D:

    2. bridget*

      I think your boss was making a variation of “on all fours” to mean that something is totally, not partially aligned. I don’t use it with PEOPLE (yuck), but will sometimes say something like “this case isn’t completely on all fours with our situation, but has some helpful similarities.”

      1. JB (not in Houston)*

        Yes, I was going to say, in the legal field, people use that expression (but applied to cases, not applied to people).

      2. CM*

        I’m curious, where is that saying common? I’m a lawyer in the northeast US and I’ve never heard that. I would interpret it as a particularly aggressive statement saying you need to make the other party submit.

        1. Noah*

          I’ve seen the term being used in the legal context reasonably commonly in both California and the Wisconsin/Illinois/Iowa areas.

          I’ve heard it used outside the legal context, too. I think it’s a reference to a table.

        2. mrs__peel*

          I’m a lawyer in upstate New York and I’ve heard that phrase a lot, but *only* applied to case law, as Bridget says (i.e., one case being on all fours with another).

          I’ve never heard it applied to a person or an opposing party. (And, yeah, that would be very gross, given the implications).

    3. Former Retail Manager*

      I am trying not to sound like a psycho laughing out loud at my desk in a completely quiet office….HILARIOUS!

    5. Tinker*

      Re kamikaze, know your audience. I had a boss who when we were visited by a Japanese supplier told him his pricing was so high it was “a war crime”. The response was a completely placid, “could you please explain, I don’t understand “?

      1. Boop*

        I’m having a hard time understanding why anyone would use that term except to refer to actual, you know, war crimes. Given that war crimes are generally acts so heinous the global community has decided they should not be condoned, using it in this context is incredibly trivializing. It’s a problematic term, no matter the audience.

  19. whatshername*

    I had to sit through an hour-long meeting yesterday in which the word “fantabulous” was used. More than once. In reference to work procedures.

    It wasn’t misused, per say, but IMO too juvenile for work. And the person using it was a C-suite executive in his 60s.

    1. Kathleen Adams*

      I actually love the word “fantabulous”…but there is no such thing as a fantabulous work procedure. There just isn’t.

      1. Emi.*

        While we’re on the subject, “per se” doesn’t mean “exactly”; it means “through itself,” i.e. by its nature and in all circumstances.

          1. Specialk9*

            Grammarist says per se translates to: in itself, by itself, of itself, or intrinsically.

            1. Emi.*

              Just not “by itself” as in “alone.” I don’t sit per se when I’m feeling antisocial, for instance. :)

    4. Boop*

      I saw a presentation from a potential vendor who repeatedly used the word “automagically” instead of automatically. The first time it was somewhat amusing, then it became Way Too Much and a bit patronizing.

      1. nonymous*

        yes, in work setting I find “automagically” has to be used in a very self-aware context. Like, “What did they think? That XYZ procedure happens automagically? Grumble grumble grumble” But if I’m not venting, I’ll switch it up to “Clearly, they were engaging in magical thinking”. IMO the word “automagic” has connotation of “voila for stupid audience” otherwise.

      3. Nic*

        I’m a big fan of “automagically”, but like nonymous said it has to be used with self awareness. I picked it up when working for a video game company’s customer service department, so it worked. It did take a bit of care to drop when I moved out of that.

        1. yasmara*

          Oh yeah, both automagically and administrivia are so jargony and pretty common to hear from directors/execs where I work. I despise both of them. I’m a project manager, so hearing “administrivia” just makes me feel like my job is being demeaned.

  20. Sylvia*

    At an old job, everyone said “get with” to mean “talk to” or “get in touch with.”

    Sigh.

    1. Lance*

      Much as there would be some split meanings, I feel like this wouldn’t be so uncommon among people in general.

      1. Edith*

        Yeah, it still annoys me when my mom says she got hammered at work, meaning she had a very busy and stressful day. But she’s not misusing the term. It just sticks out to me since the meaning shifted so drastically between generations.

    2. Jillociraptor*

      It would take a lot for me to function in that workplace without constantly singing “Wannabe” by the Spice Girls.

  21. Marzipan*

    The time someone at work referred to an underwhelming occurrence as a ‘damp squid’ is one we remember fondly.

    1. LizB*

      What phrase were they trying to use? Because I really want to start referring to underwhelming things as “damp squids” from now on, that’s hilarious.

        1. Specialk9*

          Never heard this before! I can totally see the logic of hearing it as squid. And even using it correctly – if I were a squid, just being damp would be disappointing for sure!

      1. Jules the 3rd*

        Isn’t it actually supposed to be ‘damp squib’, as in a explosive that didn’t explode?

        2. CM*

          I finally understand the references to Squibs in Harry Potter! I thought she made up that word.

          1. This Daydreamer*

            She has a lot of fun with language. Just about every “made up” word and most of the names have deeper meaning. Makes the books even more fun.

          3. Amber T*

            I didn’t realize that either! And here I thought I knew all the facts out there already…

      2. fposte*

        Can’t tell if you’re joking there, but no, it’s not the correct usage–the correct usage is “damp squib,” meaning a firework whose effect is hampered by dampness. No cephalopods involved.

    3. AnnaleighUK*

      This made me spit my tea. Genius. I’m stealing this phrase for the next time we have a really underwhelming work event.

    4. Kathleen Adams*

      Shouldn’t it be “damp squib” (squib with a b, not squid with a d), meaning “damp firecracker”? Because shouldn’t all squids be at least somewhat damp?

      1. fposte*

        Exactly–so while I would find a damp squid underwhelming, I don’t think it would be disappointing.

            3. Kathleen Adams*

              Which reminds me of one of my favorite language jokes. It shows a very, very sad person and says “Forever disappointed that a group of squids isn’t called a ‘squad.'”

        2. Kathleen Adams*

          It – “damp squid” – does sound really natural, though. I had to repeat the correct word “squib” to myself several times to make sure I wasn’t making it up!

        3. Nancie*

          If the squid was merely damp, I think that would be sort of disappointing. At least for the squid, which would probably prefer to be completely water-soaked.

    5. President Porpoise*

      There’s a great episode of ‘The IT Crowd’ that uses that joke. Damp Squid should be Damp Squib, fyi.

  22. Lindsay*

    I work in the member service area of an organization that collects dues for membership. I can’t tell you how many people tell members they’re “in the rears” when they’ve fallen behind on their dues payments…

    2. Nic*

      One of my OldBosses did this! Or talk about us getting our competition “in the rear”. He’d pound one fist into the other while saying it, which made it all the more awkward!

  23. Lady Jay*

    So, I teach English, mostly college level but for a short while at HS level. We English teachers like to read (duh!) and often read older books, which use words that have since taken on a “blue” meaning. A fellow HS English teacher told a story about a summer she spent working at camp, and during lunch one day, she leaned over the table, and told a story about how So & So said something really fiercely & firmly. To describe this, she said that he “ejaculated” his words!

    In my college level classes, I regularly teach poetry that uses the word “queer” to mean “odd” and my students always get a giggle out of it. I also teach a play about a murder mystery. The wife (who winds up being the murderess) is asked whether, when her husband was killed, she woke up; she replies, “No, I sleep sound.” My class was doing a read-aloud, and the kid who was reading the wife’s part accidentally misread that line. Instead of saying what was written, he read, “I sleep around“.

    1. Turkletina*

      I read a lot as a kid, and I made that “ejaculated” mistake in middle school! Only once.

      1. strawberries and raspberries*

        Yeah, I remember reading The Invisible Man or something like that at age 11, and there’s a sentence like, “He paced across the room, ejaculating” and I was like WAIT WHAT

        1. AndersonDarling*

          I remember a Sherlock Holmes that used “ejaculated” in that sense. In another story, Holmes apologized for “knocking up” Watson…as in, knocking on the door to wake someone.

          1. Lauralyzer*

            Oh yes I remember someone asking me to “knock me up” before heading out that evening …!! To make it more confusing, the request came from a male to me, a female. He did explain, when he saw how confused I was!!

        1. Sandra wishes you a heavenly day*

          I still say I am fizzily and emotionally exhausted sometimes, thanks to Ngaio Marsh. Out loud, when I’m alone, not in the workplace.

      3. Landshark*

        Same! I learned the older meaning first and used it in my writing… in sixth grade… that they asked us to read to the class… I still get residual cringes over that haha

    2. Tiny Orchid*

      There is a line in one of the Harry Potter books – “Ron ejaculated loudly” – and it always makes me snicker when re-reading it.

    3. Fake old Converse shoes*

      It was mentioned in QI (a BBC quiz show)! The guests’ giggles made me laugh more than the word itself.

    4. OoohLaLa*

      A Jury of Her Peers perhaps?

      I once read aloud an old book to a handful of middle school students. Of course the main character’s name was “Pussy”. It slipped once and the kids never looked back.

    5. SarahKay*

      Oh, yes, I can remember a children’s school story from about the 50’s where a fete was being organised. In it there was the glorious phrase of “Miss Wilson was busy overseeing the men’s erections”.

    6. Chameleon*

      I remember a very naive and innocent camp counselor telling the story of the Little Dutch Boy. She didn’t understand why we all laughed when she talked about him putting his finger in the dike.

    7. Orca*

      Ah, memories of when my middle school friends group learned “boner” used to mean “mistake” and proceeded to completely replace saying “my bad” with “my boner”…

    8. Snork Maiden*

      In elementary school we had to read aloud a chapter on Louisbourg. For some reason, one of the popular kids read it first as “Lousenburg”, despite the teacher’s enunciation, and the rest of the class followed suit. So we had an entire 45 minutes reading aloud about Lousenburg. The teacher made a few half-hearted attempts to correct it but then decided to cut her losses and finish up some other work while we were busy listening.

    9. ArtsNerd*

      Once in high school I had to read a passage from Macbeth aloud, the one where Lady Macbeth says “pluck’d my nipple from his boneless gums.” I was so stressed out about saying “nipple” without giggling that I came to that line and said… “niggle.” I was really thrown off that none of my classmates reacted (in hindsight, no one was listening, of course.)

      So I suffered through the rest of the speech in an anguished, redfaced, tortured attempt to not burst into laughter at my error, utterly alone in the hilarity of it all.

  24. LizB*

    I had a manager who thought the word “redact” meant the same as “revise,” as in “We’re waiting for Marketing to send us the redacted version of the brochure” == “the revised version of the brochure”. The first few times he said it, it was plausible he actually would have meant “redact” (we were talking about legal documents with confidentiality concerns), so I didn’t correct him… and then when I realized he was using it more broadly, it was too late. And then one of my coworkers started doing it too! It was contagious!

    1. TootsNYC*

      It does, though–he may well have seen it on a list of synonyms for “edit” or seen it used that way. I have.

      From the Merriam-Webster website:
      Definition of redact
      transitive verb
      1: to put in writing : frame
      2: to select or adapt (as by obscuring or removing sensitive information) for publication or release; broadly : edit
      3: to obscure or remove (text) from a document prior to publication or release

        1. Specialk9*

          I’ve never heard redact except in a security sense – redacted of sensitive or classified information. It definitely doesn’t mean just edited!

  25. Princess Consuela Banana Hammock*

    Genital for congenital. As in, the person was discussing congenital disease but very earnestly kept (misspeaking) and saying “genital birth defects.”

      1. Samata*

        I remember a crawler on the TV screen of a bar we were in said “Pubic Hearings Still Underway….” for a good 10 minutes before it was changed to “Public hearings….”

      3. valc2323*

        I work in public health.

        Most of us have customized our Word dictionaries to always flag “pubic” as an error, after learning the hard way…

        1. Anonicat*

          I have a similar set-up in my email for retards, because have you ever noticed how close t and g are on a keyboard?

          1. yasmara*

            OMG this reminds me of the worst one ever – my husband’s boss years ago once called him “retarded” but apparently not meaning in a pejorative way (is there any other??). I guess he was trying to say something about Husband’s development was being slowed down by XYZ factors? That boss was so weird and awkward – I was alone at the company picnic while Husband took one of our son’s to the bathroom and the other son was riding a pony. Boss came up to me and started talking to me without introducing himself or giving me any sort of context like, “Hi, nice to meet you I’m your husband’s manager.” He eventually wandered off & when my husband walked back he asked me what his boss had said to me – I was shocked to figure out who this weird guy was who it felt like was semi-hitting on me! I try not to diagnose people, but regardless of what was going on with him he needed some serious retraining in social skills.

      4. Princess Consuela Banana Hammock*

        Oh man, the number of public presentations I’ve seen where the text on the .ppt or public announcement reads “pubic” is kind of unreal.

    2. a*

      I used to work in technical writing and frequently saw “congenial defects” instead of “congenital defects.” They were the really nice, happy defects, I guess!

  26. Murphy*

    This was just a slip rather than an actual misuse, but I overheard a coworker going on a walk say, “I just want to spread my legs a little.” She immediately corrected herself to “stretch” and then laughed about it.

    2. AMT27*

      I once ran out for coffee with a coworker, and we were discussing how cold it was (winter in Ohio!) – I was wearing a dress but no tights/hose and she *meant* to say something like ‘how are you not freezing, your legs are bare!’ – but what came out was ‘how are you not freezing, your legs are open!’ Said very loudly in the office lobby LOL

    3. Dangitmegan*

      When I was in grad school I was working late one night alone in the department and my advisor came in to chat and meant to say that a change he was making would allow me to ‘spread my wings’ but misspoke and said ‘spread your legs.’ Awkward.

      2. Specialk9*

        I mean, I suspect that mistake came from some thoughts that weren’t totally innocent.

  27. Nottoday*

    I work with someone who always says bang wagon instead of band wagon which surprisingly comes up more often than you would think. And another says work ethnic rather than work ethic.

    1. Emi.*

      I once received a Christmas card from a very nice old gentleman on my paper route, complimenting me on my good work ethnic.

      1. Amber Rose*

        Reminds me of the strangest rant I ever read online where the person claimed that people were violating her “ethnic standers.”

    2. D.W.*

      Oh, no, has someone brought the latter to their attention? I got a good laugh at it, but that could also be mistaken for a racist joke.

    3. Mints*

      “Work ethnic” lol I’d be tempted to constantly reply “Yes I AM brown and hard working!”

    5. Anonicat*

      I edited a scientific article where the study population was ethically Han Chinese. All the way through the article.

  28. Rachel - HR*

    More a mispronunciation but we had a director that was giving blood borne pathogens training and would repeatedly say “vagina-al” secretions instead of the correct pronunciation of vaginal.

    1. DouDou Paille*

      Not sure if the person was from another English-speaking country, but in the UK/Australia/South Africa it’s pronounced “va-JINE-al”

  29. ZenCat*

    Not my story but a friend’s about teabagging…

    For whatever reason (and I do this too, not at work) people at my friend’s work kept putting their used teabags on the back edge of the sink instead of throwing them away (I KNOW that sounds abnormal but it’s not where I’m from). The big boss was getting super irritated and wandered out of the break room loudly asking “Please stop teabagging the sink!!” My poor friend had to explain to this deeply religious man 40 years her senior why everyone sat in horror and a few people laughed. He’d asked in front of everyone “what is so funny? It’s NOT funny” and my friend had to usher him back in to his office to explain.

    2. Rebecca in Dallas*

      Haha, that happened on Sex and the City! Charlotte’s husband was leaving teabags around the kitchen and she was complaining to her friends about it. She said, “We have a teabagging problem.” Samantha: “Oh, just breathe through your nose.”

      2. Jeanne*

        I remember that. Charlotte was soooo good at the horrified look when Samantha said stuff like that.

      3. Anion*

        My husband and I say that line to each other all the time! (“Oh, I understand. Just breathe through your nose.”)

        *Clarification: We do not say it to each other in a dirty way, we say it when talking about funny misunderstandings etc.

    3. Kat*

      An older colleague of mine thought you teabagged someone when you left the teabag in the cup. This came to light when me and another colleague heard her explaining to the new hire ‘Kat likes you to take the bag out but John doesn’t mind being teabagged as long as you let him know so it doesn’t hit him in the face’ . The minute me and the other colleague within earshot made eye contact we were gone. Eventually we controlled the laughter enough to suggest she look the phrase up on urban dictionary when she got home

      1. paul*

        I’m holding onto that even if it’s proven wrong. It’s too perfect not to let it brighten my day

  31. VDZ*

    I work in advertising and my company has run a number of smoking cessation campaigns. One of our sales reps kept referring to them as “smoking sensation” campaigns as if we ran ads about how amazing smoking is. I’m not sure if he actually knew the difference. No one corrected him and he’s since left the company.

  32. cornflower blue*

    This is timely!

    Yesterday, when discussing the culmination of a year-long initiative, my manager gave a heartfelt speech thanking us for all the “blood, sweat, and crocodile tears” we put into the project.

    2. Look, a bee!*

      Oh man! That’s actually hilarious! I love the idea that he’s just being super sarcastic like ‘yeah thanks guys for the hard work*

      *fake enthusiasm’

  33. Librarian Ish*

    I was always frustrated with the coworker who said they would “dethaw” the frozen samples….

    2. That Would Be a Good Band Name*

      I grew up hearing that one. I managed to remove it from my vocabulary, but it’s common here.

    3. Sunshine on a cloudy day*

      I feel like I might have used dethaw” in my personal life without even realizing

    4. Samata*

      I used to say I was unpeeling bananas. My dad finally broke me of it – it apparently drove him INSANE.

      2. Specialk9*

        It’s like de-peeling. Bananas have a peel already, if you peel them wouldn’t you have a double peel? I feel like that one is running afoul of a word with very different meanings.

      3. Emi.*

        I’m sympathetic to this, because you’re taking the peel off, like how taking the wrapper off is “unwrapping.”

      1. Ninja*

        But that’s correct, surely? A hem is sewn up; if you want to take it down, you unpick the stitches – you wouldn’t “pick the stitches.”

  34. Instruct Not Destruct*

    We hired a vendor to create training materials for us. The first round of deliverables was great but the pictures they chose featured older models when we were aiming for something closer to a hipster. My boss, who’s french, tried to communicate that the models needed to be funkier, what she actually wrote was “We need the images to be kinkier”…

    1. Princess Consuela Banana Hammock*

      OMG, this reminds me of my coworker who said “kinky” whenever she meant “hinky.” Another would use “kinky” to mean “not quite squared” or “round peg, square hole” because she’s only heard it used to refer to hair texture and wasn’t aware of its other meaning.

      1. Instruct Not Destruct*

        It seems kinky is just one of those words. When I asked my boss where she’d learned that word in a ‘funky’ context she said the first time she’d heard it was when another coworker of ours described her afro as kinky. My boss assumed she was referring to the stylishness of her hair rather than the texture. It was the sweetest, if most misleading, of misunderstandings.

      1. Instruct Not Destruct*

        Within 15 minutes we received the world’s most restrained response explaining that maybe this particular conversation isn’t well suited to email and they would send a meeting invite. They later confessed to debating whether or not they should ask for examples.

  35. LibrarianAG*

    When I started my first full time job, I had a coworker with a name similar to Ted Watkins. He was a conservative and religious man. We were in orientation and exchanged personal email addresses amongst ourselves and other new hires. I guess his middle name started with a “W” — so his email address was twwat @ whatever.com. I didn’t say anything since I was new to the working world and didn’t know how to approach it, but I still remember it 11 years later!

      2. Snickerdoodle*

        I’ve now got the song Rattigan’s henchman sing in The Great Mouse Detective stuck in my head. Except now it’s “To shartigan!”

    3. TootsNYC*

      I knew an Amy Ryan who was the only person who successfully pushed back against the first initial, last name convention.

      1. Fenchurch*

        When I was a high school-aged lifeguard, the director of our parks and recreation department was S.harter. She was also horribly incompetent.

        Many laughs were had at her expense.

        1. Stephanie (HR Manager)*

          We did first two initials of first name and first three of last name. One person ended up ANALB. So not OK.

        2. evilintraining*

          We have a donor with the last name Sharting. The giggles persist in the Development Department…

      2. Rache*

        A friend’s work email followed the same lines – she’s boner@… OF COURSE it’s the only nickname she goes by to this day.

        1. Rache*

          AHHH.. .and I nearly forgot the best use of this!! I was doing massage for an event (I’m also an LMT) – it was for college sports. I was talking to my friend (also Boner’s friend) and a topic came up and I just blurted out that we needed to call Boner and tell her! The room went completely quiet and then the giggling started. Laughing til tears fell, even though it had taken me a few seconds to realize that not everyone would know the context. :) Of course I did call her later and tell her that she now had a group of college guys anxious to meet someone that would willingly take on that nickname.

    4. RabbitRabbit*

      Apparently I’m 12 because I laughed until I teared up at the examples in this particular thread.

      1. Bagpuss*

        There was a glorious incident a few years ago on live radio when a (very serious and well respected) BBC presenter mispronounced (then) Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt’s surname. It’s not often you hear a senior politician referred to as a C**t on breakfast radio…

      1. AMPG*

        My college’s email server in the mid-90s had a rudimentary IM feature where you could check to see if someone was online and then message them. The command to check their status was FINGER [username]. We all enjoyed that.

    9. CoveredInBees*

      I worked with an anussbum@ . She said she’d learn to just drive into the skid and laugh along.

    10. finman*

      My friend’s mom was offered an official email address from the Arizona Bar Association (trying to coordinate email addresses) and she was given C.McCrack@bar.az…. She asked them to use her own email address instead

    12. GovSysadmin*

      At my college, they changed the algorithm for generating email addresses to just be your last name or a truncated version of your last name if it was available. There was a poor guy with the last name of Sakashita whose e-mail got truncated by dropping the last a.

    14. Nic*

      I had a coworker at OldJob once who had a name like Carmen Munbath. They used Firstinitial.LastName@ email at that job, and specifically changed the spelling of her name to Karmen to avoid something similar. That didn’t stop everyone from knowing and many from giggling.

  36. Gwen Soul*

    ooh just on Monday we had a coworker giving a talk where obesity was part of the issues. he said if people stopped Netflix and Chilling maybe obesity wouldn’t be so bad. I am about 90% sure he didn’t know what he meant.

    (The same coworker also was giving a presentation on OBGYN and mentioned women coming in to be examined “stem to stern” you could see all the women squirm)

    1. TootsNYC*

      It took me a long time before I figured out that it means “to have sex.” I thought it literally meant, “hang out at home and watch movies.”

      And I think it did at first–but the ever-present dirty mind pushed it right over into meaning “sex.”

      1. Emmie*

        Me too! I used to say it at work when people would ask me about my weekend plans. I said it once to my nieces and nephews who awkwardly explained it to me – after laughing a bit!

      2. SusanIvanova*

        Absolutely! “Chill out” is older than I am, so I think it’s perfectly reasonable to think the phrase means “veg out and watch TV”. I’m still not quite sure how the “having sex” definition even fits – sex and TV are not things that generally combine well. Your attention is going to be divided to the detriment of both activities :)

        1. Drew*

          Yeah, and when you say “Shut up and concentrate, the good part’s coming up,” they’re still not sure what you mean.

        3. Kitrona*

          I think it’s more a matter of plausible deniability. “We were just watching something and then… well… we didn’t *plan* it!”

    2. Augusta Sugarbean*

      *googles term* Huh. I’m glad I don’t have to worry about dating anymore. I’d spend a lot of time being surprised.

      1. Princess Consuela Banana Hammock*

        Wait: what is the stem and what is the stern in his analogy?! Does he think reproductive anatomy and the GI tract are connected or the same??

            1. Drew*

              Definitely do not say “stem to nuts,” if only because that’s a fairly short distance in most cases.

        2. CoveredInBees*

          It is a nautical expression for “thoroughly”. Still not a great time to use it, even to someone who is well0-acquainted with it.

          1. yasmara*

            Yeah, it’s a boat thing. But definitely feels inappropriate. Women are not inanimate objects.

    4. No, please*

      I once went to my doctor because I’d been having some terrible periods. He asked if a student could sit in and I said ok. He had the student taking notes via tape recorder. I could hear his notes and he repeatedly used the term “break through breathing.” I was a teenager and my mom was with me. We both had a good chuckle when we left about my constant, sudden breathing.

    5. Sunny Day*

      When my parents got Netflix my dad kept saying this… “we’re just gonna netflix and chill tonight”

    7. This Daydreamer*

      Well, it can lead to at least temporary weight gain. Just DON’T call it obesity.

    8. IWasAChristmasElf*

      The leader of a political party in my country was quoted in the news saying the liked to “netflix and chill” in his spare time. It was unclear in this interaction who knew what that meant and who didn’t. Though my boyfriend knows him socially (we’re in a very small country, people tend to know politicians) and thinks it was almost certainly intentional on his part. My mother was horrified to learn what that meant.

  37. Indie*

    Damp squid is excellent! My sister’s colleague said “Going off on a tandem” instead of “going off on a tangent” – my sister explained the true phrase, and it’s mathematical origins. Her colleague listened intently and replied “Nah. It very obviously means going off on a bike ride”..

    2. cataloger*

      I like the idea of “going off on a tandem” to mean you went off on a tangent, but others went with you!

    3. Sled dog mama*

      Oh I would die. In my world a tandem is a device used to treat uterine or cervical cancer with radiation

  38. Chickie Manages It All*

    Fun topic!

    A friend worked with someone who would say, ‘that will never pass mustard with the regulators.’

    I worked with someone who (when it was cold outside) would say, ‘it’s nipply out today.’

    3. Amber Rose*

      And I worked with someone who said the same phrase but added a ‘t’ to the beginning of ‘it’s’.

    5. Phy*

      My friend frequently says, “its a tit bit nipply outside, we breast go inside and stand by the hooter.”

    6. Shortie*

      Chickie, your former coworker may be my husband. He says “it’s nipply out”–on purpose–every day of the winter and sometimes even on cooler than average summer days. He thinks it is hilarious to mispronounce words on purpose, and that is one of his favorites.

  39. CatCat*

    In 2007 , I was working for a real estate agent. She was the top agent in the company, but was not internet savvy. Someone had shown her a video tour/slide show on YouTube as a possible marketing tool. She was soooo excited about it and called a meeting of her staff. She gathered us in her office and excitedly said, “You guys, you guys, have you heard of the Blue Tube?!”

    1. Worker Bee*

      This reminds me of when Michael Scott says “I’ve got to make sure that Youtube comes down to tape this”

  40. Buffy Summers*

    Not necessarily work, but at my church we have a very enthusiastic young man who often handles the welcome and he’s taken to saying, “We are Jacked Up that you’re here today!” when welcoming newcomers. I capitalized b/c that’s kind of how he says it…with emphasis.
    Now…maybe I’m wrong, but I’ve always heard “jacked up” used as a way to describe something that’s not right or broken. Like, my car is so jacked up it’s gonna cost a fortune to fix. Or when someone does something wrong, we might say, “Wow, that was really jacked up.”.
    So, when he welcomes newcomers, I always giggle a little because I’m picturing us all being really “Jacked Up” and it’s quite hilarious.

    1. Lily Rowan*

      Except on Say Yes to the Dress: Atlanta, they use it to mean dolled up — when they go to put a veil and whatnot on a customer, they say, “We’re going to jack you up!”

      And I always think, you keep using that word…

      1. Floundering Mander*

        Yeah if someone told me they were going to jack me up I’d start running, because in my frame of reference that means they are going to beat me up.

    2. Jules the 3rd*

      Jacked up = extremely enthusiastic is actually common in my area (Southern US), though there’s a strong connotation of the enthusiasm being fueled by drugs (cocaine / meth).

      1. TootsNYC*

        so funny! The opposite of what usually happens

        The usual: Ordinary meaning becomes scandalized (hook up; Nexflix and chill)

        This time: the scandalized become tame (jacked up, meaning “under the influence of drugs,” becomes merely “excited”)

        I guess these two trajectories happen all the time, but it’s always funny to me.

      2. Princess Consuela Banana Hammock*

        Oh that’s interesting! My friends (not southern) all use it to mean hungover/worked over or akin to being under the influence and not in their right minds. So it sounds like same origin, different trajectory.

      1. Buffy Summers*

        I would die. I think I would just fall over dead right there. It’s so bad but that would be the best thing ever.

    4. cornflower blue*

      I also hear it used to mean someone is into weightlifting and has a lot of muscle definition. I’m picturing your church greeter doing deadlifts to welcome parishoners.

      1. Emi.*

        I’ve only heard that meaning for “jacked” by itself; “jacked up” means broken or messed-up to me.

    5. Typhon Worker Bee*

      My ex-boyfriend’s family had a dog called Jack. I heard a story about how the dog once jumped onto the table during a big family BBQ, causing my ex’s mum to repeatedly shout “Jack, off, Jack, off” in front of dozens of relatives and at least three neighbours.

  41. KelJohnson*

    I work on a project team that had meetings called Transition & Activation. They shortened it to, yep, T&A meetings.

  43. Kalros, the mother of all thresher maws*

    It’s not incorrect, per se, but it was awkward. After a long time of trying to make things work, a coworker had to talk with her boss about how another coworker was causing serious problems. Boss acknowledged that it was an uncomfortable discussion and encouraged coworker to be candid with her, saying “I don’t want you to feel like you’re fingering Jane…”

    1. Murphy*

      OMG. I would die if someone said that in front of me. I don’t think I’d be able to contain it.

        1. Kalros, the mother of all thresher maws*

          When she told me, I pretty much did. Bless her and her poker face.

  44. Gail Davidson-Durst*

    This isn’t nearly as hilarious as the examples, but I’ve noticed our India office seems to have fads for “fancy” words. Last year “component” was very big – one person used it 5 times in a 30 minute call, and lately people have been using “bifurcate” to mean “divide,” even when it’s into many more than 2 parts.

    We have a coworker who’s from Nepal and doesn’t know American slang. He said to a female coworker “How big is your box?” referring to the Otterbox on her phone. She and I fell into hysterics and then had to explain why.

    1. Trig*

      A lot of fun words come out of our Indian office. They know the +ation rule for making a verb a noun, so we get things like “upgradation” a lot.

      1. An Inspector of Gadgets*

        And if something will happen earlier than originally planned – it will be “preponed”!

          1. An Inspector of Gadgets*

            Oh it works, for sure. It’s very common in Indian English vernacular but until/unless you’re expecting it, catches English-speakers from other places off guard.

          1. EuropeanConsultant*

            I’ve learnt it from my French boss. I’ve always believed it was an English copy of a French word.

          2. Mimmy*

            My favorite is “needful” – my husband works with an offshore group from India, and they often end their emails with “do the needful”. Now, hubby and I say it to each other, lol.

            2. Nic*

              I was going to mention this. I really like that phrase! It assumes that the other person has the background and good sense to understand what needs to be done without you having to condescend to telling them!

    2. Emilia Bedelia*

      Someone I email in China used the word “cacography” (it means a typo) in an email to me recently, which amused me deeply. I had literally never heard that word before – whatever Chinese-English dictionary she’s using is a pretty thorough one!

      2. Proofin' Amy*

        The author of the Spellbreaker trilogy, Blake Charlton, is dyslexic. His main character is basically magically dyslexic, and his distortion of text-based spells is referred to as cacography.

  45. Alex the Alchemist*

    I’ve mentioned this in the comments before, but not in detail so here goes: Last summer I was on a white-water rafting trip with the young adults of my church (so not technically work-related, but still funny). I was in the same boat as my pastor. We had brought sandwiches, water, granola bars, etc. for food. When we started eating, my pastor said, “Man, I really wish we had some cake right now so we could be like that one song! You know, we’d be like CAKE BY THE RIVER!”

    He was referencing DNCE’s “Cake by the Ocean” and that led to some very awkward explaining that the song wasn’t really about cake.

    1. Amber Rose*

      I’d have followed up that conversation with a rendition of the cake bit from MacArthur Park. Mostly because I crack up every time I hear it.

    3. Cleopatra Jones*

      Haha, my mind immediately went to Cake by Rihanna.
      Let me tell ya, folks. It is not really about birthday cake.

  46. Rogue*

    Not co-worker, but a relative uses the word “ideal” in place of “idea” and says “you’re not being have” instead of “you’re misbehaving and “wrench it out” instead of “wring it out.”

    1. Iris Eyes*

      Arg that would make me scream in my head, and possibly out loud.

      The using of regular words without realizing their slang meaning is funny and tbh I find it offensive when someone says you can’t use this word the way its been used for year/generations/millenia because some part of the culture has decided that now it means X.

      This though, I wouldn’t spend much time talking to that relative.

    2. Jessica Fletcher*

      Ha, my three-year-old niece uses that one!

      “You need to behave.”

      “I’m being have!”

    3. Adlib*

      I sometimes say the “being have” with my cats, but obviously, I’m not being serious. If your relative is being serious, that’s hilarious yet annoying.

    4. mirinotginger*

      Full disclosure, I use “being have” because I think it’s hilarious. I mean, according to the rules, it should work, but it doesn’t and I use it all the time with my husband and my parents. However, I would never use it to someone who wasn’t in on the joke, as it were

    5. LJL*

      this sounds like the Appalachian area slang I’m familiar with. Could it be regional terms?

  47. Amber Rose*

    This is more just me being juvenile, but I worked for a land surveyor for a couple years. Plots of land are marked by either iron posts, or wooden ones. Wooden ones are extremely rare and hard to identify, since they tend to decay.

    Anyways, with that bit of background, my boss came in excitedly one day announcing, “Fergus has wood! Everyone come see Fergus’s wood so you know what it looks like.”

    2. OoohLaLa*

      I’m in the environmental field and we lost one of our hand augers. One of my co-workers was trying to figure out where it could be and was quite dismayed because he needed the hand auger for a job. He yelled out “how am I supposed to do Tim’s (our boss’ name) hand job now”.

      I almost peed myself. Tears were definitely rolling down my cheeks.

    3. CollegeAdmin*

      If you’re juvenile, I am too. I’m going to be breaking out into giggle fits all day just remembering that.

    6. Anonymous Pterodactyl*

      This is amazing. I would have died of laughter.

      A couple weeks ago I needed to talk to a coworker, so I knocked on his door and asked “Do you have a sec?” He gestured me in, and I checked the time on the clock to make sure neither of us needed to go to lunch shortly. Then my unchecked mouth said, “Oh, it’s only 11, you have lots of secs.”

      …whoops.

      1. This Daydreamer*

        Oh, gods, that’s hilarious. I hope your boss was the type to laugh and not the type to be offended.

    7. OlympiasEpiriot*

      In the construction biz, there are soooo many opportunities for double entendres.

      I recall a t-shirt from a scaffolding company with the name on the front and Erection Specialist on the back.

      1. Amber Rose*

        A utilities company which used to supply just power ran an ad a little while ago to announce their expansion of services in which they said they had been waiting years to tell people “we give you gas.”

      2. Gazebo Slayer*

        Here in Boston there’s a chain of hardware stores that sells T-shirts, aprons, boxer shorts, and other attire that say things like “Got wood?” “Get hammered,” “Get nailed,” “Get plastered,” et cetera.

      3. This Daydreamer*

        There used to be a business in my town that refinished furniture. They were called The Happy Stripper.

    9. Elemeno P.*

      I attended building development meetings with my former boss. He and I could not make eye contact during the meetings because we’d both start laughing every time they mentioned how big the erection was getting. We are 12.

  48. Marzipan*

    Oh! Oh! I just remembered!

    A colleague once referenced me in a meeting, intending to say that I was ‘on the ball’. Unfortunately due to a momentary slip what she actually said was ‘on the game’. The entire meeting was reduced to tears of hysterics and I couldn’t actually speak when it got to my update.

      1. Marzipan*

        To spare everyone else’s internet search histories, ‘on the ball’ is switched on, on top of things, that kind of thing; while ‘on the game’ refers to prostitution.

        And it was quite a large meeting.

        1. paul*

          I’ve never heard that, and I thought I was up on slang and whatnot.

          This thread is making me feel like Grandpa Simpson!

          1. JeanB in NC*

            I’m pretty sure “on the game” is British – I see it used all the time in my British detective books.

    2. fposte*

      Heh. Which probably would have gone completely unnoticed in the U.S., so your colleague just picked the wrong country. (I’m finding this thread revealing in very country-specific ways to come a cropper.)

      1. CM*

        “Come a cropper” is the worst insult in Hungary. It references a physical act that is so disgusting I can’t even describe it here.

        (OK, I made that one up. )

        1. Emily, admin extraordinaire*

          According to my brother, who spent two years in Hungary on a Mormon mission, the linguistical equivalent of “go to hell” in Hungarian is “go to France.” Really cracked me and my sisters up, as we’d all studied French in high school and college.

  49. Ruthenium*

    So, my bestie works at Starbucks. You can order a chai latte with a shot of espresso, and if you use the unofficial name “dirty chai” most baristas will know that’s what you mean.

    One day a girl comes in and says to my friend: “I want to order…oh, what was it called…a Dirty Sanchez?”

    Everyone at the bar went DEAD SILENT. She looks at them all and says “What? What did I say?”
    My friend: “I…I can’t really tell you. But what you want is called a dirty chai.”
    “What did I say?! Please, you have to tell me!”
    So they did.
    And the girl turned neon red and left as fast as humanly possible.

    …if you don’t know what a Dirty Sanchez is, I really don’t want to be the one to tell you. Plus I don’t want to get banned on my first comment, if I haven’t sealed that fate already.

    2. Amber Rose*

      Oh LOL. I’m not sure I would have been able to resist the temptation to recommend Craigslist for that.

    4. soupmonger*

      Well, my google search history is now very colourful (having not known what teabagging was, either).

    5. AnonymousAndroid*

      I didn’t know what that was either, but apparently it was the title of an old British TV series. Which got renamed in the US, probably because of the other meaning…

      I am now very glad of private browsing.

      1. Snark*

        Depending on the coffee shop, the barista might just get confused and say “I’m…right here, ma’am.”

        1. overcaffeinatedandqueer*

          Well, I’m trying to break the habit because the other day, the barista looked at me and goes, “I showered this morning and I don’t swing that way?”

    7. desktopfrogjamie*

      There is a taco chain based in Austin that has named one of their tacos dirty sanchez. .. . it’s delicious. And I’m sure they know what they’re doing.

      2. Drew*

        Oh. they DEFINITELY do. They also sell a fried cookie dough dessert called “Little Nookies.”

        I may eat there often. Too often. Entirely too.

    8. geecee*

      In response to a small scheduling mix-up once, we got an email apologizing to us for the “incontinence”.

    9. Miles*

      There is a Mexican restaurant in town that has a cocktail called the Dirty Sanchez. All the other cocktails have normal names, then there’s that. I don’t know if they don’t know or what, but although it sounds good I have never ordered one because I refuse to ask for one.

  50. Snark*

    When I was in grad school, we had this lab tech, LT, who simply could not even when it came to acroynms and got hopelessly confused about anything but plain English descriptions of whatever. This was, let’s say it gently, not exactly conducive to being an effective assistant to overworked persons who use a lot of shorthand to talk about what they’re doing and what they need.

    I used a process called PCR – the polymerase chain reaction – to amplify trace environmental DNA samples for sequencing. LT simply…could…not…learn…the acronym. He called it PTO, PTR, DTR, VTR, and every imaginable slight variation on PCR, but almost never PCR and even when he successfully deployed it, it was clearly by accident. 16s rRNA sequences got called 15s, 17s, 16c, and DNA and RNA were used interchangably. HiSeq got called Hi Sex, Hi Sax, and Hi Sic. And when I asked him to order more 515F-806R primers (for example), he just got a look on his face like he’d been clubbed with a two-by-four and hadn’t fallen down yet.

    1. Buffy Summers*

      I am utterly exhausted after reading that post and trying to imagine how I’d do trying to remember all that. :)

      1. Jeanne*

        You’d do fine. To most scientists, it becomes a natural language. I’m sure your marketing or accounting or customer service has a language. I worked as a chemist in pharmaceuticals and we had our own things too.

    2. Nye*

      As someone who works with all of those things, this is both hilarious and kind of sad (for the poor tech). And reminds me that I have to prep some libraries for HiSic4000 sequencing…

    3. Lora*

      Hah, had Bio-rad made the PCR song yet? Or the GTCA song?

      “PCRRRRRR when you need to detect mutaaaaations….PCRRRR when you need to recombiiiiiine….PCRRRRRR when you need to find out who the daddy iiiiiis (who’s your daddy)….PCRRRRRR when you need to solve the crime”

          1. Windchime*

            OMG that is hilarious and I’m not even in the industry. I love how they are all so EARNEST about the whole thing.

    4. Thursday Next*

      How did that person function as a lab tech? PCR is not an obscure term in a biology lab and DNA vs RNA is kinda fundamental to the field…
      (And given the prevalence of English as the lingua franca of science these days they most likely would have heard those terms in English even if they went to university in a non English speaking country)

      1. Snark*

        They didn’t function as a lab tech. Not for long. And he was an American dude, English first language.

      2. ArtsNerd*

        Yeah, I’m not even close to a scientist (see username) but I’ve known DNA vs RNA since puberty and even had an introduction to PCR in high school. This is baffling to me.

    5. Chameleon*

      This is pretty minor, but I did my grad school in a lab that worked on a malaria parasite called Plasmodium yoelii, pronounced “yo-El-ee-eye”. We had one intern who constantly pronounced it “YOW-lie” and I just saw my PI cringe every time he opened his mouth.

      1. Drew*

        I hate to admit that my brain went immediately to “Old McDonald had a plasmodium, yo-el-ee-eye-oh.”

  51. CS Rep By Day, Writer By Night*

    At my very first job, we had a client whose last name was Palacious (pronounced pah-lay-she-ohs). My boss straight up pronounced her last name as Felatio on a conference call once, causing us to have to mute the phone while everyone but my boss died of laughter. The kicker is she didn’t laugh because she had no idea what that word actually meant!

    1. SuspectedDragon*

      I was keeping the giggles to a minimum, until I read your comment. Nearly spit tea all over my monitor!

    2. No, please*

      I once had a client with the last name Pusey. Pronounced p-yoo-zee. Our poor receptionist could not get the spelling or pronunciation correct and hilarity ensued before each of Ms. Pusey’s appointments.

    3. LS*

      I used to work with someone who used the word “fallacious” a LOT. Their pronunciation was a little off though :-/

  52. Kathleen Adams*

    An otherwise very articulate former boss used to say “noisome” when what he meant was “very noisy.” He did it in conversation several times and I let it go, but then he did it in writing, so I corrected him. He was pretty mortified, but whatcha gonna do? I couldn’t let him go to print saying a meeting was “noisome,” could I?

  53. Temporarily Anon*

    This one is kind of bad:

    I was part of a group doing an exercise that involved foreign countries. One of my colleagues kept talking about having Pakistanis do X, Y and Z. Except he didn’t say “Pakistani” he used the first 4 letters of that word.

    We had a British colleague working with us too and after a few hours of this he just LOST it and exclaimed that he couldn’t deal with this racist language anymore. We didn’t know that the shortening of the word was essentially a racial slur in Britain. :/

    1. Marzipan*

      Yep, in the UK that is a really very offensive word. I can imagine it would have seemed pretty appalling to him that everyone else was just letting it go! Did it all get explained both ways and sorted?

      1. Humble Schoolmarm*

        Oh, I didn’t realize that word was acceptable in the US. It’s considered very offensive in Canada too.

        1. mrs__peel*

          I don’t think it *is* really acceptable in the US, but it’s also not something you hear very often.

          1. Turtlewings*

            Yeah, I’ve literally never heard it. I guess I’ve never lived anywhere with enough of a Pakistani population for it to even come up!

          2. AMPG*

            I wonder if part of the problem is that the people of other countries that end in -stan are properly called by the first part of the country name (e.g. Kazakhs live in Kazakhstan, Afghans live in Afghanistan, etc.), so they were trying to apply the same rule. But it doesn’t work that way, of course.

          3. ArtsNerd*

            I used it once and was quickly corrected by my company. A friend of Pakistani descent refers to himself that way and I had no idea it was a slur. Of course, I scrubbed that from my vocab real quick.

        2. CoveredInBees*

          With a relatively tiny Pakistani population, I think it is more that it isn’t a term that people use but someone might shorten to without knowing its usage elsewhere.

      2. Lynda*

        A quick reminder that “pissed off” is an offensive phrase in the UK in polite company.
        Also in the UK: the phrase “I was pissed” means remarkably drunk, not “I was angry”.

    2. mskyle*

      Not quite related – in New England, a common word for liquor store is “packy” (or possiblye “packie”?) – short for “package store.” Which led to some uncomfortable party planning when a UK-native colleague thought we were referring to the South Asian proprietor of the local liquor store as… the other thing.

      1. E*

        This would have been particularly noticeable to her, because the phrase ‘Paki store’ is used in parts of the UK to mean a small corner shop (because so many of the proprietors are south asian).

    3. Polymer Phil*

      I was pretty old when I found out that “Polack” was a racist term. I always thought it just meant “Polish person.”

      2. Oranges*

        I didn’t even know that was a thing. I would have used this word and “Paki” possibly just because I don’t know that these are derogatory words.

        This is why speaking up is good. You get to know if the person is an a-hole or just an idiot. Because the idiot will be contrite.

    4. Alter_ego*

      In Massachusetts, they often call liquor store “package stores” which they shorten to “packies”. I went.off. On a coworker for using it shortly after moving here, and he was so confused.

    5. Rob aka Mediancat*

      “Packy” is also what some folks call liquor stores in Massachusetts, I think. I remember one thread on another board where someone got greatly offended when someone talked about the local packies until someone explained to them that it meant liquor stores and they weren’t insulting Pakistanis.

      1. Kitrona*

        I just moved to South Carolina and they’re “package” stores here, too. I haven’t talked to anyone who mentioned going to one yet (I haven’t talked socially to almost anyone yet) so I don’t know if they shorten it in such an unfortunate way yet.

    6. Becky*

      My first exposure to the term was actually in Harry Potter where Uncle Vernon uses it–that particular character using it in an obviously derogatory way clued me in to not using it, but it was much later that I found out how offensive it was.

    2. Grey*

      “Worst case Ontario” and “rocket appliances” have made their way into my own vocabulary.

  55. Lora*

    One of the acronyms in my field is GMP, stands for Good Manufacturing Practices. We were having an off-site training sort of thing in which the day before we had done some intensive documentation training. The next day the director walked into the conference room, beamed at us, and asked, “So how is your GMP-ness today?”

    One of my female co-workers, suppressing giggles, squeaked, “I…I don’t think I have one of those…” before we all died laughing.

    2. Not a Real Giraffe*

      About five years ago, my family and I were driving to visit some relatives. We had been in the car for a LONG time and everyone was starting to go a little goofy. Eventually, we realize we need to take a break and my dad says:

      “We’re coming up to a rest stop soon. Anyone need a break? Any pee-ness? [long pause] …Wait, that’s not what I meant to say…”

      1. kbeers0su*

        If you’ve ever done Myers-Briggs, then you may know that it’s possible to talk about one’s p-ness (as opposed to one’e j-ness). Now imagine accidentally doing so in front of a group of college students whom you are training….

      2. mrs__peel*

        That reminds of the cartoon where Orson Welles is doing a commercial for Rosebud Frozen Peas (“full of country goodness and green pea-ness”).

    3. socrescentfresh*

      In my fundraising job people keep trying to define the quality of being a VIP, which gets turned into…VIP-ness.

    4. Fenchurch*

      Not work but my sisters growing up disagreed about a certain Bath & Body Works fragrance, sweet pea.

      Older sister yells at younger “GET AWAY! I CANNOT STAND YOUR SWEAT PEA-NESS!”

      We all died of laughter :)

        1. yasmara*

          A sweat pea is a flower – I guess, the flower of a pea plant? It’s a pet-name in my family, along with pumpkin and peanut…I guess we like to call each other plant parts.

  56. DCGirl*

    When I worked in fund raising, I worked with one college president who could not pronounce donors’ and prospects’ last names correctly if they were any more exotic than Smith, Jones, or Brown. We would introduce the individuals to him using the correct pronunciation and enunciating each syllable distinctly, and he’d just mangle the names while we cringed inside.

    1. Gazebo Slayer*

      I’m surprised someone that… provincial? Linguistically unskilled? I’m not sure what – ended up a college president; doesn’t that normally require a certain amount of gladhanding and social polish, as well as education?

  57. Ms. Pear*

    I work at an international nonprofit organization, where our founder persistently refers to Thailand as “Thigh-land,” and the people speak Thigh. Given my body shape, I feel these must be my people and I hope to someday visit my homeland.

    1. Anon today...and tomorrow*

      Literally just snorted my drink out of my nose on this one. It hurt like heck, but that comment was worth it for this part —-> Given my body shape, I feel these must be my people and I hope to someday visit my homeland.

    2. Merci Dee*

      We have a Thai restaurant here named Taste of Thailand, and my daughter giggles when she pronounces it Thigh-land. Talks about how tasty chicken legs are, etc. She loves that joke. Oh, to be a mischievous 12-year-old.

  58. Collarbone High*

    A former colleague had apparently misheard the phrase “get a handle on it” so he frequently instructed his (female) assistant to “talk to Steve in accounting and see if you can get a hand around it.”

    1. Mookie*

      Had a manager who was always very keen to “get a leg over” his female subordinates. He was actually employing the phrase correctly, but doing so unintentionally.

  59. Cambridge Comma*

    One of my North American colleagues wrote a technical book that used the abbreviations COQ, DIQ and MUF. (And DIV, but that’s probably too British for her to know.) l wrote her a very diplomatic mail saying that the users of the guide might assume mischievous intent, especially given that all these abbreviations were first introduced in the same paragraph, so we might want to spell the two least used out.
    The reply I recived said, without salutation or signature:
    “It took me a long time to realise what you meant. I feel that you have robbed me of my innocence.”
    I thought it was a joke, but the next time I ran into her, I realised it really wasn’t.

  60. Kate*

    I changed managers halfway through the year, so my annual performance review was conducted by both managers at the same time. I told a group of coworkers this, and one said, “Wow, that sounds like a gang bang.” Everybody was shocked, and she said, “You know, a gang bang, like bang, bang, shoot ’em up. Like a drive-by shooting.” We told her to look it up on urban dictionary. She did, and was embarrassed. We had a relaxed culture, so she was teased about that for a long time.

    1. Labguy*

      That at least sort of makes sense because I’ve heard the word “Gangbanger” used as a noun to mean gang member.

      1. N.J.*

        Unfortunately, as far as I recall, that’s how the sexual meaning of the phrase arose (maybe, might be getting this wrong). Some of the gang member initiation activities for female members were characterized by this type of activity, and it crossed into the lexicon to mean what it now means. Sick and sad when you think about it.

  61. RFan*

    When we have HVAC issues- for A/C where it’s getting hot – one coworker has written
    “Please bare with us” more than once – when she means ‘bear with us’

    1. yasmara*

      I have to think twice for bare/bear (uh, not when referring to the animal) and brake/break. No idea why these 2 sets are problematic for me! Spell check isn’t your friend when it comes to this stuff.

    2. wealhtheow*

      This is kind of off-topic, but …

      There’s a particular variety of condom made by Trojan which is called BareSkin.

      And every. single. time. I overhear a TV advert for these condoms, I hear BearSkin instead of BareSkin and start giggling uncontrollably at the mental image this evokes.

  62. Been there*

    I had to gently suggest we stop using the STD acronym at work. Especially in emails with the subject line “Jane’s STD information”

    Umm… Jane was a very sweet older lady who I’m sure would have mortified beyond belief at that one.

    1. CatCat*

      Ohhhhh, I work for the state of California and STD is the abbreviation used for “standard” on state forms. I’ve always thought they should change it.

      Everyone who works for the state has and STD…

      An STD 678 (employment application form) that is!

      1. motherofdragons*

        Former CA state employee here, and totally agree with you!! I could never bring myself to say it out loud. I’d always just say “the timesheet form” or “the application form.”

    2. Squeeble*

      Haha, I was a member of the English honors society in college, which is called Sigma Tau Delta. One time I was talking to my dad and told him I had to run to my STD meeting, and the look on his face was just the best.

    3. TootsNYC*

      I mentioned this elsewhere, but I’ve done a lot of writing, etc., on wedding etiquette, and there’s always a temptation to use an acronym when you’re talking about save-the-dates.

      I’ve sometimes used “StD,” but not in print.

    4. Jeanne*

      We used it but only in equations. concSTD / concRawMaterial. In your context it doesn’t work well for standard.

  63. Ramona Flowers*

    An old colleague of mine once tried to mention being sleep deprived, but accidentally said she was sleep depraved. Not the same.

    Nit picky, I realise. But she was a copyeditor!

    1. zora*

      “I’m depraved on account-a I’m deprived!”

      (Just saw that movie again this weekend and couldn’t help it ;o))

  64. anon designer*

    1. My boss says “it’s French to me anywayS” instead of “it’s all Greek to me.” He uses this phrase quite often. He also tends to overuse little filler turns of phrase like “as it were” and “per se,” though those aren’t technically incorrect. He just tosses them in every other sentence!
    2. My dad, telling me to hurry up or quit procrastinating: “You need to get humpin’ on this!” Cue the slow turn, blink, and “Daaaad?”

      1. anon designer*

        Haha! Yeahhh. I would feel more sympathetic to his speaking/presenting missteps, but this is the same guy who teases me for reading during my lunch hour or for using words like “harmony” or “reconcile.” I’m not trying to show off, but I’m also sorry for using the word that accurately describes what I mean!

    2. Sled dog mama*

      I had a coworker who said something similar to it’s all French to me because she spoke Greek

  65. Rescue all the dogs!!*

    My mom is on the Board of a small local museum. She’s also notoriously technology illiterate and it’s taken me years to teach her how to text, which is coincidentally how the Board at this particular institution prefers to informally communicate. When a member of the Board texted her to tell her that one of the other members had passed away, her initial response was “How sad LOL for the family”. After the funeral, she came home ranting about how rude everyone was to her and it was then that we discovered that she thought LOL meant ‘lots of love’. I’ve never seen her so mortified.

    2. Lady Russell's Turban*

      Writer Adam Gopnik made this same error. He told a very funny story about it on “The Moth” story hour on public radio.

    3. E*

      My mum would occasionally sign off funny emails “LOL, Mum”. She never sent me any other kind – we spoke regularly by phone, and our emails were all amusing forwards and recipes.

      Then she emailed to say an elderly relative was sick, because she couldn’t get me on the phone, and signed that off with LOL too. I was horrified!

      2. Mookie*

        When they first encountered emoticons in the wild, both my parents thought all the little colons and semi-colons and stray parentheses marks were just filler characters that you had to use on-line, and their e-mails were full of the most random happy, goofy faces. It was unsettling, like being in mind of a madman glorying over his madness.

    4. Emily C*

      I’ve just realized my future mother in law also suffers from this misconception. I haven’t told her yet. At least I think she loves me and isn’t just endlessly mocking me?

    5. Not So NewReader*

      I tried explaining to an older relative that LOL does not mean lots of luck.
      For whatever reason, she decided that lots of luck is what she meant by it and people would just figure that out at some point. sigh.

  66. Knitty*

    So we used to have a supervisor who we called D. One morning a coworker, excited to see him, blurted out how she loved “big D in the morning!” Cue all of us dissolving into a giggle fit as I tell her that that doesn’t mean what she was trying to say at all!

    1. Rebecca in Dallas*

      Big D has long been a nickname for Dallas and so I used to use that hashtag fairly often on Instagram. I really never thought about it meaning anything else until I clicked on the hashtag once, wanting to look for pics of the Dallas skyline. OH MY!

    2. Sibley*

      Suddenly, I’m aware of a different possible connotation for certain sections of Harry Potter books. I don’t think I wanted this information.

    3. Anonicat*

      I have two friends called Richard. One is very tall and the other quite short. Guess what their nicknames are.

  67. Anon today...and tomorrow*

    A co-worker once said, during a heavy rain storm, that we were scheduled to have “tarantula rain” all day long. Even after it was explained that she was saying torrential incorrect, she kept saying tarantula. I know weather can be extreme, but tarantula rain sounds downright terrifying!!!!

      1. Anon today...and tomorrow*

        Australia is one of those countries I am terrified to visit simply because of bugs and reptiles. EEEK!

        1. LS*

          My sister lives there and she’s never mentioned the poisonous critters. The kangaroos are the really nuisance. They steal her horses’ hay :^)

      2. Adlib*

        It does. My boss is Australian and he shrugs at the mention of large bugs or spiders. At least I’ll be in the city when I’m over there next month.

  68. Nanc*

    Many, many, many years ago in the dark ages prior to the internet my Dad was a manufacturing engineer and oversaw a team of junior engineers who wrote assembly blueprints for various client PCB assemblies (gads, I’m old–I remember when we assembled printed circuit boards in-house in the SF Bay Area!).

    He had to fire a JE who despite many warnings would abbreviate the drawing title to Client Name Ass Blue and send off the packet for sign off. The JE claimed it took too much time to spell out the entire phrase.

    1. JeanB in NC*

      I’m always amazed at how many people abbreviate assistant as ass. As in “ass manager”. On their resumes!

      2. Thing One*

        I don’t know if it’s still true, but Assistant Managers who get their names on the Stanley Cup used to get the abbreviated title of “Ass Man” to go with it. 10 year old me just about died of laughter the first time I saw that.

      3. Forrest Rhodes*

        For a mercifully brief time I once worked in an office where the administrative assistant used her title as part of her signature. For some reason she was fond of abbreviations, though, so she always signed, “J. Smith, Adm. Ass.”
        Forever after, and privately, we lowly laborers referred to her as “Admiral Ass.”

    2. CrazyEngineerGirl*

      At my job we refer to all of our 3D assembly models as NameofThing Assy. I imagine the ‘y’ was added so it doesn’t just say ass, but is assy really any better?

  69. Thing One*

    My company’s clients including nursing homes, and a few of them do what’s known as respite care, where a person whose family normally cares for them goes to live in a facility for a few days/weeks. We got a call from one of these homes one day letting us know that a particular patient wasn’t there any more because she’d been a respite (and so the family had come to pick her up and take her back home). However, the person who got the call misheard or misunderstood, and so passed on the message that the patient was no longer in the facility because she’d been arrested.

    (This then caused one of the greatest moments I’ve ever overheard at work, when they called back a few weeks later to let us know the patient was coming back and a different coworker saw that note and asked “Oh, did she get out of jail?”.)

  70. Ancient Blue Haired Lady of Yore*

    This isn’t exactly what the post is asking for, but it’s in the spirit of it.
    I work for a company that makes a product that contains charts which can show cumulative or rates. Because “cumulative” is rather long, it’s often shortened to “cum” on titles and things. A customer asked us to use the long version because she was embarrassed that “cum” was going to be on charts that would be presented to her bosses and her own customers.

    1. housemouse*

      I commented above that for many years the professional association for university music educators in Canada had the unfortunate acronym of CUMS – Canadian University Music Society.

      They tried to salvage the unfortunate situation by appending it to the French abbrevation but SMUC-CUMS wasn’t much of an improvement. Eventually they gave it up and went for the bilingual MusCan.

      And I can’t forget the journal review – CUMR – a notorious publication to have on one’s CV!

    2. LizB*

      I worked in a school for a while and was baffled by emails referring to students’ “cum files.” It wasn’t until I heard someone say the phrase (it’s pronounced “kyoom,” like the first syllable of cumulative) that I figured out what the heck was happening.

      1. nonegiven*

        I ran across an oddly censored comment section somewhere the other day. It took me a while to figure out what a do***ent was, you know a document.

  71. Blue Anne*

    I had three co-workers who all said “Pacific” instead of “specific”. It drove me nuts.

    2. Sibley*

      I used to do that. In my defense, it was purely because I simply couldn’t say specific right, and it wasn’t until college that my mouth got it together. Pacific was the absolute closest I could get for years. I did have some speech therapy as a kid, which helped with various other issues, but 3-4 year olds aren’t really using the word “specific”

  72. Lucky*

    Worked with an attorney who emailed the whole group of his fellow associates asking us who among the support staff was a “Notary Replubic.” One of us must have directed him to a paralegal, but I don’t think anyone corrected him. He was kind of an ass.

    1. Ogress*

      For many professional years, I thought it was Noter Republic. Like the republic had given this person the right to note things officially.

  73. Skyline*

    Not a misuse, but a misspeak. In an exercise class, the instructor meant to say “squeeze your bum” or “squeeze your tush” but what came out was “squeeze your bush.” We couldn’t help but laugh.

    1. Alucius*

      did something like that as a 12 year old. Tried to say either “let’s take a break” or “let’s take a rest”…and yeah, those last words combine rather unfortunately.

    2. Loony Lovegood*

      LOL! less dirty, but once when singing Kelly Clarkson’s hit “Break Away” I combined the phrased “make a wish” and “take a risk” to confidently sing, “Make a rish!”

  74. Buffy Summers*

    Ohh I have another that is work related. My direct report consistently says “Secession Plan” when she means “Succession Plan”.

  75. Elfie*

    My husband’s boss keeps sending people emails asking them to ‘bare with him’ – has me in stitches. I mean, what if they took him up on his offer?!

  76. Janelle*

    This was a slip but I sent an email saying “we can drop shit tomorrow” I instead of ship. Luckily it was to a woman in converse with often. She replied to my email with “hahahaha you have a funny typo”. I cracked up.

    3. Quacktastic*

      Our scheduler sent out an email with “this shit is covered” instead of shift. To every employee in our state.

      She wasn’t wrong, but for several weeks after that shift coverage emails said something like “the hours have been covered” or “help has been found.”

    4. Lizzy*

      As an admin / receptionist, I once sent an email saying “shit” instead of “shirt”.
      It was a very conservative CPA firm. I was mortified, but the partners and staff thought it was hilarilous

  77. Trig*

    I work in software. Everything is going in the cloud nowadays. The opposite of the cloud is, grammatically, “on-premises”.

    Everyone, even up to the highest level of the company, says “on-premise”. That’s like saying “the software works on-conjecture!”

    I have given up fighting that good fight, but it grates a wee bit every time.

    1. TrixM*

      Drives me crackers as well. But I will never never never accept “administratel” as a description of what I do to systems.

      1. Trig*

        I mean, the descriptivist part of me agrees that it sounds better. And whatever’s in common use and understood is cool. But that old prescriptivist inside rears up and goes NOOOOOOO.

          1. Trig*

            Oh yeah, that’s most commonly used. I’m fine with it; at least that lets me PRETEND they’re using the right one!

  78. H.C.*

    I seriously used “Netflix & Chill” several times at work during idle chit-chat (and meant it in the most literal sense, bingewatching series X or movie Y after work or over the weekend) before co-workers explained to me what the term really meant. :O

    1. Anon today...and tomorrow*

      I still don’t understand how this phrase can mean anything except “I’m going to binge watch Netflix and chill out (relaxin’ all cool) on my couch with a bunch of snacks.” I know it does, but it’s still baffling to me.

      1. Murphy*

        I think that inviting someone back to your place to “netflix and chill” became similar to inviting someone back to your place for “coffee.”

        2. TootsNYC*

          Except that most of the times I’ve seen that phrase, it’s been in the context of an existing relationship. Where you might hang out at home as a default when you weren’t going out. And that instead of going on a date, or out of the house, you wanted to just Netflix and chill.

          And of course, you might have sex, but that seemed to me to be completely unrelated to the Netflix part. Because if you went out dancing or to dinner and a movie, you might still have sex.

          1. H.C.*

            Yeah, I originally thought of it in that kind of context too – couples who are going to each others’ places to watch a few flicks & whittle down their To-Watch queues.

          2. Emi.*

            I think it started with girls complaining that their boyfriends never took them on dates, but just wanted to stay in and watch movies and then have sex, and the original issue was that they felt taken for granted.

            1. Not So NewReader*

              I can kind of see this one, it does make sense.
              Like others the connection was kind of obscure for me, I started thinking I wonder what else I am saying that has unintended meaning.

          3. Drew*

            “Because if you went out dancing or to dinner and a movie, you might still have sex.”

            …eventually, I hope you meant. Or not, I suppose, depending on the kind of movie you went to see. Whereas “Netflix and chill” implies a bit of synchrony, at least the times I’ve heard it used

    2. Bend & Snap*

      My boyfriend told me recently he was going to Netflix & chill while I was traveling and I was like ummmm I hope not. LOL. He had no idea.

  79. Junior Dev*

    I was watching a presentation about gesture and face recognition software given by someone who clearly didn’t write the presentation. He got to the slide that said “affective processing” and made a comment of “that should say effective processing.”

    No, it shouldn’t. Effective = useful, successful, having an effect. Affective (or “affect” as a noun) = the physical presentation of emotions. So affective processing means using software to guess someone’s emotional state from a photo of their face, which is exactly what the slide was about.

    1. TootsNYC*

      I made that mistake the other way once; I wrote in the meeting minutes that a financial transaction had been affected. No, it had been “effected”–it had finally happened.

    2. Boop*

      SO many people mis-use effect vs. affect. It can really change a sentence when you use the wrong one, though!

  80. Throwaway*

    Two lists of donors that we manage are referred to as POS and SOL, though neither of those initials stand for what I was used to.

    In a meeting where we were discussing the handling and ranking of VIPs, I said “we’ll just need to take a look at their VIPness.” My boss didn’t bat an eye but I was definitely embarrassed…

    1. MommaTRex*

      We’ve been working on a Public Offering Statement at work. But everyone calls it POS. I giggle every time. Because I’m twelve, I guess.

      1. Rob aka Mediancat*

        My company has POS used as a regular acronym — for “Place of service.” I work in medical insurance.

      2. This Daydreamer*

        POS also means point of sale. Any retail worker will tell you that both meanings are correct when referring to POS technology.

        3. Elemeno P.*

          The first time I ever heard the term POS I thought that the business owner just really didn’t like his computers.

    2. Junior Dev*

      I majored in Religion, and spent a lot of time in the Bible Studies section of the library, which is abbreviated exactly how you think it is.

  81. Anon for now!*

    We had a volunteer collecting supplies for an event at the school where I work. She emailed all parents, faculty and staff saying she would be in the parking lot with her SNATCH open. She meant hatch.

    2. Turtlewings*

      There’s just nowhere to go from that. Except maybe another country, under a false passport with a new name.

    5. An Inspector of Gadgets*

      Speaking of Hatch, anyone paying attention to Sen. Orrin today? Not a political post, just a funny odd use of a turn of phrase in the news today…”shot their wad” has a current meaning *and* an old-timey one, turns out.

  82. Angelinha*

    I had a coworker who would use “Touche!” to mean (as near as I could tell) “Ditto!” or “I agree with the email before mine!”

      1. An Inspector of Gadgets*

        A relative once texted me, in the proper context at least, with “too shea!”

        2. NotThatGardner*

          i see people constantly using “walah!” or “wah la!” instead of “voila!” and it drives. me. nuts.

            1. Saturnalia*

              Reminds me of all the “sneak peak” blog posts from my last job… Such sneaky mountains!

              1. saffytaffy*

                I have to admit I really love deliberate misspellings- my background is in Linguistics, and they tickle a part of my brain just right. Writing wa-lah, or saying “voy-la!” make me so happy. If a person happens to use the word tortoise (or porpoise) in a sentence, sometimes I’ll get real mock-snooty and say “aaaactually, it’s pronounced tor-twah.”

                I do think it’s gross when people use the word titillating in mixed company. Like, just say scintillating.

          2. Adlib*

            That’s one where I think people have no business using it if they have no clue how to spell it. Argh.

          3. SusanIvanova*

            Or “viola!” It’s older than spellcheck, so I don’t think that’s to blame.

        3. Saturnalia*

          Way back in the days when some people (me) had flip phones and other people had iPhones (bf), I received a text reply that said “touchi”. I proceeded to mercilessly tease him for his spelling until he showed me the conversation on his phone… Turns out the ol Samsung Smooth could not interpret the é character and for reasons unknown changed it to an i :-)

        4. Drew*

          I’ll tell this on myself: my sister was a fencer in college for a little while, and at one of her matches I couldn’t figure out why they kept talking about “reposts.” The worst part is that I knew the word “riposte,” but I always thought it was “re-pos-TAY.” Nope.

    2. Emily C*

      I had a colleague who pretty much had a verbal tick around this word and would use it to express agreement every 30 seconds and I hated it so much.

    3. Not So NewReader*

      A friend ended and email with “Chow!”

      I emailed back and said, “I guess I wish you food, also?”

  83. Katiedid*

    When I worked at a school district in college, they were revamping the system and one part was changing the “junior high schools” to “middle schools.” They were going to do a whole roll out which included t-shirts for school staff to wear on the first day with the new names on them and then have them for the students as well. Yeah, one school previously abbreviated as “PJHS” became “PMS” and they wanted all of the staff and middle school aged students to wear t-shirts that said “PMS Pride” across the front. I went back to school before the final decision was made, so I don’t know if they ultimately went through with it!!

    1. hermit crab*

      I’ve been told that the neighboring school district to where I grew up, which is in a town that starts with P., changed its name from “P.” to “P. Area” for exactly that reason, so the middle school could be “PAMS.”

    2. Retrenching to Bath*

      Ha! As the city in which I grew up shrank in population, they needed to consolidate the high schools and middle schools, so where there had been two or three of each, there would now only be one. My high school, Parkside, became the middle school. It took about a year, but PMS was changed to MSP (the Middle School at Parkside). Pretentious sounding but I guess it stopped the giggles.

    4. Polymer Phil*

      It seems like most “junior highs” are older schools, and newer ones are almost always called “middle schools.” Is there some reason why “middle school” became the preferred term?

      1. Ogress*

        I always thought junior high was either 7-8 or 7-9th grades, while middle school was solidly 6-8.

        1. Chameleon*

          Yes. They switched from 7-9 to 6-8 when I was in 8th grade, and my Jr. High became a Middle School. I am still bitter that I never got to be an upperclassman.

          1. SusanIvanova*

            Fistbump in solidarity. When I was a Jr High 9th grader, we moved in the middle of the school year to a place with 9-12 in high school. Went from having lots of friends and all sorts of final year celebrations to a lonely little freshman in a massive high school. And then we moved back the next year.

      1. mrs__peel*

        I love this so much. (Suggested T-shirt slogan: “I’m mad as hell and about to start pillaging!”)

    6. Anlyn*

      I grew up in a town with a local university/seminary, the name starting with P. We always called it good old PU.

    7. On the toon*

      There is a bit of an urban legend at the uni I went to about the other uni in the city. The other uni was changing from a polytechnic (an old form of university in the UK) to a full university and supposedly considered making their title the ‘City University of..’ except that the city is Newcastle upon Tyne…

    8. Not So NewReader*

      A friend went to college in the late 60s. Back then it was normal for freshmen be given caps to wear that stated the last two numbers of their graduating year. My friend was going to graduate in 1969. Friend threw the cap away, right after receiving it.

  84. Stackson*

    Our VP always says “maturate” instead of “mature”. No one corrects him and I’m also not sure anyone else knows that maturate can mean something very different than mature. He definitely doesn’t intend for it to be taken as the medical usage, as we’re in manufacturing.

  85. Applesauced*

    This thread is bringing back the memory of misreading “organism” as “orgasm”.
    Out loud. In science class. In 7th grade. (shudder)

    1. Jillociraptor*

      When I was in college, several of us students were delegates to the Democratic Party state convention. Part of the meeting involved reading proposed planks to the party platform. One was about clean water. In included the word “organism” many times. My classmate who was reading it…did not say “organism.”

      In case you’re wondering, grown adults laugh at this mistake just about as much as middle schoolers!

    2. Charlie Bradbury's Girlfriend*

      In 3rd or 4th grade, I told my friends that my grandmother lived in a condom. I meant condo. *facepalm*

      1. Cristina in England*

        I have been reading this thread for almost an hour and this is the one that made me laugh out loud.

    5. Lison*

      I was participating in a competition for 16 year olds about science when the college student who was reading the questions started a question with “in orgasmic chemistry what is…..” She would probably have got away with it if the timekeeper hadn’t said in a stage whisper “wasn’t that exciting in my day”

    6. Geillis D.*

      There’s an apartment building in my city pretentiously name “Ovation” – three guesses how I keep reading this out of the corner of my eye.

      1. Mrs. Fenris*

        There was some kind of candy called Ovation at a nearby store when I was in college. I majored in food animal science, so I had a lot of classes about reproductive physiology and so forth. I read it as Ovulation every time.

  86. Kathenus*

    I was interviewed by a panel for a job about 12 years ago, and one of the interviewers loved to tell a story about it afterwards. After I left, the panel was discussing my interview, and he said that he liked me and that I was ‘vivacious’. The others on the panel told him he couldn’t call me that, that it was sexist, and inappropriate. He pulled up the dictionary definition to read it to them to prove that it was not actually an offensive word. Apparently he said ‘vivacious’ but they heard ‘voluptuous’ (which I am very much not). Anyway I got the job, and he retold that story many times to me and others.

    1. HireThisLady*

      I had a friend who didn’t get a job (most likely) because she corrected the interviewer on her excessive use of “conversate” instead of “converse.”

    2. CM*

      It wasn’t offensive at the post-interview discussion, but I’m not so sure about the constant retelling of the story…

  87. Lady Russell's Turban*

    “Splitting image” instead of “spitting image” or, more accurately around here, “spittin’ image.” Always made me smile.

  88. JustaTech*

    I had a coworker (same age as me but deliberately non-internet) ask me if tweeting and twerking were the same thing. The conversation ended with me twerking at my cube to try and explain it to her.
    (What else was I going to do, show her the Miley video?)

  89. BigSigh*

    I had a coworker call me promiscuous once, though the set up of the overall convo made it very apparent he was trying to say some synonym of intelligent. I immediately burst out with, “I don’t think that means what you think it means!” He was mostly annoyed at how hard I laughed.

  90. saffytaffy*

    1. Coworker who would say “is everything copaseptic?” which is not a wrong usage but delights me.

    2. Former director would, when running to a meeting, say “if X call tell her I’m incapacitated” and “I’m incapacitated until lunchtime, so let’s meet at 1.”

  91. snarkarina*

    I live in Frederick, MD – many, many, many people market the downtown area as “DTF.”

    1. Janelle*

      Oh god my stepsister once said we are going DTF. Told her to maybe stop saying that. She meant a Down Town Fullerton. She had no idea what it meant until I told her.

  92. Lunch Meat*

    I’m sorry, this one isn’t a coworker either. But my brother and I were on a church trivia team with the daughter of our preacher. Our last name starts with Ho, think Holmes, and so did our preacher’s daughter, think Holman. So naturally our preacher suggested our team name be “Three Ho’s.”

    4. Drew*

      Not “Ho Ho Ho”?

      That’s one of my age tests: if you’re my age, give or take, “Ho Ho Ho” is always I mean ALWAYS followed by “Green Giant!” Younger people seem to wonder why I’m talking about Santa.

  93. Patsy Stone*

    A few years back I had just gotten a job as an overland tour leader in Africa, and was on day two of my training trip. In Livingstone, Zambia, doing grocery shopping with my trainer, a lovely British guy. We’re in the produce section, and he tells me he’s going to try and find this new veggie wash he’s heard is really good for cleaning fruits and veg. Off he goes…I continue shopping. A few minutes later he comes back with a big bottle in hand, and proudly announces he’s found the veggie wash!! I casually glance at the bottle…and then have to explain to this man (who’ve I known for all of two days), why Vagisil is NOT really what he wants to be using to wash the veggies…. to this day I have yet to see anybody turn a brighter shade of red than he did once I explained what Vagisil was used for :D

    1. Adlib*

      I really want to know what he was looking for! Was that it and he was just under the wrong impression the whole time? Too funny!

  94. Myrin*

    This happened in school so, close enough I guess? We were only twelve at the time and there was some kind of… stone age thing going on? I think? There was a geologist who came to school once a year and all the sixth-graders had to gather in a room and he would tell them stuff.

    At one point, he asked something like “Do you know what it’s called when over time, the wind carries away parts of the soil?” (this is probably not how you’d phrase that in English but I hope you get it nonetheless), the desired answer being “erosion”. However, one of my classmates raised his hand and very confidently declared “ERECTION!”.

    Somehow, I was apparently the only twelve-year-old who actually knew what an erection was; or maybe I was just the only one who couldn’t hold back her laughter.

  95. Michelle*

    This thread is “fantabulous”. I missed the first one. Does anyone remember the topic so I can read those comments, too?

  96. Bend & Snap*

    I have a ditsy friend who is an accountant. At her first job she went to the office manager to tell her she was out of pedophiles and ask her to order more. The office manager was absolutely stunned. She asked her to describe the pedophiles she’d been working with.

    “You know, they’re all different colors and hang in your file cabinet, and you put other files in them”

    OM gets a light bulb: “PENDAFLEX files!”

    Had to explain to my friend what a pedophile was and that it definitely wasn’t an office supply.

    3. Lady Jay*

      Oh, dear. This is BAD and I really shouldn’t be laughing at it. But I am . . . in public.

  97. JacqOfAllTrades*

    I had a colleague who attempted to compliment me by announcing how inept I was. She meant adept.

    I think.

    1. saffytaffy*

      This is related to the phenomenon of calling things that remind one of home “homely.”

      1. yasmara*

        That’s a British thing, though. “Homely” means something like homey or cozy. In the US it means ugly.

        1. Laura*

          No, it doesn’t mean that in Britain, Yasmara! It means exactly the same as it does in the US! Dickens is very clear on this.

          1. Kolya*

            No, it really is as yasmara says. Google says “North American: unattractive in appearance.
            synonyms: unattractive, plain, unprepossessing, unlovely, ill-favored, ugly;…

            British: (of a place or surroundings) simple but cozy and comfortable, as in one’s own home.”

            The OED agrees, but notes that the British sense can be used depreciatively, implying lack of elegance or refinement, or else as a term of approbation, implying lack of ostentation or pretentiousness.

  98. BigSigh*

    OMG, I can’t believe I didn’t immediately throw this out there.

    The COO at the company I work at constantly says various people are ‘tag teaming.’ And she uses the awkward quote emphasis too!

      1. Chameleon*

        “Tag Teaming” can refer to two fellows taking turns with one lady. (Or vice versa, or all of one or the other, I guess..)

        1. Isobel*

          Oh dear. I just hope none of my friends know that because it is something I say occasionally.

          1. saffytaffy*

            You have to figure, if Urban Decay names a lipstick after it, it’s not something you do in the office.

        2. lionelrichiesclayhead*

          It can but I feel like the usage of it as two people working together or even as a wrestling term is so common that assuming they mean the sexual version is actually abnormal.

          1. lionelrichiesclayhead*

            sorry, didn’t mean that they assume the person means the sexual version, but that the assumption that they are using a sexual term without knowing it is incorrect. they are using the word correctly and it’s commonly used in the non-sexual meaning.

          2. yasmara*

            Oh man, I probably say this. Despite the wrestling origins, I read enough smut that I should know better!

  99. V2*

    There was a famous one of these a few years ago when Jerry Jones, owner of the Dallas Cowboys, said in a press conference that they were going to find the “glory hole”. His PR director was standing behind him and completely lost it, doubled over in laughter. Glory hole is apparently an oil-drilling term.

    1. RVA Cat*

      It also means something like a storeroom in the UK. I lost it the first time I came across it in a British novel, where a nice older couple said that’s what they did with several rooms of their run-down country house.

    2. Mrs. Fenris*

      It’s also a super hot oven thing they use in glassblowing. I watched a glassblowing demo with my kids and I was stifling a cackle the whole time.

  100. Quacktastic*

    One of my coworkers mixed up “landing strip” with “soul patch” when complimenting a coworker on his new facial hair. He was very confused and I almost died trying not to laugh.

    2. Lily Rowan*

      I’ve been reading along, enjoying all of these, but THIS is the one that made me laugh out loud!!

  101. Broadbean*

    I work in a non native English speaking environment and people constantly use “grab your slot” to mean “fix a time in your diary”. Somehow it’s been worse when my PA puts her head round my door and says “Bob just wants to grab your slot.” It’s very childish of me but each time it really makes me want to giggle.

    1. JaneB*

      When I worked on the North American content bent my boss would frequently demand a quickie (this does not mean a quick meeting in English English at ALL) and offer to knock me up on the way to a meeting (he meant knock on my door so we could go together. At the time I only knew it to mean getting someone pregnant…)

      1. MommaTRex*

        “Knocking someone up” ONLY means getting someone pregnant. Any other use is just wrong. So wrong.

        1. JaneB*

          Historically in mill towns and mining towns there was a job of “knocker-upper” – someone who walked through the streets with a long stick and banged on the windows of everyone on the early shift to wake them… I assumed the archaic form had survived in Canada and not in the U.K. Once I got over the shock…

      2. Gazebo Slayer*

        “Quickie”… does not mean a quick meeting in American English either. And “knock you up” also means “get you pregnant” here as well.

        I suspect your boss knew you would figure these were just more UK/US differences you weren’t aware of.

  102. Ms. Meow*

    I work in analytical chemistry, and a common shorthand to use for ‘standard’ is ‘std’. No one bats an eye after you’ve been working for a while. The sticky bit is when you start referring specifically to ‘analytical standards’. I once had a colleague (whose first language was not English) label their analytical standards ‘AnalStd’. Now that got some giggles in the lab.

    1. Phryne Fisher*

      HAH. We frequently send follow-up emails and use ‘FU’ as shorthand for ‘follow-up’ in our notes.

      “FU to be sent on AUG-10 when Constables Collins is back in the office.”

      “FU sent to Jack Robinson on AUG-03.”

      1. Hey Karma, Over here.*

        My brothers and sisters and I as well as a rotation of hired staff took care of our elderly parents at home for quite a few years. Daily care required keeping a journal (diary for you British folks, I understand). Not all of us were nurses, so the first time I read a note in the journal about Dad telling me FU in the morning, I was half way through what I was going to tell her tomorrow when she came back to…OH, wait, I get it. Tough times, indeed.

  103. LittleRedRidingHu?*

    Gosh, where to start? One coworker insists on saying “irregardless”. It makes me bonkers!
    Another one just can’t say certain words right i. e. Hallelulljah, steakholders, chairholders..the list goes on.
    And as most of my coworkers are German sometimes hilarious stuff happens due to translation. My boss will take German phrases and translate them word by word in the end presenting beauties like: We have to put this deal into dry sheets (we need to close the deal), make sure everything is terminated (make sure all the dates are set) The German word for date is Termin so there you have it.
    And his best one yet: Now we have the salad (Darn, we messed up)

    1. Broadbean*

      My partner had this with a Dutch boss. “I’m the big potato”. Which seemed to mean, I’m the one causing problems. Don’t know why a bit potato is a problem…

      1. saffytaffy*

        It’s because the big potato doesn’t cook at the same rate as all the other smaller potatoes.

    2. Sparkly Librarian*

      I kind of love “Now we have the salad.” I can see it being said with moderate frustration, with resignation, or softly with a mournful face.

          1. Ramona Flowers*

            These could be secret code for AAM readers to recognise each other in the wild. Maybe a teapot that has big potato written on it.

    3. CAA*

      I posted below about working with Israelis, and we used to get this idiom translation from Hebrew too.
      – he’s putting notes in my ears
      – things are falling between the chairs
      – I’m holding my thumbs

      1. SarahTheEntwife*

        If the last one means “hoping for something”, I’m wondering if it came to Hebrew from German or if somehow both cultures ended up with the same phrase.

        1. Myrin*

          Huh? Which German phrase are you thinking of? I can’t think of anything that involves “Daumen halten” but I might be totally blanking on something obvious.

          1. Emi.*

            I think “die Daumen drücken” is often translated “holding your thumbs,” and it’s what Germans do instead of crossing their fingers for luck.

            1. Myrin*

              I am German, which is why I was so confused – “drücken” is “to squeeze”, not “to hold”, and it doesn’t mean “hoping for something” but, like you say, wishing someone luck. I didn’t connect that one could think of “hold” and “drücken” as the same/comparable.

              1. Julia*

                I’m German, and I would say ‘holding my thumbs for you’ instead of squeezing. I must have heard it somewhere.

        2. Geillis D.*

          It’s simply “keeping my fingers crossed”.
          In Hebrew we have one multipurpose word for fingers, thumbs and toes.

        3. CAA*

          Yes, they say “holding my thumbs” instead of “crossing my fingers”.

          I really liked the one about “notes in my ears”. It refers to the practice of putting a note to God between the stones of the temple wall in Jerusalem. So it mostly means he’s complaining to me and waiting for me to answer his prayers and fix it.

      2. Nolan*

        I feel bad for all the ESL speakers I know because like 70% of my communication style is idioms and trying to figure out what anything I say means must be exhausting.
        (“I told you, I can’t do idioms!”)

      3. Zahra*

        Hey, we say that in French to mean that you had so many things to do that you dropped the ball on some of the stuff.

      4. Sorkie*

        The last two are common idioms in Swedish too!
        “Things are falling between the chairs”: When two authorities can’t cooperate, someone or something will be forgotten by both of them.
        “I’m holding my thumbs”: Like crossing your fingers.

  104. Elfie*

    When I was at university, we had to do a project in teams of two. Because I didn’t have a particular friend on that course, I got assigned to the guy we’d all dubbed ‘Weird Conrad’ – not nice, I know, but you know, young and foolish and all that. I wasn’t looking forward to it, but hey. Then someone I was friendly with mentioned that she didn’t have a partner for this project, as she’d been sick the day it had been handed out. I said why don’t we all work together then? When the lecturer was asking who we were partnered up with, and it got to me, I said that me, friend, and Weird Conrad would be doing it as a threesome. Cue lots of laughter, and one very bright red face.
    Another time, a lecturer (I’d switched courses by then, probably to get away from the dreadful humiliation) was giving us a demonstration about semantics in coding, and why they’re important. One of the examples he used was from a box of breakfast cereal “Insert finger into flap and move from left to right”. Cue lots of snorts and laughter, and one very bewildered lecturer who just didn’t get the joke. We called him Trigger, because he looked (and sometimes acted) a lot like him.

  105. hermit crab*

    We recently received a contractual document that (I imagine) was supposed to say something like “graphics or images” or but instead said “graphic images.” As in, “For planning purposes, we anticipate that the document will be approximately 50 pages in length and that it will include 15 graphic images.”

  106. Amber Rose*

    Basically everyone needs to channel their inner Inigo Montoya. “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

  108. Health Insurance Nerd*

    One of my coworkers continually says “for all intensive purposes”, and it never fails to make me giggle on the inside.

    2. JeanB in NC*

      I’m glad it makes you laugh – I think my head would explode after a few repetitions.

    3. AMPG*

      I get so frustrated by the use of “tenant” for “tenet,” and I find those people have a lot of overlap with the “for all intensive purposes” people.

  109. Kathleen Adams*

    Back when I was but a slip of a lass just getting started as a reporter, this controversy arose in the local school district about a bus driver disciplining a student who had reportedly misbehaved repeatedly on the bus. The kid was banned from the bus for X days (I can’t remember how long – a week or two, maybe), and his parents were very upset and came in to the newspaper office to complain about it. I can hear the mom now, even all these years later: “He said my son wasn’t being have” (pronounced so as to rhyme with “save” or “crave” – or “behave” :-)). “But he was being have. If he wasn’t being have, I’d be the first to admit it.”

    She just went on and on about “being have.” Even now, as a much more assertive person, I honestly can’t think of a way I could have corrected her without giving enormous offense.

      1. Kathleen Adams*

        I know, right? Fascinating. Maybe this would be a way to gently correct someone? Eh, probably not. :-)

        1. TheFormerAstronomer*

          I don’t know – I personally wouldn’t be able to do it without coming across as condescending, but anyone who is better with words than me could probably do it.

          1. Kathleen Adams*

            Well, I definitely couldn’t have done it then without sounding condescending – I was all of about 23. But I doubt if I could do it now, either. Let’s hope I don’t have to give it a try.

      2. Typhon Worker Bee*

        I used to listen to that podcast, but it got too annoying. They’d have one or two genuinely interesting questions buried among lots of people calling in to talk about a “unique” word from their family or region that was actually really common. Maybe I should give it another try though.

  110. Charliebug*

    I started my first professional job in the early 90’s when Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure had already been out a couple of years and people of my generation and younger were using the annoying slang that came from that movie. I worked with a very nice older lady who regularly used the word “bogus” to describe things she actually thought were “excellent” in an attempt, I assume, to be cool with the younger staff. As she was senior to me in both age and position, I didn’t have the heart or the guts to tell her she was doing cool wrong.

    1. Undine*

      “Bogus” definitely predates Bill & Ted — unless they use it differently.

      “but did you know that bogus has actually been a part of English since the early 1800s? Not only was the word coined then, it was actually doing some coining of its own, so to speak. Back then, a bogus was a machine used to make counterfeit coins. “

    2. CM*

      Speaking of Bill & Ted, this is not a work misspeak, but — around the age of 10, I was a giant fan of that movie. A friend and I were reenacting the scene where past B&T meet future B&T and past B&T challenge future B&T to guess the number they’re thinking of. My parents walk in as we both yell, “69, DUDES!” They were horrified and said we should never say that again. After a while of yelling at me, my mother eventually realized that I had no clue about the non-numerical meaning of 69 and left us alone. We immediately started investigating. It was so great on the playground the next day when I got to be the one spreading the news to all the other kids!

  111. Kate*

    In graduate school, I worked with a fellow student who used the word “moist” as a descriptor meaning “really cool or exciting”. For example:

    Me: “Hey, check out this simulation I ran. I think it will be great for our paper.”
    Him: “Ooh, that’s moist!”

    I believe fundamentally he understood it’s meaning, and being in grad school, we were a little bit more casual about using terminology that maybe isn’t work appropriate, but every time he said this in front my my late-50’s adviser, I just about died.

    1. Trig*

      Maybe he’d misheard people pronouncing “nice” “noice” and thought that was it?

      Or, y’know, he was trying to make ‘fetch’ happen.

  112. NewToThis*

    I used to email with someone who said “for granite” instead of for granted. It must have been deeply ingrained, because once corrected, it did not stay corrected for long and crept back into the emails. Cute, though!

  113. MCL*

    It’s not something I’ve ever mixed up intentionally, but let’s just say there’s only one way to horrifically misspell the word “public” in emails going out to colleagues.

    1. Kathleen Adams*

      It’s never happened to me, either, but I just know it will some day. I just know it. I am haunted by it. I will laugh at an inappropriate joke or something one too many times, and karma will get me for it.

      There are a few words that I’d like to yank out of the MSWord dictionary just so I won’t accidentally use them, and this is one of them. But I’ve asked at least a dozen techies of various skill levels how to do this, and while they are start out saying, “Oh that shouldn’t be too hard,” they have so far always discovered that actually, it is too hard, or at least that it’s very, very hard. So I am going to have to rely on careful proofreading…and good karma. Wish me luck!

      1. MCL*

        I definitely accidentally put someone’s title down as “Pubic Library Director” in a class list once. “Public” is so fraught with peril. Luckily he caught it before print and was nice about it, but boy was my face red.

      2. Nanc*

        You can set up an auto-correct rule in MS Word! (ask me how I know). Options -> Proofing and at the very top should be AutoCorrect (which drives me nuts as it should be Auto Correct but I’m guessing they don’t care!).

      3. cornflower blue*

        Nanc has a great suggestion, but I also keep a dictionary of homonyms that I CTRL + F for when finishing a document. Certain fields tend towards certain misspellings, so you learn the typical trends over time.

        For example, when I worked with a construction company, I started checking for “pope” because it was so easy to mistype “pipe”.

    2. This Daydreamer*

      I’ve heard of people removing pubic from Word’s dictionary. Maybe you can do that with your browser.

      1. Kathleen Adams*

        Really? I’ll corral a few tech-types and see if a solution has emerged since the last time I asked about this.

        I’d also like to remove “Indian” – nothing against American Indians, Indians, Indian food, Indian jewelry, etc., but I live in Indiana, and I don’t want to accidentally write about, e.g., the Indian Department of Transportation – and also “diary,” because I write about agriculture and I just know that one of these days, I’ll use “diary” in place of “dairy.” I don’t think I’ve ever made these mistakes myself, but plenty of other people have, so why not me? They are incredibly easy to make.

  114. Kix*

    I worked with a Brit years ago, and I’ll never forget the first time we were
    prepping for a presentation to the larger team. At the end of the day, he
    said, “So, I’ll knock you up around 9, then?” Uh, pardon?! Once we sorted
    out that what he planned was to stop by my office at 9 so we could walk to
    the presentation venue together, it was quite funny.

    1. Chocolate Teapot*

      In the days before everyone had clocks, knocker-uppers would go round a village/street and wake people up in order to start their work on the farm or shift at the mill. The knocker-upper would also unofficially, undertake tasks relating to the alternative meaning.

  115. Lies, damn lies and...*

    It took me a very long time to realize that “intents and purposes” was not “intensive purposes” – I was so confused why someone else was using it incorrectly until I realized I was the one doing it wrong.

    1. College Career Counselor*

      I had a student a couple of years ago (non-native English speaker) write in a classroom response excercise something to the effect that “the company was doomed from the gecko.”

      (Cut to me thinking about Godzilla rampaging through downtown Tokyo)

      I wrote him back saying that he probably meant “from the get-go” and “gecko is a small lizard–like the one you see selling insurance on television.”

      Honest mistake–he’d only ever heard it said, never seen it written (and was happy to know the difference).

  116. overcaffeinatedandqueer*

    Not a work thing. But when I was 15, my school got an Iraqi (yes, you read that right- she was Kurdish and thus lived in the more stable part of the country), exchange student. My friends and I taught her how to eat some new foods, play in snow, and play cards.

    We played “BS” a lot. She kept asking what it stood for! After a few refusals to say, she insisted. My friends and I quickly conferenced and decided what to do…

    So somewhere out there, if she’s even alive anymore, is a Kurd who thinks the card game is called “Beautiful Sunshine.”

    (I have been trying to Internet-sleuth to see if she’s alive; last I saw was a classlist at American University in Lebanon somewhere in 2008 or 9).

    1. Amber Rose*

      That’s why we have PG names for the games we play. Sure, among friends it was Asshole, but I taught my family President. And BS was Cheat.

    2. Rebecca in Dallas*

      I had friends who told me it meant “baloney sandwich” which kind of made sense to me at the time! I mean, people say, “Baloney!” if something is foolish. Anyway, I was a sheltered child.

      1. Jessica*

        We have a Digital Asset Management tool to manage images, logos and other graphical elements. Referring to the DAM tool never gets old.

      2. Rob aka Mediancat*

        I was startled the first time I saw in an official document at work that something had been delayed because of a “BS technical issue.” BS is the initials of a very important part of our company . . .

  117. Sara*

    My boss refers to her twins as the ‘twinks’ (short for twinkies I guess) and someone recently told her that it was a common slang word. She was mortified.

  118. Turtle Candle*

    An old coworker of mine used to mix up “exacerbate” and “exaggerate” all the time (in both directions). But the best was the time he apparently couldn’t figure out which he was going to say and “exasturbate” came out of his mouth.

    1. always in email jail*

      We say my father enjoys exaggerating so much that he’s “exaggerbating”… but that’s intentional ;) haha

    2. Anonicat*

      Exasturbate: when you are frustrated and relive your feelings by, um, taking matters into your own hands.

    3. Bow Ties Are Cool*

      I know several people who always use “exasperate” when they mean “exacerbate”.

  119. Seal*

    Years ago I was a member of a board of directors for a performing arts organization. One of the other members was an older woman who was not well-educated and resented those of us who were. When she disagreed with someone, she would loudly tell them that their point was mute (as opposed to moot). She was so widely reviled that no one felt the need to take her aside and correct her.

    In that same organization, one of the members kept referring to acne as “Acme”. She was know for her malapropisms, but that one always made us chuckle. Personally, I always wondered if that’s what Looney Tunes characters got when they went through puberty.

      1. ThursdaysGeek*

        I had a boss that did this too. I figured that since the point couldn’t talk, it didn’t matter anyway.

      2. StrangeFalconer*

        Weird falconry fact for you. Mute is the official word for raptor poop. I’ve been told that’s where the term ‘moot point’ came from.

        1. Bagpuss*

          No, moot related to a meeting / discussion (it’s Old English in original) and originally related to the meeting or assembly, and from that became the discussion or debate, giving the modern sense of a legal debate.
          I don’t know if you have them in the US but in UK university you have ‘Moots’ when law student can practice legal argument and debate.

          1. Typhon Worker Bee*

            Oh, as in Entmoot! Sweet! I love stuff like that.

            (My friend was recently involved in the world’s slowest hiring process. I referred to the hiring committee as the Entmoot, and we now use it to mean any interminable meeting).

  120. TJuerg*

    Best friend works for a prominent international company. Was on a conference call with diplomats from overseas talking about refugee resettlement (had translators on both ends) and foreign policy – so the entire meeting was transcripted. When they were wrapping up and confirming plans for the upcoming program, my friend, the US program director said “Yes, everything is DTF here” NOT REALIZING WHAT IT MEANT. She thought DTF was just a way to say ‘all good’ or ‘good to go’.

    She was confronted by confused looks as the translators had to say it, explain it and then explain what she actually meant. Not to mention the fact that there is an official government transcript on refugee foreign policy containing DTF on record.

    My poor bff was horrified and embarrassed. We laugh now…….but it took awhile.

      3. cornflower blue*

        Down to ****

        It’s lingo that started in the context of dating websites, for people looking for quick flings rather than serious relationships.

    3. Government Translator*

      And if that official government transcript on refugee foreign policy ever has to be translated, the poor translator is going to be knocking herself out trying to figure out what the speaker meant!

    4. Julia*

      Pet peeve of mine, but the people on call translating between languages were interpreters, not translators.

  121. So Very Anon*

    Company president walked into a meeting and said, “Can I join your circle jerk?” Thinking it was like…just a gathering of people? Somehow?

    3. Kathleen Adams*

      Yeah, I had a friend who told me once that the slang name for the guys who used to hang aimlessly around the town square in her hometown (which featured a traffic circle, so was it was sort of circular) was “circle jerks.” She mentioned this really casually, clearly thinking there was nothing…iffy about this term

      This is another case where I had to tell her, right? I mean, she couldn’t go around thinnking that the only questionable thing about this was “jerk,” right? She was aghast. But I think she was glad to know…eventually.

    4. Atlantic Toast Conference*

      Melissa Rauch told a hilarious story on Conan about her parents misusing that term… I highly encourage you to check it out on youtube :)

    5. smokey*

      I had a coworker do that! She walked up to a group of men who were standing around talking and said “what are y’all doing, having a circle jerk?”

  122. Fabulous*

    I once had a handful of coworkers who regularly used the word “borrow” to mean “lend”. Such as, “I borrowed my friend a pen.”

    There were so many more, but I can’t remember what else. This was a collections call center if you were curious. I also had to teach someone how to delete a page in Word. As in, hit the delete button until all the extra returns are gone and what you want is at the top of the page. They called me an Excel Guru because I knew basic functions. If only they could see me now with my vlookups and pivot tables!

    1. Anonish*

      I had a boss who did the reverse! We had clients who needed an item of equipment to interact with us, and he always said they had the option to “purchase or loan” it from us. Then that policy had to go out in writing and he asked me to proof it. He did not use my corrections and did not accept that we were loaning them the equipment they were borrowing. Ugh.

      1. NoMoreFirstTimeCommenter*

        Were these people native English speakers? Many languages don’t have this separation.

        1. Fabulous*

          YES! Presumably because of the area this job was located, they were just not well-educated.

        2. Gazebo Slayer*

          Many languages don’t distinguish between “lend” and “borrow”?! That sounds… horribly confusing, potentially in really expensive and legally fraught ways.

          1. Susan Calvin*

            Well, I can’t speak for all of them, but I imagine most resolve this by having grammatical structures for marking semantic roles (e.g. case suffixes/forms, preposition constructs, or fixed word order), so it’s just not ambiguous whether a person is the ‘source’ or the ‘target’.

          2. Kolya*

            It’s really not confusing. Compare with “steal”: We don’t have separate verbs for stealing from somebody vs. being stolen from. Nor for punching somebody vs. being on the receiving end of the punch. Borrow/lend is actually pretty weird in this respect.

        3. Anonymous Panda*

          It is a really common thing to hear in my city. In the UK. From people who have a local accent. ‘Can I lend your pen?’
          It drives me mad.

    2. anon designer*

      I know several Minnesotans who use “borrow” like that! It still grates on me, though. Also “spendy” for expensive.

      2. yasmara*

        Yes, I moved to MN in college and had NEVER heard “borrow me” before instead of “lend me”, but it is (was?) really common regionally.

    3. Menacia*

      This happens all the time on Judy Judy…”loaned, she loaned you the money, not she borrowed you the money…” *eye roll*

    4. Izacus*

      Oh that’s a common mistake for people that aren’t native english speakers. In my language (and several others I know) there’s only one word for both borrow and lend which then makes it a common mistake for people to use “borrow” everywhere :)

  123. FoodieNinja*

    A few years ago my office was temporarily without a director, so the exec over our area would stop in once a day to sign things and check if there were any emergent issues. One day I walked into the suite to see her signing paperwork while leaning on the recycling cabinet. I offered to find her an empty desk so she could sit down, and she replied “Oh, no, it’s fine, I was on my knees in [Male Coworker]’s office earlier today.”

    To this day, I pride myself on maintaining a neutral expression until I got back to my office.

  124. Tina*

    I have a coworker who constantly says “in turns of” instead of “in terms of.” But he doesn’t just use it instead of “in terms of,” he also uses it to start any sentence at any time in any conversation. At first it was hilarious. Then it got really annoying. Now it is back to being hilarious and uplifting.

  125. Demon Llama*

    If you are in France, do not try to translate the phrase, “I’m so excited about [insert perfectly usual professional endeavour here]” directly as “Je suis très excité [xxx]”…

    It does not mean what you think it means. I mean, it does if you remember that there is more than one way to be excited ifyoucatchmydrift…

    1. CAA*

      I think that’s a false cognate. It’s like if you say you’re embarazada in Spanish. It does not mean embarrassed!

      1. Demon Llama*

        HAH yes. It’s not exactly a false cognate, since the verb s’exciter does mean “to get excited”, but it’s got really different connotations in common parlance.

        (Also, embarazada reminds me of another common mistake – “je suis plein” does NOT mean “I am full [of food]”, no matter what Google Translate says. It means you are pregnant in quite a crude way…)

        1. Elemeno P.*

          I actually use a fun issue I had with a Spanish-English dictionary in high school to buy them from now on. One of my assignments was to translate a recipe, and one of the steps was to spread butter on the bottom of the pan. My dictionary said bottom was “culo.” My teacher cracked up and then informed me that it’s…technically “bottom hole.”

  126. Aphrodite*

    How embarrassing is it that I have never heard of these three words and have no idea what they mean. (I’m not looking them up either since I am at work.)

    1. ThursdaysGeek*

      Yeah, I should probably just read these comments at home, with google by my side. I don’t know a lot of these!

  127. It's all academic to me*

    I used to work with a woman who constantly wanted to “Nip that in he butt!”

    My current boss says “Ek cetra” . . . A. LOT . Oh – and to reference a previous (very misguided, IMO) post, she has a master’s degree…

      1. LawPancake*

        My wife as a child got “nip it in the bud” twisted into “nab it in the butt” I think it’s adorable.

    2. paul*

      I mean, I’m pretty sure biting something in the butt would make it stop. It’d probably make me stop.

    2. Deathstar*

      I did kind of make that pun in describing how i overthink situations into a corner: reference to one of Freud’s stages of missed/stunted developments.

      That said the way some data or marketing people massage the numbers, the pun is sometimes closert to the truth, i feel …

  129. Fabulous*

    Just remembered another one! Not a misunderstanding of a word’s definition, but just total misuse. This was my own mistake…

    I was writing an email to a former teacher of mine who was starting up a nonprofit that I wanted to get involved in – basically a cover letter – and I was composing it on my phone. Unbeknownst to me, my phone autocorrected the word “program” to “orgasm”!! Thankfully my teacher was a *drama* teacher and very understanding, but OMG the mortification when I read things back after I hit send!

  130. Mongoose*

    Old boss used “insider baseballing” to describe anything she could not understand or thought was suspicious. I think it was a combination between “inside baseball” and “insider trading”?
    Report that our data team sent over that added a new column of metrics without checking with us first? Insider Baseballing
    Long speech by our telemarketing team about disconnects? Insider Baseballing
    Internet Explorer? Insider Baseballing
    She yelled “You think you’re so smart trying to insider baseball me with this!” during my performance evaluation when I presented her with a document showing how the marketing campaign I had just lead on my own, start to finish, had lead to an 11% increase in dollars. She was also highly insecure and possibly did not understand graphs.

    1. kitryan*

      It’s a real expression-from how you describe the usage it seems it was being too broadly applied but it just means to discuss/discussing a topic in a super specific way that’s exclusionary to those who aren’t insiders.

        1. Leenie*

          I’ll answer a question 6 weeks later. The phrase is “inside baseball” and it generally refers to obscure knowledge that might bore others or at least be unfamiliar to them. So OP’s boss wasn’t using the correct phrase and was using it in a weirdly ominous way.

  131. overcaffeinatedandqueer*

    Not my work…but when I was maybe 14, I went to youth group each Wednesday. From 7-7:30, all of the kids (jr. high and HS) would pile into the church auditorium for a quasi-service. We would sing songs, have announcements about events, then one of the two leaders (one for each age level), would give a short sermon, relating it to issues teenagers have in their lives. Usually pretty tame, as we were liberal ELCA.

    One day, the HS leader is talking to us about stress and using the parable of the man who won’t take time to sharpen his axe and gets frustrated when he works slower due to that and has even less time to sharpen…

    She finished up by saying how you can help yourself spiritually, emotionally, and physically by “taking time to sharpen your a**!”

  132. nnn*

    After years of being understaffed, we’d finally hired a new support person. Unfortunately, we’d gotten in the habit of doing things for ourselves even when they weren’t strictly our job, so our manager was trying to encourage us send tasks to the new guy so we have more time to do our own duties.

    Unfortunately, what came out of her mouth was “He’s a tool. Use him.”

    2. Jessica*

      There was a Comcast radio ad narrated by a local personality a few months back, on the local irreverent rock station. It started out innocuously: “When you’re running a business, you need the tools that can help you do the job. And as your business grows, so does your need for bigger and better tools in order to serve your customers. When it comes to business, we can absolutely guarantee that Comcast is the biggest tool in the industry! Call Comcast today!”

      Brilliant.

  133. Jillociraptor*

    I know just, like, kind of a lot of middle aged White men in my workplace who refer to a big to-do as a “hoo-hah.”

    Guys, why.

    1. It's all academic to me*

      A funny twist on that…my former’s boyfriend’s mother – in her late 70’s – used “hoo-hah” as “Look at her! You can practically see her hoo-hah!” And my poor boyfriend – in his late 40’s – would say “What’s a hoo-hah?” Cracked me up. (!) Score one for the mama!

    3. CM*

      Ugh, a partner at my law firm would constantly use the term “open the kimono.” It wasn’t misused, but I find it super creepy and would cringe when he said it in front of a client. But I doubt our clients cared so I never said anything.

    4. LS*

      That’s pretty common where I’m from. In fact I don’t know any other way to use that term ;)

    5. TrixM*

      To be fair, “hoo ha” meaning “fuss” has been around way longer than the other meaning. As a non-American, I think the first time I came across the cruder version of the term was in the last 20 years, and I assumed the term was pretty much only used by lower-middle-class Southern women. Did it exist before the 80s?

      Of course, most of us manage to learn when a word acquires a new meaning, but maybe these guys are of such an age that they simply haven’t?

      1. Jillociraptor*

        I’d be way more concerned if they HAD heard the newer meaning and continued using the term! Like many of these examples, it’s totally unintentional, which makes it even funnier.

  134. Tris Prior*

    On a conference call, a co-worker, who’s not a native English speaker, meant to say that someone in another department was blowing her off. Instead she said, “He keeps blowing me.”

    At least it was an internal call without any clients?

    1. MommaTRex*

      In junior high, my friend kept saying “let’s blow this place” to mean “leave this place”. She was so innocent; I had to explain to her why all the boys were really hoping she meant it.

      1. Jessica*

        That’s a legitimate phrase. As in, “Let’s make like the wind and blow this place!” Or, “Time to blow this joint.”

  135. Saturnalia*

    OK this wasnt a wrong word usage situation, but a language related situation that resulted in a mortifying conversation nonetheless.

    In a meeting with an older, male coworker, he’s projecting his laptop and when he points out something in the top right corner of our website, my eyes were drawn to the last link in his browser shortcut bar. It was truncated to something like “young girls in porno…” And I spent the meeting awkwardly wondering what to say, should I say anything, he has daughters, he’s usually so vocally religious…

    I finally ended up saying “I’m sorry this is awkward but I want you to know one of your bookmarks is visible and you might not want it to be visible” and pointed it out.

    It was an anti-pornography activism site, the full article title was something very different from its truncated version, he went on at great length about “I would never, I am actively against it,” and I felt so awkward all I could think to say was mumbled “I’m not judging either way I just thought you’d want to know,” which of course only sparked more defensive stuff from him.

    SO AWKWARD. But we were in another meeting later that day and when he projected his screen the link was gone. Yay?

    1. Not So NewReader*

      When people over explain that telegraphs their own awkwardness. He was too busy feeling awkward himself to notice any of your awkwardness.

  136. Hey Anonny Nonny*

    Oh my goodness, once I was working at an electronics retailer that has since gone out of business, and one of my coworkers was complaining to me about her boyfriend, just going on and on about how dumb he was and how she wasn’t sure she could keep dating him. Then she said to me, “He’s the epiphany of a moron!” (when she must have meant epitome.) It took all my strength not to laugh. I didn’t have the heart to point it out to her.

  137. Foreign Octopus*

    I’ve had this recently but in Spanish.

    I kept hearing the phrase “el culpo es mio”, which means the fault is mine (or more loosely, not your fault), but I was hearing it and reproducing it as “el pulpo es mio”, which means the octopus is mine (hence my name here!). I thought it was strange that they’d say that but they use pulpo a lot in idioms so I thought it was just a strange idiom. I used it for a couple of weeks before my friend overheard me and, once she’d stopped laughing, corrected me.

    It has descended into a long running joke between us now. We both have t-shirts and keychains with octopuses on them.

    1. Amber Rose*

      One of my favorite authors is more or less fluent in Japanese, and once held a speech in which he confused ningen(human) with ninjin (carrot).

      In an article he said his friends have never let him live down the time he told a room full of people “we are all carrots!”

      1. Foreign Octopus*

        Then you’ll love their equivalent for fish out of water, which is como un pulpo en el garaje – like an octopus in a garage.

        It’s my favourite Spanish idiom :)

    3. mrs__peel*

      This reminds me of a story my grandfather told me, from when he was teaching in Japan.

      He was invited to a beach party one night, and got talking with another gentlemen. My grandfather wasn’t fully fluent in Japanese, and this fellow wasn’t in English, but they both spoke Spanish and were chatting happily in that.

      At one point, the gentlemen asked my grandfather if he wanted a “taco”, and he said yes. He was surprised to be presented with a grilled octopus tentacle slapped into a hot dog bun (“tako” in Japanese).

      1. AMPG*

        When I was interning in Geneva, my Swiss flatmate and I got another flatmate from South America who really only spoke Spanish. He and I generally spoke English to each other, but since we both spoke a reasonable amount of Italian, we would try to use that as a jumping-off point when we needed to talk to her (she wasn’t around much). At one point he was trying to tell her how to cook something, so he kept saying “con mucho mucho burro,” – the Italian word for butter. She was SO confused until I told him what he was saying.

    4. Not So NewReader*

      OT- a friend of mine had grown fond of talking about octopuses. She has mentioned a few times that they get bored and caretakers have to play with them. There must be videos of the creatures with their toys, I am guessing from what she is saying. I have to google that sometime.

    5. Ramona Flowers*

      I’ve probably remembered this too late for anyone else to see it but a friend did a study-abroad year in Italy and tried to use the phrase “in bocca al lupo” which translates as “into the mouth of the wolf” and basically means good luck.

      I don’t know the Italian words she accidentally used instead, but it apparently translated as “give the wolf a blow job”.

  138. Lisa*

    A few I’ve heard: “bonified” instead of “bona fide”; “Seminole” instead of “seminal”; “every since” instead of “ever since”.

    1. LabTech*

      That second one reminded me of the time I realized I had been pronouncing “semolina flour” as “salmonella flour.” Not used as much for baking.

  139. CAA*

    When I used to work for a company that had many Israeli employees located in the U.S, we always had language issues. I remember the one American colleague from the deep south who used expressions like “useless at tits on a boar hog” and “God willin’ and the crick don’t rise”. There was more than one meeting where she’d be on the phone from a remote location and say something that caused everyone in the room to give me a bewildered look and wait for me to translate whatever she’d said into English they could understand.

    I think my favorite one was that nobody knew the difference between the words message and massage, so we had a lot of unintentionally hilarious documentation and emails.

    1. Rebecca in Dallas*

      Haha, some idioms just really don’t translate well!

      I had a coworker for whom English was his third language. Once he told me that “When God closes a door, he opens like twenty more.”
      Me: “Do you mean he opens a window?”
      Coworker: *confused look* “No. Why would you want a window?”
      Me: “Good point.”

      1. Saturnalia*

        I prefer his version both for logical and rhyming reasons. Phrases like this are actually perceived as truer if they rhyme!!

    2. MissDisplaced*

      HaHa. The American South sure has some funny ones.

      I’m finer than frog hair split four ways.
      He thinks the sun comes up just to hear him crow.
      She’s got more nerve than Carter’s got Liver Pills.
      She’s as happy as a dead pig in the sunshine.
      That thing is all catawampus.
      He’s as drunk as Cooter Brown.

      1. Merci Dee*

        Oh, I grew up with some great ones. Was in my early 30s when my mom broke out a new one on me…. she and a friend had rented a cabin in the Appalachian mountains for a week while my dad and the friend’s husband hiked part of the trail. The cabin was about 15 or so miles away from town, and when they turned off the lights at night, it got =daaaark=. So mom pops out with, “it was darker than a he-haint out there.” I must’ve laughed a good 5 minutes, and then had to ask the difference between a he-haint and a she-haint. I assumed the saying was based on the old habit of calling a ghost a “haint”, but there may have been a different meaning I wasn’t aware of.

        1. This Daydreamer*

          That’s not just American South. I first heard it in The Lion in Winter. Such a wonderful movie!

    3. Drew*

      I had a college language class in which our English-from-England prof used the phrase “all the world and his wife” and was very perplexed by the room full of blank stares when he asked us to translate it into the other language. He stammered a bit and said, “you know, it’s like there are so many people there, it’s all the world and his wife–” and then I blurted out, “Oh, you mean everybody and his dog!” and it was his turn to look perplexed while all my classmates were nodding and smiling.

      So we threw out the lesson and spent the rest of the period that day on English-to-English translation. Best class ever.

  140. Amber Rose*

    Oh, I also remembered the time I accidentally slightly offended a coworker by saying I could make a new chart with GIMP.

    The Gnu Image Manipulation Program has an unfortunate acronym for work. :/

  141. CBT*

    Our company president created a new department named, uh, Chocolate Blended Teapots and the name was abbreviated to CBT. I have no idea if anyone has ever told him about the very NSFW-related CBT pratice.

    I do giggle when I hear about the new head of CBT, the upcoming CBT project meeting or conference, and how hard the CBT group is working.

          1. Susan Calvin*

            I do know a number of people with very, um, varied interests, which are reflected in their rss feeds/tumblr dashboards/LJ F-list, and this ambiguity is a problem more often than you’d think…

            1. kitryan*

              I definitely learned the NSFW meaning before the therapeutic one, though I don’t think that’s the usual order.

  142. EvilQueenRegina*

    My stepbrother was doing this fantasy football league thing once, and was playing on the name of the English team Nottingham Forest by entering as Nottingham Copse. Except he sent it in as Nottingham Corpse.

  143. bw*

    Project Manager here consistently used “physical” for “fiscal.” As in, “This physical year…”

    1. saf*

      I used to work in a federal office – Fedoffice Fiscal. The director of the office could did not know the difference between fiscal and physical.

  144. Menacia*

    I have a coworker who consistently says liberry, brefast and “explanation” mark. She speaks very fast so I feel some of the words just get run over… ;)

    1. Not So NewReader*

      I had a friend whose words ran into each other, she would not finish one word and she would launch the next word.
      Finally, I said, “Can you talk faster? I am falling asleep between your sentences.”
      She slowed down.

  145. LBAI*

    I was working on a large project, and during planning, we were required to put together a picture of success, which was abbreviated thereafter as PoS. And yes, the project was a total POS.

      1. Not So NewReader*

        I have always thought that POS was an appropriate name. We had friends in the biz and we heard the stories. What a hot mess.

  146. Rebecca in Dallas*

    At my old job, we used to refer to new employees as “newbies.” As in, “Have the newbie sit with Wakeen today so he can show her how to run the TPS report.” My manager sent me an email once and mentioned something about our “new bee.” I seriously laughed out loud, I guess he’d never seen the word written.

    I worked with a lady years ago who was telling me a story about how her son rescued a dog. She kept mentioning how “emancipated” the dog was when he first got it, but the dog had thankfully put on some weight. That poor emancipated dog!

    Oh and not a coworker but when my nephew was a baby, he would love to blow bubbles in water (like in the bath or pool) with his mouth. My mom was like, “He sure does love motorboating!” My sister and I almost died laughing but refused to tell her what that meant.

    1. Sparkly Librarian*

      When I was a tot, swim instructors used “motorboat” to describe that action when kids were learning how to hold their breath underwater. Makes me wonder if they still do…

      “Motorboat, motorboat, go so slow
      Motorboat, motorboat, go so fast
      Motorboat, motorboat, step on the gas!”

  147. Dweali*

    When I was still in restaurant work I had a manager who thought she made up the word “spluge” (she had some gunk on her shirt) and when she got fist bumped by one of our kitchen staff she complained “he fisted me too hard”…yes, my co-worker and I promptly (through laughter/tears at some points) explained to her to NOT use that phrase and that she definitely didn’t make up that word.

  148. Sarah from Long Island*

    Many moons ago, I worked as a receptionist in a real estate office. Part of my job was to write ads for the Sunday paper and other publications. My manager could tell I was a bit nervous about messing up the ads.

    To ease my worry, she told me that screw ups happen and that it isn’t the end of the world…. She then proceeded to tell me that when *she* first started in my position, her manager at the time asked her to run his open house ads for the following Sunday.

    It was her first time running an ad and so he dictated. She noted, checked it for errors and ran the ad. The following Sunday, the classifieds announced that 123 Timbuctwo Lane in Swaziland was having an open house from 1-3pm… And that they were serving Fresh Muffburgers. Because… FREE FOOD is sure to draw the masses
    !
    When the paper circulated the office, everyone cracked up laughing. She was subsequently & privately educated by the ladies and was immediately mortified at what she had done. She went on to become the manager, then took over the office as owner after years of hard earnings. Her sense of humor grew a lot too.

  149. MillersSpring*

    I worked at a job where I was leading the process to choose a new PR firm. One of the finalists had a guy who was obnoxious and rude. I knew he was a recent hire for that firm, so I went to their website to learn more about him. The site had a press release announcing his addition to the firm, that he surely would have written.

    On the press release, he mentioned his previous roles in”pubic relations.” Yikes.

    At another previous job, my boss caught a typo in a newsletter he received–instead of publication, it was described in a tiny footer as a “pubication.” My boss said that it sounded like something you’d do before going to a public pool. lol

  150. The Wall of Creativity*

    I have a friend who keeps promising me some B&L action but we only ever go to Burger & Lobster and then part ways.

  151. Construction Safety*

    1) moot/mute
    2) assure/ insure/ensure
    3) I was doing a technical training session with a coworker. He was giving some alternate uses for the chemical, one of which was cleaning/sterilizing cow udders before the milking machine was attached. He repeatedly/mortifyingly called the teats, “tits”.

    2. Drew*

      In some dialects, that’s the correct pronunciation for “teats.” But, yes, it’s a word to be avoided in most contexts – tough to do in that one, however.

  152. overcaffeinatedandqueer*

    I must give the workers at the bagel place I like to hit, a lot of laughs. Even when I try not to, half the time I order a “Sesame Street” bagel!

    Also, a librarian at my undergrad is allergic to preservatives. Goes to exchange in Chile. Tells host family, “No puedo comer…preservativos?”

    She had just said, right as they were sitting down to eat, “I cannot eat condoms.”

    Another time, I was at a party in Germany with my mom and her German colleagues (she taught and did a Fulbright). I am 16, barely legal drinking age there for some things. And being hospitable, people WILL NOT stop offering food! I am so stuffed I feel like the Monty Python “thin mint” sketch.

    Maybe it was all the food or the noise, because I was sober and did speak German well, but I blurted to the person trying to offer me more cake, loudly, “ICH BIN VOLL UND WILL NICHTS ESSEN! Nein danke!”

    The trouble is “voll” is a FALSE cognate with “full” in English. It means “drunk,” not “full (of food).”

    So I had just loudly announced, basically, “I AM DRUNK AND DO NOT WANT TO EAT ANYTHING! No thank you!”

    2. Demon Llama*

      OMG false cognates are the devil.

      On a related note (but definitely not a false cognate story)… Years ago, when learning Mandarin, my husband told his Chinese host family that their home-cooked food was really salty, because the difference between salty and tasty is basically a small change in inflection. I am always in awe of anyone who learns any tonal language…

    3. Myrin*

      Don’t fret too much, you can indeed use “voll” in that sense. I mean, simply “satt” is the usual way to say it and “voll” is much more commonly used meaning “drunk”, but it’s not unheard of (I myself say it pretty regularly, although “vollgefressen” is my usual state because I’m a shameless glutton).

      1. Julia*

        This. Maybe it’s because I spend more time with English than German these days, but your sentence did not strike me as weird at all. Then again, I’ve never been drunk…

  153. Not Australian*

    My sister as a young child was once heard to say “look at all those bollocks standing in the middle of the road”. She meant bollards. I think.

  154. The Wall of Creativity*

    Oh, same friend. Tested me once about some problem meaning to say she was praying for divine intervention. Instead she said she was praying for debone intervention.

  155. Western*

    I once had an older chief of staff lecture a group of interns (mostly, but not exclusively, female) about how it was unprofessional to wear thongs in the office. They all looked horrified that they were hearing about underwear from a supervisor until a coworker shouted out, “Flip flops!! He is talking about your shoes!”

      1. Demon Llama*

        Or if you start discussing a colleague who likes to wear colourful suspenders with your UK coworkers…

      3. mrs__peel*

        For me, the most difficult linguistic adjustment about moving from the US to the UK was remembering to say “trousers” instead of “pants”. I was okay with everything else.

        (In fact, I banished “pants” from my vocabulary altogether and couldn’t start saying it again even when I moved back to the US. It’s just gone now because I associate it with potential embarrassment!)

        1. Chameleon*

          There was a girl at one of my jobs talking about how she almost always wore skirts. She said “I just don’t like wearing pants unless I have to.” Our British coworker nearly had a heart attack.

  156. I_am_RADAR*

    One of the engineers in my office wrote a letter to go along with some drawings and structural calculations. Instead of using the word “shift,” he typed the word “shit.” Lucikly the project manager reviewed the letter before it was sent to the client!

    1. always in email jail*

      This happened in one of our documents. It stated that, in emergencies, “the director will determine the number and length of staff shits per day”

      1. SarahKay*

        One of my colleagues recently sent out an email with the subject line of “Information for shit staff”. The Recall function in Outlook is not as good as one would wish in those circumstances.

  157. paul*

    I’ve had to explain the phrases “that dog won’t hunt” and “month of Sundays” to people. I try to keep my idioms under control at work, but sometimes one slips out.

    A former boss put “oral skills” in a job ad; I managed to keep a straight face when I suggested replacing it with “verbal skills”.

    Erh, these seem pretty tame compared to some others.

    1. Susan Calvin*

      Gotta admit, I’ll have to google these two – kudos for being the first one to stump me in this thread I guess!

  158. Amber Rose*

    OK, last one and then I’ll stop. In my last year of university, they built us a new fitness building with a high end gym and stuff and held a contest to name it. The winner was Witness the Fitness.

    About half the school was outraged, while the rest of us were kind of looking forward to having class in the WTF building. The acronyms for buildings were always added to room numbers in schedules too, so the old Physical Education building had classrooms PE101, PE102, etc.

    I really, really wanted to have class in WTF102.

    And they couldn’t just use W because that was already in use for the Water building.

  159. Edith*

    I sent my mom a photo of me and my college friends pregaming, and she sent it around to friends and family captioned as “Edith and friends get ready to go to the football game.”

  160. NewSchoolLibrarian*

    I once had a supervisor who had the hardest time pronouncing the word “alphabetize”. We worked in the court system and we always had folders we needed to arrange in alphabetical order. Anytime she wanted us to do so, she would say, “I need you to advertise these files.” I’m like…what are we selling? That would have been a helluva lawsuit.

  161. A Bag of Jedi Mind Tricks*

    I had a co-worker who, when wanting to tell us how good she was at remembering things, told us that she had a Photogenic Memory.

  162. minisnowder*

    I had one. I interviewed for a job and was trying to describe myself as a high energy person who really likes to be busy. I called myself a busybody. I gave my mom a recap and she told me the actual meaning. I was mortified but still managed a job offer.

    2. CM*

      Ugh, I said I was a “know-it-all” in an interview when I meant that I like to be an expert on certain topics. It just slipped out. Live and learn.

  163. You're Not My Supervisor*

    I knew someone who would mean to say “self-deprecating” but instead said “self-defecating”… The first time I wasn’t sure I heard him right, so I let it go… the second time I burst out laughing and said “I don’t think you meant that they are crapping themselves…”

  164. LCD*

    My sister talks like a 1950s BBC newsreader and is fond the word ‘shower’, a mild colloquialism meaning a disorganised or morally suspect person. She is also bilingual in French and oblivious to entendres, which goes some way towards explaining why she thought that ‘douchebag’ was an appropriate equivalent. Her liberal use of ‘douchebag’ in professional settings was only put to a stop after she delivered a paper peppered with it at a rather serious conference.

    1. mrs__peel*

      I have a friend from Ethiopia (who also speaks French) who also assumed that “douchebag” was completely inoffensive and okay to call people at work. To her, it just meant a shower bag, so it couldn’t be THAT bad.

  165. Imaginary Number*

    I had a commander in the Army who always mixed up “courtesy” with “curiosity”. She would say things like “Please send me a curiosity email when the convoy arrives.”

  166. khoots*

    We were on the topic of a DJ for an upcoming event, and my colleague said, “Well does he have a fluffer?” ” I want someone who is really good at fluffing you know?” The worst part was another colleague also not knowing the term, piped in to let everyone know “a really good fluffer” was always important.

    We had to tell them afterwards that the term they were looking for was hype man, and the word “fluffer” actually meant a person employed to keep a male adult film star erect on the set. She was completely mortified.

  167. MillersSpring*

    During her banking career, my mom once left work briefly to get her hair washed and styled. To assure her team that she wouldn’t be gone very long, she announced loudly that she was only going for a “quickie blowjob.” She was later mortified.

  168. FJ*

    My global company started its branding efforts in North America.
    As we expanded to other companies, one of our key brand prefix names translated to “the butt hole” in another language in an important country. Had to re-phrase lots of brand names and marketing materials.

    3. mrs__peel*

      Reminds me of the infamous marketing fiasco of trying to sell the “Chevy Nova” in Spanish-speaking countries (“doesn’t go”).

      1. Sylvia*

        This is cracking me up.

        At an old job, we published something in English that included a Spanish phrase containing the word “año,” “year.”

        Yeah, whoever wrote it missed the mark and wrote “ano.” “Anus.”

  169. I am not a lawyer but,*

    As the only native English in a room filled with a few other languages, it took me a few seconds to realize that key executives were ready to come to blows over someone saying the others staff had bad morals … when he meant bad morale that he wanted to help correct. Thankfully the one who misspoke was aghast at his error and his apology was accepted. It almost tanked a $25 million deal.

  170. HPW*

    During my second week of training at my job, and I was the only woman in a computer lab with 11 men plus a male instructor. The guy sitting next to me wasn’t paying attention and was surfing the internet on the company computer. At one point he had up what looked like a Far Side comic, where a doctor is high-fiving a man in a hospital bed behind his back, while telling the wife, “I’m prescribing your husband with fellatio twice a day,” or something like that. So this guy sitting next to me opened a new tab, completely innocently, and started to type “What does fellatio mean?” into Google… I stopped him, but I had to tell him what it meant so he would get why he shouldn’t Google that on the company computer.

  171. Undine*

    I worked for a company that would put an “S/” to denote a secure product. So think S/Mail doe secure mail, or S/Phone for secure phone. (Not real names.) The only actually name I remember is for the secure Pay product: S/Pay.

  172. Phy*

    I misheard and incorrectly repeated many times to my mortification “clothes horse” as “clothes whore”

  173. always in email jail*

    We had to all do Disc personality profiles and discuss as a group. My direct supervisor was found to be very passive (which we all knew), and our director was dominant (expressed through a D). He told her “See ____? We need to get some more D in you!” in a totally innocent fashion (he meant dominant traits). It was… mortifying.

    1. Elemeno P.*

      Everyone in my Disc class was about the same maturity level as me, so we all laughed about someone being a “huge D all the time.”

  174. Fake old Converse shoes*

    As a ESL speaker, I was very surprised when a teacher at school told us that what you people call “the n word” is extremely offensive, while for us is the opposite. She found out while in a internship in Washington DC, and it almost costed her job before someone pointed out the cultural difference.

    1. Marisol*

      very curious to know what country/culture does not find that word offensive! I once had a conversation with a French guy about the movie “Twelve Years a Slave” and he said that word a few times as he described his impressions of the film, so I explained that it was offensive here in the US. At the time I thought he was repeating what he heard in the film and unaware that he had violated a taboo, but it’s also possible that he knew it was a slur and just didn’t care.

    2. Hey Anonny Nonny*

      Are you referring to the word “Negro” or the other N-word? I’ve never heard of the other N-word having a good connotation in another language, so I’m curious.

      1. Marisol*

        Ah, maybe Fake old Converse shoes was referring to the word “negro.” That makes more sense. Although I don’t think Americans euphemize that word? As far as I know, it could be disrespectful depending on context, but I wouldn’t call it “extremely offensive.” But what do I know.

        2. nonegiven*

          Negro was, a long time ago, preferred to ‘colored.’ The American Negro College Fund was probably named during that time, 1944. Then later on Black was preferred by some, and then African American by others, and now the more inclusive people of color added to that. I think African American is more popular now, when you are talking about someone of African heritage born in the US, but like with most things, not by everyone.

          The n word is not Negro. It is probably the most offensive and inflammatory racial slur in the US today and I seriously doubt it would get by Alison’s filter if someone had the gall to use it.

    3. CM*

      Many Americans also find “you people” offensive (it’s often used to denote contempt of a certain group of people, like, “You people don’t understand common decency”), while my Indian family members use it in normal speech to mean “all of you, as a group of people.”

      1. nonegiven*

        I remember when Ross Perot got in trouble for that, saying you people. He’s from down here, so I think he was tripping over y’all or all y’all and changed it to you people, instead. He would’ve been better off with y’all.

    4. Fake old Converse shoes*

      Wait, there is more than one “n word”? Well, I’ve just learned something new.

      1. Sylvia*

        “Negro” isn’t a slur but is, in the US, socially unacceptable. I’m not sure if it’s seen differently in other English-speaking countries where it has different history.

        “The N word” describes a racial slur, also used against black people, that has one more letter.

      2. Hey Anonny Nonny*

        Usually when someone says “the n-word” they’re referring to the one that rhymes with Tigger, but I was so perplexed that THAT word might be okay to say in another country/culture that I thought perhaps your comment, fake old converse shoes, might be referring to the word Negro, which in the U.S. is considered offensive but doesn’t rise quite to the level of rhymes-with-Tigger. So, which word did you mean originally??

  175. MashaKasha*

    I have two. First one is mine from two decades ago. A coworker and I both had preschool-age sons. We were chatting about our kids, and he was complaining that his three-year-old was not giving him and his wife a minute of peace. When I said, “oh, my 4-yo is so quiet. He’ll just sit in a corner for hours and play with himself”. I figured from my coworker’s changed expression that I’d said something wrong, but didn’t find out what exactly until later.

    Second one is not mine. I was staying late at work and so overheard a conversation in Big Boss’s office between Big Boss and an upcoming ambitious supervisor. Upcoming Supervisor was complaining about someone, and finished with “and I am NOT going to be on top of him this time like I have been all those other times!” OK, whatever you prefer, dude.

  176. drewby*

    A couple years ago, my team lead asked those of us in the office, “Does anyone have any Lysol wipes? I got a lot ‘schmegma’ on my keyboard.” We all went silent then suddenly burst out in laughter. When she wanted to know what was so funny, the woman behind me said, “You…might want to look that word up on Urban Dictionary. And not on the company’s network.” My team lead picks up her cell phone, starts typing, pauses while reading, and replies with, “Oh f*ck me, I use that word all the time!”

    For the uninitiated: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=schmegma

    1. MommaTRex*

      You can even look that up in a regular dictionary (but without the “ch”). It’s a real word that has the same meaning in both a regular dictionary and the urban dictionary.

  177. TheRealMcGaughey*

    I have a couple of good-humored bosses who call each other A Dawg and P Dawg, (or sometimes A Dawg is Crowdawg, which is an abbreviation of A’s surname.) One day about a month ago, P Dawg decided to change A Dawg’s nickname to Fluffer! He expressed this by hollering from his desk, considering their offices are next to each other, and it was loud enough I bet half the office heard. I burst out of my cubicle with a deer-in-the-headlights face, and started to explain as delicately as I could, but I was cut off… Would you believe it- P knew the slang meaning and meant to humorously demean A Dawg!

    So I guess this isn’t getting the meaning wrong, it’s just a boss using language that is unquestionably NSFW in this context, but it was too funny and I had to share. :)

  178. Owl*

    I’m a civil engineer, and on our site plans we often have to call out a silt fence. This one drafter, without fail, always labeled it as “SLIT FENCE” on the first draft. All the time! (He was a terrible speller and always seemed embarrassed when I called him out on it, so I’m confident he wasn’t doing it on purpose.)

    I once had a boss who started to use the phrase “begs the question” all the time. Now, there’s a subtle difference between “begs the question” and “raises the question” so it was only slightly annoying at first, but he overused the phrase so much that he started saying “the question I’m begging is . . . ” and that was just too much. Drove me bonkers.

    Another boss, in writing review letters, would write “we are acceptable to the changes” instead of “we are amenable” or “we find the changes acceptable.” I wrote so many dang letters for this guy and had to write that phrase SO many times that I started to forget it was wrong. It sounds right to me now, I have to consciously tell myself that it’s incorrect (and unacceptable!)

    1. Emi.*

      Argh, “beg the question” drives me crazy. It’s not even a subtle difference! They mean completely different things! My father once had to grade a paper that claimed a question had been left unanswered by saying “The question is left begging.”

      1. Owl*

        Maybe less “subtle” and more that I can never remember how to use it correctly, I have to look it up all the time! So I avoid using it.

      2. Marisol*

        It’s totally not a subtle difference. “Begging the question” is a form of circular reasoning. Most people mean “raise the question” when they misuse that phrase (you know this but I am saying it explicitly here in case there are readers who don’t know.) I have lately started seeing this misuse in movies and other media and it is so disheartening to me. People, please stop propagating this misuse!!!!

    2. Owl*

      Oh man, I just remembered another one: I worked with an engineer who must have been in his early seventies at the time. When we had to add notes to a plan to explain something, he’d say “just put some motherhood words on there.” We had NO IDEA what the eff he was talking about, but apparently there’s an expression “motherhood and apple pie” which means something that everybody agrees upon. I don’t recall ever hearing this expression except from this one dude. And just like my “begs the question” boss, he used the same phrasing so often that it ended up being totally divorced from its original meaning — he never finished the phrase by saying anything about apple pie. “Motherhood words,” I mean really.

      1. Quasimodo*

        Completely normal where I work to talk about “motherhood statements”. My work is in policy. I’m always trying to make my way past the motherhood statements about how much we support good things and try to find actionable goals – the stuff which might actually make things better.

  179. Clinical Social Worker*

    Coworker was sort of trying to control me as if she were a manager. She was telling me what to do via email and also wrote that it should be done “toot sweet.”

        1. Not Australian*

          I had a boss who thought she understood the word ‘anomaly’ and dictated a letter to a customer describing ‘a little nomaly’ that had been causing problems.

          These people wouldn’t let me correct any of the typoes in their publicity material because ‘they liked it that way’. They went bust a few months after I left.

        2. Chaordic One*

          There are several different recipes for “Feta Compli” on the internet. Most of them sound delicious. You should google it.

  180. Tapestry*

    We had someone in our institution named Hunt. His last name began with a C. You can do the math for what embarrassing thing came out of my manager’s mouth one day when she was flustered and needed his help!

    1. Marzipan*

      This has happened on more than one occasion when broadcast journalists are referencing the British politician Jeremy Hunt…

    2. Marillenbaum*

      When I was in college, my political theory class was assigned presentations. Instead of saying “Ryan and Kellsi will do Hegel”, our professor said “Ryan and Kellsi will do Kegels” and we all died of laughter–except for Ryan, the lone dude in the class who had no idea what we meant.

  181. EddieSherbert*

    Worked as a student employee in the Advising Center in college…. so a lot of professors would meet the students they advised in the common area by me for meetings about schedules/classes/internships/jobs.

    And one of the education professors thought a derogatory word for Hispanic people was slang for “children.” And a couple of us (student workers overhearing conversations) DID approach her about it – she didn’t believe us (because she has a PhD and X years of experience in education, so she’d know by now if that was the case).

    …the most horrifying conversation I ever overheard was her intro with a first-year Hispanic student where she started with “So, Person, you’re going to go teach all the little XXXX?”

    1. Marisol*

      Please tell me there were consequences for that professor. It’s one thing to make an innocent mistake, it’s another to arrogantly double down on the mistake.

      1. EddieSherbert*

        Shortly after I left, she actually become the head of the Advising Center.

        And curiosity led me to check just now… and she’s still running the place.

        1. EddieSherbert*

          *became

          (Sidenote: I always hoped that poor student reported her or told her parents what happened, or SOMETHING, but I guess she didn’t since nothing happened to the Prof)

  182. WellRed*

    In an intro to English lit class, there was one student who, during every discussion would use the word ironic. It was like the only literary term she knew. Finally, one day, another student spoke up when she once again misused it and said, “I think it’s ironic that you don’t know what ironic means.”

    1. Typhon Worker Bee*

      Before he met me, my (Canadian) husband met some British women on holiday who were complaining about how Americans and Canadians don’t know what irony means. He said “you’re right, I have no idea what that means” and they replied “sarcasm”. So he told them, “no, sarcasm is me telling you that I don’t know what irony means. Irony is you patronisingly telling me that irony means sarcasm”.

  183. BottleBlonde*

    Ha, I love this topic! I used to co-run a volunteer organization in college – we would provide onsite afterschool care and tutoring in housing projects in the city. At one memorable organizational meeting, one of my volunteers told the site coordinators that she felt it was very important for children to “decompose.” After a series of nervous looks traded around the table, I asked her what she meant, and she explained that after kids got home from sitting at their desks all day, she thought they should have at least a half hour to “decompose” and just be kids before starting their homework.

    She meant decompress. But we were all nervous for a minute there.

    1. Anon today...and tomorrow*

      This reminded me of the Rowan Atkinson sketch with the headmaster talking to the father about the dead student. I literally just watched it last night.

      1. Anonicat*

        I love the one where he’s doing roll-call and announcements. “If you fall asleep, Ontop, I shall be very angry!”

  184. Grey*

    I’ll never forget the Pistons game in which our commentator unintentionally kept calling Tony Massenburg “Tony Massengill”.

  185. DCGirl*

    Eons ago, when I was in college, I had a part-time job at a bank that decided to launch a new advertising campaign with the tag line, “Let us show you how good a bank can be.” So far, so good. But then they decided to make the tellers (who were almost all women” wear salad-plate size buttons that said, “Let me show you how good I can be.” You can imagine how much fun some of the male customers had with that.

    1. Not So NewReader*

      In a similar idea, a retail job had us wear hats with logos of various sports teams. We had to wear them. I wear size XL which really narrowed my options when I went to pick out a hat. I am not a sports person, so I picked a hat that looked nicely made. (I was impressed with the machine embroidery, other hats looked kind of junky.)

      The number of customers that told me I was a stupid fn b for wearing that team’s logo was astounding. I told each one of them, “I am not a sports person, so I have no idea about this team. The company said we have to wear these hats. You can file a complaint with the company if you wish.” Since I used a bored, flat voice, the angry person would soon give up. After this happened a few times, I went to the boss and said, “I am not being paid enough to be called a stupid fn b and I will not be wearing this hat anymore.” To his credit, the boss’ face just sank and he said. “Don’t bother with the hat.”

  186. Beez*

    A coworker sent an email letting us know she wasn’t feeling well and was going to “take a dick day” :D :D

    3. TheTallestOneEver*

      Right before daylight savings time, our director sent an email to our entire department to remind us to turn our cocks back. LOL!

  187. Anlyn*

    This isn’t really “very wrong”, but I once listened to a 25 minute debate on whether the word they wanted was “effect” or “affect”. I don’t remember the context or what they settled on, but it was very amusing.

  188. HannahS*

    It’s not a funny story, but I did stop my undergrad supervisor (a prof) and the MA student I was working under from using the word “gypped.”* The first time I heard it I just blurted out, “Oh no, no, we don’t use that word, no, that’s a bad word.” (Also I get a super Canadian accent when surprised, so it came out as “Ooh nooh, nooh…) I explained, they were properly mortified, and hopefully we can all expunge racist terms from our vocab.

    *”Gypped” is short for “Gypsy” so using it to mean “cheated” is PRETTY FLIPPING AWFUL.

    1. Kiki*

      A friend pointed this out to me a few years ago and I was so embarrassed. I had never seen it spelled out and assumed it started with a “j”, so I never made the connection and just thought it was a slang term.

      1. Anon today...and tomorrow*

        My mother has recently taken to using the word Jew as in “that guy jewed me down on the price”. It’s HORRIFYING! I am constantly yelling at her that this is a racist expression. She also uses “oriental” to describe anybody with an Asian look.

        1. Kiki*

          Oh nooooo. I’m glad you’re calling her out on it. My grandmother tends to use older terms and turns-of-phrase that are no longer acceptable to use and the family members of my generation will immediately call her out and give her the correct term. Some things take longer than others to get through to her, but she’s learning.

        2. HannahS*

          Yeah, someone did that to my (Jewish) aunt. Like, how do people not realize that using an ethnic group as an adjective is RACIST?

          1. Iris Eyes*

            Since we are going on about terms and misuse of words. Race has to do with physical characteristics, ethnicity has to do with culture. Jewish is an interesting amalgamation of the two because it is a religion but also an ethnic group that doesn’t entirely overlap. So no, not racist actually that doesn’t make it okay of course.

            1. fposte*

              That’s a specifically American take on the word, though; the world is not obliged to abide by our differentiation.

            2. HannahS*

              Ah, in the Jewish community we call this goy-splaining. I can assure you that in much of the world Jews and Roma are–and always have been–considered individual races, and I’d advise you not to lay American constructions of race and ethnicity upon everyone. It’s a form of colonialism, frankly, and it’s also rude.

          2. Girl friday*

            Slurs, I fear, should be in a different post. People do them tacitly, and seem to get a passive aggressive thrill out of them. Some without realizing, but there are such things as Freudian slips. It really should be noted though, because it could be early dementia or some kind of undermining type personality that could show up otherwise in the workplace. 95% of these post today are really funny.

        3. Em*

          My well-meaning Southern grandmother used that expression at Christmas breakfast while I sat next to my Jewish boyfriend and I and the rest of the family were HORRIFIED. I really don’t think she realized how offensive it was, she had a very sheltered upbringing. But still, argghhghg

      2. Rebecca in Dallas*

        Yeah, for some reason I thought it was “jipped” as well. Sadly, I also only learned what it really meant a few years ago. I felt awful!

    2. Isobel*

      A “gyppy tummy” in Britain derives from Egypt (quite a common place to get an upset stomach). Also you might hear someone say “my knee’s giving me gyp”. It’s not derived from “gypsy” and not, as far as I’m aware, considered offensive.
      Although I do appreciate that sometimes one should avoid a word if other people think it has an offensive etymology, even if actually it doesn’t…

      2. HannahS*

        Using “gypped” to mean “cheated” DOES come from “Gypsy “(which as fposte points out, also comes from “Egyptian”) so it is more certainly offensive. Also, don’t you find it offensive anyway, to describe a sick feeling as being from a certain country? I certainly do. It’s like if Egyptians started saying “Why Fatima, you’re looking rather ‘merican” where “‘merican” means “fat.” Still not a nice way of talking.

    3. Rob aka Mediancat*

      Yeah, I stopped using it about 25 years ago (along with “welch,” which is a slam at the Welsh) when someone pointed out that I’d used it in a writing class (and not in a context where it might be excusable, such as writing a racist character).

  189. Canadian Natasha*

    So the RCMP (national police force in Canada) decided to reorganize some of their specialized units into one larger unit a couple years ago. They called the new group Federal Organized Crime Unit: FOCU. (FOC-U) Let’s just say the name was quite quickly changed.

    I’ve also heard prostitutors for prosecutors and (as someone else already mentioned) notary republic for notary public.

    Not a work example, but I once saw a sign in an apartment where people were using the guest parking spaces as their own extra parking spot. The building managers put up a sign threatening that: “Guest parking spots are for guests only. Residence will be towed” (I’d like to see them try…)

    1. Anlyn*

      I’m starting to see a tendency in my company to use f/u to mean “follow up”. I’m sure I’m not the only one who does a double-take each time I see it.

    2. Bagpuss*

      In the UK courts can make Community Rehabilitation And Punishment orders. (or could. They may have renamed them now)

  190. Business Cat*

    Once I had a client at the cafe checkout who said “I’m really into British people and things…I think I’m what you’d call a…British Homophobe!” I want to say that I was magnanimous enough to let her know that “Anglophile” was the word she was searching for, but I honestly don’t remember.

    A friend of mine has run into these mispronunciations enough in her workplace to have a soapbox dedicated to them:
    Elegant = Ele-gent (pronounced like “gent”lemen)
    Lackadaisical = Laxadaisical
    Specific = Pacific

    1. HireThisLady*

      I was being taught how to clean up the video store I used to work for and the whole time my trainer kept telling me how “immaculant” everything had to look. She said it about 10 times a day.

  191. HireThisLady*

    I worked in an office where we had to write up work summaries and “assessing the situation” was often written as “accessing the situation.” Almost exclusively.

  192. Shrunken Hippo*

    Not a misuse, but still funny. A place I worked had bags of discounted product that was fine but didn’t look quite right. They sold them as “shag ups”. Countless British tourists lost it when they saw those.
    The store also had sayings on some product, one of the sayings was “Arse on that”. Have fun explaining what that means multiple times a day!

    1. Miriam Collins*

      The faculty leader on our London study abroad program had a friend visiting from North Carolina. Ellen asked the friend if she’d been doing anything interesting back home and the friend told her, in a full subway car, that she and her husband had been taking shag lessons.

  193. overcaffeinatedandqueer*

    Last one:

    My HS taught AP Bio and a science elective called “biology of genetics.” I take it because it seems interesting, and the teacher is so smart; one class or two from his Ph.D.

    So one day he is lecturing on genetic conditions that alter where DNA strands are separated from each other, messing up tons of genes. Remember, smart guy. To demonstrate how it works with DNA “letters” he writes the sentence “I was standing in the hall,” and then splits it into “Iwa sst and” and so on. Normal genes. To demonstrate the wrong gene splits, he then rewrites, and separates into “Iw a** tan din” etc. Bunch of 15-18 year olds can’t stop laughing.

    He looked up, counted, realized his mistake, and said quite cheerfully, “well, I guess my a** was tan din!”

  194. princess direly*

    It’s now accepted usage, but I had a leader who insisted we AmeriCorps people were here to “service” the community. We were neither hookers nor car mechanics.

    1. on ne doit pas servir*

      Oh yes, I’ve been explaining to Francophone colleagues that we most definitely must not “service” clients for years. It’s clearly a language nuance that’s hard to remember and/or doesn’t translate.

  195. Ellie*

    Oooh, I have one! I used to work in HR, and one of my coworkers was a very sweet, very religious individual. We were having a conversation in the hallway with another couple of coworkers and she stated that, “I really blew my wad!” meaning she had blown through a bunch of work. I’m ashamed to say I never said anything to her about the common meaning of that phrase – no one did. Thankfully, I never heard her say it again!

    1. JustaTech*

      A professor at my college used that phrase (innocently) in a lecture meaning “you’ve said everything you know”. The whole lecture hall laughed at him and he ended up sending an email to the whole school apologizing and explaining he didn’t know it could mean other things!

  196. Anlyn*

    I work in Information Security, and depending on the system we will automatically generate IDs with a name-based format. They ranged from four to eight characters, using letters from all three names (if they had a middle).

    One generated ID that came back was shithead. We promptly contacted support to change it.

    We also had one that was apparently a curseword in Dutch, but that was years ago and I don’t think it was allowed to be changed.

  197. Namelesscommentator*

    I worked with a grade school teacher who told his entire class he spent the long weekend Netflix and chilling.

  198. A Bag of Jedi Mind Tricks*

    Another funny one was at oldjob. We did a lot of filing investment info so the files were by last name. One coworker came into our office and loudly asked one of the guys if he had a “Johnson”. LOL

  199. Typhon Worker Bee*

    My former boss used to abbreviate “projector” to “project”. Almost gave me a heart attack the first time he emailed me, half an hour before some very important collaborators and funders were visiting for an all-day meeting, to say “Cath, please make sure the project is ready by 9”. I thought he was expecting me to give a presentation I knew nothing about, and was almost in tears until I realised what he meant, about 10 minutes later!

    In my current job I run a couple of research consortium Twitter accounts, and often get emails asking me to “put this on the Tweeter”, “can you twit this”, and other variations.

  200. Jersey's mom*

    My family watches a lot of hockey. My Mom often wants to do a little channel suring between periods. So she is constantly asking “when is the gazebo coming out onto the ice”. We’ve told her “it”s a zamboni mom!” for a couple decades now, she still calls it a gazebo.

  201. NotMyRealName*

    Once our receptionist was apologizing for giving me short notice that I needed to cover for her. She was sorry to “incontinent” me.

  202. Ms. Minn*

    Oh, this is one of my favorite work stories EVER!
    When I was a receptionist at a retail company, part of my job was to escort vendors to conference rooms. One day a vendor asked me if he could go in early, to which I said the room was occupied. He then asked me (clearly struggling to find the right word) if one of the *CONCUBINES* was available!! He meant an enclave – small rooms with a phone that we had on the floor that didn’t require booking. I replied that they weren’t available either, somehow managing to keep from busting a gut! I then walked-ran back to my boss’s desk to share and laugh hysterically.
    What a word to get wrong!

  203. Emi.*

    I am right now watching a training video in which the instructor says we should expect to see a certain scientific result, but “we just can’t ever mention it. Uh, we can’t measure it, because it’s just lost in the noise.” Oops, he just blew the lid on the Great Geology Coverup.

  204. Night Cheese*

    I used to work in radio in a small city. We had a lot of local clients, so there were lots of ads produced in-house. One day I noticed our production guy and the receptionist in the production studio, beet red and shaking. They quickly beckoned me in.
    One of the sales people, who was really a writer and just doing this to support herself, had a new client specializing in gourmet grab and go foods. She created two scripts for the spots: one was about how as an adult you had to pack your own lunch and didn’t it make you miss the days when you were a kid and mom packed your lunch. The other was about how difficult is was to eat healthy and what a pain it was to prepare all those greens and veggies.

    The spot titles, in big letters on the production request form, were “tossed salad” and “your mom.”

  205. GeorgiaB*

    My grandboss consistently pronounces fiscal as physical. I’ve worked with him for over 7 years, never heard him pronounce it correctly, and still cringe a little every time he talks about the “physical year”.

  206. Em*

    Not mine, but someone wrote into a podcast I listen to that their boss had taken to saying they were ready to “bust a nut” when they meant they were upset or annoyed about something. They wrote in to ask how or if they should tell them what it actually meant.

  208. Dankar*

    The person in my position before me has left me some resources and handover guides. It’s a minor thing, but every single document she left is titled “For Predecessor.”

    It drives me absolutely batty, and it took me a few days to figure out that, in her mind, I was the “predecessor” rather than her.

  209. Namelesscommentator*

    I also received in email once confirming a job candidate had been fingered for work in public schools by the local department of ed.

  210. Takver*

    Want of my pet peeves is when someone says “physical” instead of fiscal. Puts my shoulders around my ears immediately.

    Another is “mute’ instead of “moot”. I guess a mute point is one that goes without saying.

    1. It's all academic to me*

      I heard someone use “physical” for “fiscal” very recently. . . A higher ed administrator, talking about budgets . . . He used it many times, so wasn’t a slip of the tongue. Crazy.
      He should have been mooted. Hahaha

    2. LadyKelvin*

      “If he doesn’t like you its a moo point.”
      “Yeah, it’s like a cow’s opinion. It just doesn’t matter. It’s moo.”

  211. RPL*

    CEO apparently didn’t know the history of “drinking the kool-aid” and thought it was a positive term. So every time the company was praised by a client or whatnot, he’d say proudly that they “drank our kool-aid.” One of my coworkers was very, very offended by this and finally had enough, emailed his admin and asked her to respectfully say something to him, and just like that we never heard about anyone drinking the company’s kool-aid again.

    1. yasmara*

      I probably didn’t really know where that came from until I watched a documentary about it.

  212. LadyJane*

    I have a coworker who really likes to use the phrase “delve deeply” and does so often, but always pronounces it “dwelve deeply.” Yet she spells it correctly!

  213. Just...No.*

    Yesterday I saw a photo/post -not a meme- on Facebook. A woman proclaimed: “My baby is going to kidney garden.”
    *Wondering if she meant the organ or the beans?*

  214. Alastair*

    At an all staff meeting my boss read a document about fire safety. Company had decided to name all fire alarm pull stations “FAPS” for short.

    The meeting was full of statements like:
    “Know the location of FAPS”
    “Don’t hesitate to pull a FAP”

    I giggled and got glared at.

  215. Nacho*

    Maybe I’m out of the loop, but I didn’t know “teabagger” was offensive. I just thought it was a fairly unusual sex act popularized by video game tauting.
    Frankly, it does sound like something someone who worked on the Obama campaign would call someone in the Tea Party.

  216. Anlyn*

    Not work, sorry, but a friend once posted on Facebook she got a new piercing and to “check out her conch!” I misread it as “cooch” and told her she was much braver than I was!

  217. the gold digger*

    My (very smart) boss is not a native English speaker and didn’t learn English until he was in high school. He makes me laugh so hard – I am never sure if he is intentionally saying things wrong or not.

    1. Him: I have been on the rodeo before!

    2. Me: Oh my gosh. You are just like Lucy with the football!
    Him: Who’s Lucy?

    3. Him: Working with you is like hoarding cats!
    Me: Hoarding?
    Him: You know – gathering them up.
    Me: Herding.
    Him: It’s not the same thing?

    4. Him: You are so verbose! I like it!
    Me: Ummm. That’s not really a compliment

    5. Him: Man, we are shooting ourselves in the head with that one.

    6. A former non-native speaker co-worker, comment about our mutual former boss who didn’t want us working from home: He is from the school that is old.

    2. Kitten*

      I am also curious as to who Lucy is, but I suspect it’s a culture reference…

      I also feel that if you hoarded cats, you would also spend a significant amount of time herding them into and out of various places, so he’s not entirely wrong on that one!

      1. Rebecca in Dallas*

        Lucy from the Peanuts cartoon. She would always pull the football away right before Charlie Brown could punt it.

        The cat hoarding one is pretty funny!

      2. Miles*

        It is a cultural reference to the popular comic strip “The Peanuts”. The character of Lucy often holds the football for the main character Charlie Brown to kick but pulls it away so he can’t at last moment, then convinces him she won’t do it again, then does it again etc.

      3. SarahTheEntwife*

        It’s from the Peanuts cartoons. And yeah, it doesn’t seem particularly odd or embarrassing that someone not from the US wouldn’t know the reference.

    4. Jules the First*

      I once called a German colleague a “speedy Gonzales”. She looked blankly at me and went away. Five minutes later, she comes back grinning and says “andale, andale, arriba!” It became a running joke.

      In the same job, it was something of a tradition to contact the job leader with the words “the Eagle has landed” when a bid had been successfully delivered on time. One day, I was working out of our Paris office and returned from lunch to a cryptic message from the receptionist: “Your Beagle has dander.”

  218. NewHerePleaseBeNice*

    I live in the U.K. Our local bus company has recently installed free fast wifi on its services, which it is using as an advertising campaign to encourage more people to use the bus.

    Their slogan?

    BUS IN AND CHILL.

    I seriously hope passengers don’t do *that* sort of ‘chill’ on the 2A to Oxford….

  219. Liz T*

    When I interned at a regional theater I once had to explain to the Artistic Director, in a production meeting, that “landing strip” was not a term for facial hair.

    Apparently he’d learned the term due to a play with nudity a few seasons previous (an actress had had period-inappropriate grooming) and thought it applied to any body hair of a certain shape.

    1. Kathleen Adams*

      Not exactly the same thing but…

      I once had a guy make a pass at me by saying “Hey, you’re pretty cute, and my landing pad has left, so…”

      It was a magic moment. / sarcasm

  220. seejay*

    I have a coworker who does some really hardcore cycling. He and I like to talk cycling stories, as I also ride (although not as hardcore as he does). He’d been slacking off and not riding much though after an accident and he was telling me how he needed to get back on the bike and start riding again because he was feeling out of shape and losing tone and definition. The conversation then veered into “I need to pound on that ass, really pound that ass hard”… all while using his fist to punch into the side of his buttock.

    I sat there with my jaw on the floor. Because he repeated this line at least three times. Deadpan serious.

    “Joe, please stop. Repeat what you just said in your head. Repeat it slowly. Now *think about what you just said*. Slowly.”

    The confusion on his face, followed by the light dawning, then the abject horror as he realized what he’d been saying was sheer joy to behold.

  221. Anon, good nurse*

    1. I once had a boss who used to ask us to print “neatly and illegibly”. Someone pointed out that, as a lawyer, surely he knew the difference between legal and illegal, so why was he confusing legible with illegible.
    2. More British vs. American-isms — After checking into a hotel one evening, a team member once asked my mom if he should “knock her up at 8 tomorrow?” Turns out “knock up” means “knock on your door” in the British/Canadian vernacular. She was…surprised by the offer. He was mortified by her interpretation.

    1. seejay*

      As a Canadian, I have never ever heard “knock up” as a term for knocking on the door. It means the same thing in Canada as it does in the US.

        1. Snork Maiden*

          The Maritimes has a lot of…language variation, from western Canada, where I live. To the point where when I was younger and took a call from a Newfoundlander or Acadian, I would have to ask them to repeat themselves, a lot. Our neighbour is either from the very rural area of Newfoundland/Nova Scotia, or from the north of England and I’m so terrible with accents I couldn’t say for sure.

          1. seejay*

            My dad’s from Newfoundland but his accent is watered down somewhat… although not-so-much that other Canadians can’t help but notice the accent. I’ve even had other Newfies pick up a very faint dialect from *me*… just really faint traces of pronunciations and words that slip out and they can notice it, despite never having lived on the Rock myself (same goes for having a very faint French dialect as well). I have absolutely no problem understanding a word my dad says at all, but whenever his relatives call during the holidays, I can’t understand 3/4 of what they say. I just hand the phone over to him with “I have no idea what they said, so I’m pretty sure it’s for you”.

            The Newfie accent is *weird* and I’m saying that as someone who’s half Newfie and grew up with it. (That being said, I know a whole lot of the slang and phrases that confuse most other Canadians since I picked up a lot from my dad and also enjoyed reading up on the history of the Newfie dialect and language idiosyncrasies since it was part of my heritage.)

            1. Humble Schoolmarm*

              Speaking of Newfoundland, it’s NewfinLAND people! New. Found. Land! Not New Finland. (Sorry, I listened to a lot of interviews about Come From Away this Tony season and it drove me nuts!

  222. LadyKelvin*

    Not quite work, but I took a class in undergrad called analytical chemistry where you basically learn how to use all the different systems for measuring stuff. Day one of class our prof writes “Anal Chem” on the board. And it turns out that’s exactly how the class went…

  223. anonopants*

    Many years ago, a colleague announced that she was going to spend the next hour or so answering email and clearing out her inbox by saying “I’m gonna whack off some email!”

    I don’t think anyone ever told her.

  224. NASA*

    School: I had a calculus professor who was from Italy. He would always say, “USE YOUR FANTASY!!!” He meant “use your imagination”. It always makes me chuckle.

  225. Amanda*

    A coworker told someone they may have to have their vulva removed to help with their severe snoring. You might’ve guessed she meant uvula!

    2. Chaordic One*

      Many years ago my aunt had an elderly friend who wanted to buy a new car. She wanted one just like the one her brother bought. She thought it was called a “Vulva” or something like that.

      My aunt took her friend to the Volvo dealer and they looked at new Volvos. Her friend liked the Volvos and thought they looked like the car her brother bought. However, she couldn’t figure out why they were so much more expensive than the car her brother bought.

      She finally called her brother to confirm that he bought a Volvo, and it turned out that, no, he had not bought a Volvo, he had bought a Chevrolet Nova which was a much less expensive car. So my aunt’s friend and bought a Nova, too.

  226. JaneB*

    Doing vegetation recording with some students once – one French man, the rest English women. French guy found a seedling pine tree and shouted excitedly “I’ve got a tiny Pinus”… pronouncing the word the French way as pee-nis, rather than the english norm of pie-nuss – cue a great deal of hilarity and an awkward explanation

      1. CV*

        I’ve a friend who teaches English to Francophone youth. She had to sit through a young man’s presentation about “happiness” pronounced with a heavy French accent – drop the “H” and emphasize each syllable equally. He explained how important “a -pee -niss” is, and how everyone needs “a -pee- niss”. My friend is a lesbian.

        1. Jools*

          I was not present at this meeting, but it quickly became departmental legend. When I was in grad school, there was a postdoc in a neighbouring lab whose first language was not English, and he stuttered. During a presentation at lab meeting, he wanted to say “organism”. Apparently it came out as o-o-o-ORGASM!

  227. Ramona Flowers*

    I’ve just remembered the time someone changed experience designer to experienced designer in an article I was writing. Thank goodness I caught that before it went to print.

  228. frog*

    Not technically a misuse of a word per se, but: I was on a conference call with my supervisor and a client to discuss issues regarding an employee of theirs whose first name was “Geoff.” My supervisor, completely unironically and not in jest, kept referring to him as “Gee-off” with a hard G, until the client said something along the lines of, “You mean ‘Geoff’?” and then there was a suuuuuuuper awkward silence for a moment, before the call continued as though nothing had happened.

    3. Foreign Octopus*

      Ah Wakeen. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed as hard at something as I did at that. Just thinking about it makes my sides ache. Unfortunately, I missed it when it first come out and found it after looking through the archives. I was very confused when it would be referenced in the comments before then.

  229. ABC123*

    As a graduate student, I went to a conference on mathematical models where a cute fellow student did his first ever presentation in English (no one there was a native speaker). The model in question had two nodes, which he invariably pronounced as the “double nude model”. We all contained our laughter throughout his presentation, as he was terribly nervous anyway, but his friends were quick to point out his mistake afterwards, and I teased him a bit, too. (This was the only time we talked during the whole week, as he was both very shy and intimidatingly good looking.)

    The following year at the same event, he was equally nervous and got marker all over his hands from where it transferred to his face during his presentation.

    Little over a year later, we started dating, and have now been married for almost a decade. Neither of us works in the field we studied, but hey, at least it brought us together!

  230. FootInMouth*

    Unfortunately I was the one who said something completely inappropriate without having any idea about what I was really saying… Another team weighed in on a project ahead of ours, so I said, “It’s not fair we only get sloppy seconds” to which I recieved a chorus of gasps. When I looked it up hours later wondering why people reacted that way, I realized the meaning of what I had said. So embarrassing.

    1. Not So NewReader*

      Don’t feel bad, some of this is lost on me, too.
      I made the mistake of saying “party hat” at work and had no idea. My husband explained it meant condom.

      At that time, the circumstances around that story made me think that men make up these terms so they can laugh at women when women use the term in a benign context. It is pretty odd to think that everyone knows all these terms. I have looked up at least a half dozen in the urban dictionary just reading here today.

      Anyway, the fact that my cohort laughed at me when I clearly did not know the meaning of the word made me put more distance between the two of us. He had a rep for being kind of creepy because of staring at women and so on.

      1. SubbyP*

        I mean, “party hat” can mean “condom,” but it’s a lot more common for it to just mean “a hat associated with parties.” I think your coworker was just being a creep.

  231. SarahKay*

    There’s a US company that made a product called Trash Tossers, designed to hang from the back of your car seat and hold trash.. Tosser in the UK is a man who..umm…plays with himself.
    Being in the UK and watching a company broadcast where the CEO said “Every car needs a tosser!” was a memorable experience.

  232. Death Rides a Pale Volvo*

    I’m telling on myself: I get the words “narcolepsy” and “necrophilia” mixed up. Nothing like being at a party and describing a mutual friend having “necrophilia.” There was a shocked moment of silence, and then the husband said, “Uh, I think you mean narcolepsy…” and there was a collective sigh of relief around the room.

    In short, I’m a dope.

    2. Drew*

      It’s the difference between falling into a deep sleep and falling into a really deep sleeper.

  233. Kitten*

    I used to run a kitchen and I had a delightfully cheerful waitress who everyone in the bar adored.

    One night, the regulars stopped her, held up a pint glass with half a pint in it and asked “So Jane, is this glass half full or half empty?”

    “You’ve got to say it’s half full,” she replied, “Otherwise you’re being downtomistic!”

    “What’s ‘downtomistic?”

    “You know. Downtomistic. The opposite of uptomistic.”

    I loved that girl so much!!

    The trouble is, I’ve adopted downtomistic myself for when I have to cheer my devs up. Unfortunately, I once had to give an impassioned speech to a Project Manager who had worked us to exhaustion and was trying to put a product live before we could support it. It was going really well until I forgot the actual word for ‘downtomistic’ and ruined all my credibility by stopping mid-sentence and asking my Senior Dev what the real word was…

  234. Cedrus Libani*

    I once had a co-worker (a native Hebrew speaker) decide that my nickname should be KKK. She told me this, and I was too mortified to explain, so I took the coward’s way out…changed the subject and hoped she’d forget.

    Nope. The next day, we had a team lunch, including my boss and Jewish grand-boss. She stood up and announced, at full outside-voice volume, “Hey everyone, Cedrus is now KKK!” Dead silence, as the whole restaurant turned and stared at us like we’d grown three heads apiece.

    I did not actually hide under the table, and co-worker did not actually murder me once she understood what she’d said, but both actions were STRONGLY contemplated…

    1. JustaTech*

      In college I had a professor who had the initials KKK. As students working in her lab we had to label everything with the professor’s initials. Day 1 she explained that her stuff was all K3 (K-cubed) just so no one got confused.

      1. yasmara*

        And my husband wonders why I was so particular about my children’s initials. My niece’s initials are DAG.

  235. That Would Be a Good Band Name*

    This requires some background. At a previous job, I worked in a department that took all the calls from employees that couldn’t make it to work. We entered it in a database that then emailed the employees name and reason for not coming in. We didn’t actually need details, but they liked to know if it was self-illness, child illness, weather (snow), etc. We had to pick a category from the drop down and then write something in the box. Usually just “out all day” or “be in at noon”. One early morning, my manager answered a call and meant to put “all day sick” but instead put “all d!ck sick”. For a female employee. So her manager received an email saying that. Plus those records stayed in there forever and couldn’t be edited by anyone onsite. So to fix what was really a not-enough-coffee typo, she had to put in a ticket and have onsite IT escalate to corporate. We laughed about that for weeks!

  236. Biscuit!*

    A few months after starting at the company I work for now, the social media department posted a graphic for a holiday saying something along the lines of “we’re using the day to Netflix and chill”. I didn’t know how to them that probably wasn’t what they meant to post on their company Instagram.

  237. Turkletina*

    I worked with someone who consistently wrote “no thanks” to mean “no, thank you”. “Do you have any questions about this process?” “No thanks.”

    1. SarahKay*

      That….does not strike me as wrong, although *possibly* in need of a comma. Thanks is a very common UK abbreviation of thank you, and can be used as “thanks” or “no thanks”.

      1. Turkletina*

        To me, “no thanks” can only be a rejection of an offer. It strikes me as very out of place when the speaker means “thank you, but no (I don’t have any questions)”.

        1. SarahKay*

          Oh, okay, yes I can see what you mean. It would definitely need a comma, but I suspect I might still say/write thanks rather than thank you. Mind you, I could be wrong in doing so.

  238. Veronica*

    Back in the 1990s, I was working for a lovely older lady who had just acquired her very first computer. She was trying to remember a poem about a cat (from her grade school days), but she could only remember a few words. Suffice it to say, she did not find quite what she was looking for when she went on the internet to search for “black pussy.”

    1. Rebecca in Dallas*

      OMG one of my mom’s friends did the same thing trying to find horseback lessons for her daughter. Let’s just say “little girls and horses” brought up some things she wasn’t prepared for!

  239. Simone R*

    Once we had a fire safety officer who in a presentation kept referring to carbon dioxide detectors instead of carbon monoxide.

  240. Anja*

    I used to work for an accounting firm. One year I pulled a file out of the personal tax preparation queue. The names of the elderly couple were on the file – Richard and Betty Jean. There were notes and explanations on things in the file. Within said notes the wife (who put the file together with their things) would consistently refer to them as “Dick” and “B.J.” I giggled my way through that file.

  241. overcaffeinatedandqueer*

    Not really work, but it was summer so my teacher mom’s whole job was to watch me and my brother.

    She says to me, 6, that I need to go to bed. I had been reading regularly since age 3.5, and enjoyed reading “Calvin and Hobbes.” In one strip, he resists going to bed, saying, “this is tyranny! COMMUNISTS!” I also knew that communism was bad, as I knew that East Germany was communist and my parents hadn’t enjoyed their visit there in 1987 three years before I was born.

    But I had never heard those new vocabulary words out loud before! So I shouted, “I won’t stand for this TIE-ranny!” (rhyming the end with “canny” and butchering the first bit) and “I don’t want to live under this COMMUN-ISM” (prouncing it similar to “immune”).

    I got to stay up until mom stopped laughing too hard to move.

    1. CM*

      I also have a kid who was an early reader thanks to Calvin and Hobbes, and accumulated a huge vocabulary of words he had no idea how to pronounce! Now that he’s older, he’s figured out most of them but once in a while he’ll still bust out an obscure word that’s utterly mispronounced.

      1. SarahKay*

        I was in my mid-twenties when my step-dad suggested that perhaps I meant to pronounce depot as ‘deppo’ rather than ‘dee-pot’.
        I’d have been much the same age when I discovered that quayside (which I’d thought of as kway-side) was actually said as key-side.

        1. Chameleon*

          I have said “dee-poe” all my life (although I know not to pronounce the last “t”). So does everyone I know. It may be a regional thing.

          1. fposte*

            In the U.S. it’s pretty universally “dee-po”; I think SarahKay is in the UK, where it’s “deppo.” Pretty sure there’s no place where it rhymes with “teapot,” though :-).

            1. SarahKay*

              I am in the UK, and yes, it was my pronunciation of the final T in depot that he found particularly amusing.

        3. Sylvia*

          I, uh, just learned that about quayside. Luckily, I’ve never had a reason to say it out loud.

          A local town name contains “quay” pronounced “kway,” so I just assumed. :(

          1. yasmara*

            To this day, my husband can’t read Penelope without pronouncing it like it rhymes with cantaloupe. He crossed it off our girl-baby-name list due to that.

            I definitely only learned quay/cay as key as an adult. And I still read quay as “kway” in my head.

    2. Chaordic One*

      We had a young woman who had recently emigrated to the U.S. from Scotland as a sales rep. She had been sent to go over an account with a long-time client, and hopefully sell him additional products. The meeting apparently went well, but she described the client as being a “fresh old man.” My boss was horrified and asked her all sorts of questions like, “What did he say to you?, What did he do?, I won’t have any of my employees treated badly, even if means losing an account!” My boss thought the client had gotten fresh with our new sales rep and had made inappropriate remarks to her.

      It turned out that she meant something along the lines of that he (the client) was healthy, lively, spry, energetic elderly man and NOT a dirty old man.

      Another time I was at a convention and there was a break in the middle of the afternoon. Most of the attendees had planned to visit the nearby shopping mall, but “Jack” said he was going to his room in the hotel for a nap, which of course, resulted in one of the attendees from our company loudly declaring, “Oh, you’re taking a little Jack nap?”

      I’m not sure if she new what that meant or not. She might well have said it on purpose.

  242. Mafalda*

    Former boss thought that “integral” was the verb form of “integrity,” as in, “I don’t know why this person said I was shady. I’ve been very integral in all of my dealings with him.”

    I never corrected her because it always made me laugh in a workplace that otherwise had little joy. (yes, I know the root latin word is the same, but that’s not how these words are used; also, she did lack integrity)

  243. anon designer*

    Okay this one isn’t related to work, but for any fans of RuPaul’s Drag Race, who could forget Pearl’s special phrase, “flah-zay-dah”? It’s the most wonderful accidental mixup of blasé, la-ti-da, and… laissez-faire maybe?

    1. Rebecca in Dallas*

      Hahahaha yes!

      And who was the contestant who said they felt they were the “black horse” of the competition?

      Oh, I love that show.

  244. arcya*

    I work in biomedical research and at the time was the only native English speaker in our lab, aside from our boss. A pathologist in our group presented data showing the location of a particular protein in human cells – in particular, the tendency of the protein to sit just outside of the nucleus (peri-nuclear localization). However he insisted on referring to this as “nuclear-rimming”! Eventually I had to bring it up with him, and quietly explained that “rimming” was a crude slang term in English and he should avoid it. He was kind of a jerk though and shrugged me off (I was both younger than him and female, so). I ended up having to tell our boss that “rimming” was an inappropriate descriptor and then the boss wanted to know what it meant! This was especially funny because our boss was actually an MD. I dunno, I guess I thought they covered that in med school.

    Anyway the pathologist ignored both me and our boss and busted out “nuclear-rimming” at a pretty big conference. I think the sudden snickers in the audience convinced him, but I don’t work in that lab any more so who knows.

    1. Cedrus Libani*

      Heh. At one memorable lab meeting, we had to explain to someone why he couldn’t refer to a method for producing HIV vaccines as…SINNER. (The poor guy was from Japan, and super proud that he’d come up with a catchy acronym for his project.)

  245. Rovannen*

    I had to sit through a district meeting about my role as a PDA (Parent Designated Adult) with my boss referring to me as a PDF. She just didn’t care.

  246. Unicorn Ranger*

    This isn’t a word…but a name – we had an event coordinated by Denley but the keynote speaker kept calling him Denzel…the first time he did it – it was fine…but the second time he did it – I laughed out…and then covered it up with a cough! But everyone’s been calling the poor guy Denzel ever since…and he can’t be bothered to correct anyone.

  247. The Queen of Cans & Jars*

    When I was teaching, we had a overpaid, truly awful consultant who was there to teach us certified language arts teachers how to teach language arts and would repeatedly use the term “emerge” instead of “immerse,” as in “you need to *emerge* the children in high quality literature.” Needless to say, that didn’t help us take her any more seriously.

  248. Sparky*

    I had a coworker who insisted that he had a trellis with “chlamydia” at his house. Several of us tried to tell him that he probably had clematis growing on his trellis, but he wouldn’t listen.

    After she bought her house my mother kept proclaiming that she had ,”shot her wad”. My brother and I just waited her out, and eventually the house buying and large down payment faded as news.

    1. Mephyle*

      My neighbour was very proud of his “clemmins” but that’s not as funny as your coworker’s flower.

  249. Zoo story*

    Keeping this safe for work, so fill in the blanks yourself. A zoo veterinarian called a female zoo keeper on the radio about doing a follow up check on an animal in her care. The radio call went: (Vet) to (keeper), can I come down now and see your (aquatic rodent)?

    I think everyone else on radio that day did a spit-take, and it became a thing of legends for many years.

    1. SarahTheEntwife*

      Ok, that one seems like something you’d think people who deal with actual beavers would get used to and it would stop being funny pretty quickly.

  250. Sled dog mama*

    Oh dear, laughing so hard I didn’t think I’d get to the end of these.
    My mother told me (I was maybe 15 at the time) that for many years she thought the phrase to “blow a wad” meant to spend a bunch of cash. Apparently my dad had that conversation with her.
    My husband constantly uses “said” (as in referring to something you mentioned before) when he never mentioned the thing he’s trying to refer to.

    Co-worker at a previous job would use “preferred” when he meant “requested”. That made me crazy. So his notes would say: “Due to the complex nature of XYZ Dr So and So preferred a consult.” Every time I had to read one of his notes I’d say “preferred it to what!!!?”

    1. yasmara*

      Did he mean “preferred” in the sense of “wanted,” I wonder? I mean, we do say “I prefer X instead of Y,” so in this case it meant he wanted a consult (instead of no consult)? I think this is one of those where the meaning is sliding or maybe just implied, but it does sound a little off to me. I can see why it bugs you.

  251. Ogress*

    This isn’t work related, but my mom once went to Walmart looking for some art for the bathroom wall, as it had just been repainted and she wanted to redecorate. She finds a sale associate and asks her where she can find a “pitcher for the bathroom.”

    The poor girl was baffled. “A pitcher? For the bathroom? Like to pour water out of?”

    And my mom said, “No, a pitcher. To hang on the wall.”

    The girl just stared at her until my mom said, “You know, like a painting!”

  252. EH*

    Years ago my then-boss went to an internal presentation by our newspaper’s parent company chairman. Chairman said he had a very sanguine view of the company’s future. (Side note: ha.) My boss somehow, despite being a journalist, misunderstood “sanguine” to mean pessimistic — basically the opposite of its meaning. He kept bringing it up in meetings in an anxious way, like: “When the chairman of the company says he has a sanguine view, you know things are bad.” It seemed so ridiculous that he kept talking about it when he had the meaning backward that none of us could come up with the nerve to jump in and correct him.

  253. Jeanne*

    Back when actually acting on sexual harrassment was new, we went to Sexual Harrassment Awareness Training. I was in about the 8th group to attend. The trainer said someone helpfully showed her that was SHAT so everywhere she just wrote SHAT. I was a nobody and didn’t say a word. Someone finally explained to her that it was a past tense word of…well, you know.

  254. GFM*

    In my 20s I worked in a department that was all men around my age — I was the only woman. We were all friends and liked to hang out and joke around. One day we were complaining about a woman from another department who always talked too much in meetings and how annoying she was. So I say, “Somebody needs to fill her mouth up with caulk.”

    Except that’s not what my half-dozen male co-workers heard….the looks on their faces were priceless.

    It became such a running joke that when I left the company those guys made me a card that with “never forget to say the L” written on the front ….

      1. Miles*

        Except when you’re talking about caulk boots, then the l is pronounced as an r for some reason.

        1. fposte*

          I didn’t even know there was such a thing, let alone a variant pronunciation! Looks like that might be wobbling along the caulk/cork axis there.

          1. Miles*

            It’s pronounced exactly like “cork” and is starting to be spelled that way more, I suspect by people who have heard it pronounced but not written.

      2. GFM*

        I know the L is silent but apparently the way I pronounce the word without it causes grown men to blush. Luckily it’s not a word you really use all that much in an office setting.

  255. An Onomous*

    I went to school in English, but not all the teachers were native English speakers. So a whole class of teenagers were trying to keep a straight face when the history teacher did several lessons on a particular Grand Duchy and its ruler, the Grand Dutch.

  256. Lolli*

    I have a colleague who uses ‘flush out’ a lot instead of ‘flesh out’. Example: We need to flush out all the issues with this software before we can roll it out to the users. I have not corrected him.

      2. Ramona Flowers*

        Yep, sounds like it. Flesh out would mean to elaborate on them or make them, like, more completely issues.

  257. Sfigato*

    We were talking about having to do an onerous task, and I made the “Rock Scissors Paper” motion by moving my closed fist up and down, meaning, “Let’s roshambo to see who has to do this onerous task!” My colleagues were not aware I meant rock scissors paper, and thought I was making a motion like I was pleasuring myself, a motion sometimes used to be dismissive. I was really mortified.

  258. Coalea*

    I was once in a meeting with a (20-something female) colleague and our (older, male) boss. We heard a weird noise and my colleague opined that it “sounded like someone queefing.” Turns out she thought it was a synonym for belching!

    1. Mrs. Fenris*

      When my son was 12 or 13, he heard the word “queef” somewhere and assumed from the context that it meant “fart,” and used it in a sentence that way. At home, thank goodness. You haven’t lived until you’ve explained a dirty word to your preteen son.

  259. MommaTRex*

    I’ve heard someone in a board meeting use “penultimate” to mean “even more ultimate than ultimate” or “super-ultimate”. I don’t think in the context that they meant the true meaning = “second to last”.

    I’ve also got to chime in with two fun transit acronyms we have here in the PNW. There WAS the South Lake Union Trolley (SLUT), which they are now calling a “streetcar”. We still have Regional Automated Trip Planning (RATP), and yes, everyone pronounces it “rat pee”.

  260. Annie Nominous*

    I had a boss who spent a few weeks using the word “gyrations” meaning “variations.” I’m not sure if someone corrected her, but it stopped as suddenly as it started. I’m still perplexed as to how it happened.

  261. Miles*

    One of my coworkers seems to believe “nefarious” means “vague”. The first couple times he asked me to review a report with “nefarious” methodology or conclusions I was very disappointed that it wasn’t more interesting.

  262. Night Cheese*

    My ex, who is American, was visiting a former colleague at his new university in the UK. They were in the elevator with a (female) student of the colleague’s, and my ex starts joking around with her: “This guy giving you any trouble? Is his class driving you crazy? You wanna take him up to the roof and toss him off?” Student and colleague both turn red. Which is when ex realized that “toss” is not the same as “throw” in the UK.

  263. puzzld*

    We just set up a new computer system at our library.
    It has Terms of use abbreviated TOU so Faculty TOU. Also Fulfillment units, or Library FU. Wince.

    1. SarahTheEntwife*

      What does TOU mean when it’s not Terms of Use? Google isn’t showing anything even slightly scandalous.

      1. puzzld*

        “Thinking of U” not scandalous in and of itself. It’s the use in connection to FU that causes our students to giggle.

  264. MV*

    An older gentleman I used to work with signed all his emails with his initials. DTF.
    It was a tech firm where most employees were literate in the text speak abbreviations.

  265. Noah*

    I used to work for somebody, who was generally very proper, who constantly used the term “blow your wad.” I know the historical meaning of the term is non-sexual (the sexual term came from the non-sexual term), but it was just a lot to hear all the time from her.

    Unrelated to the question, she also regularly used the cliche, “There’s more htan one way to skin a cat.” Yuck.

  266. tw*

    I took meeting minutes for a co-worker where our boss kept saying “graffiti and other malices”
    Malices is not a word, not in the dictionary, and malice is “A desire to harm others or to see others suffer; extreme ill will or spite.” which didn’t seem like something that can have a plural especially in our boss’s context.
    We have no idea what word he was thinking of, so we just put “malices” in the meeting minutes.
    Everyone seemed to understand what he was saying…

    1. Canadian Natasha*

      Maybe he meant maliciousness? But malices is more fun to say. I vote we make it an official English word. :)

  267. MimiO*

    I am French-Canadian and work for the Canadian federal government. Where I work, most of the spoken interactions are in English and over the years, I’ve seen some pretty hilarious mangling of English expressions by my French-speaking brethren.

    The personal assistant of the head of the department kept sending invitation emails to senior managers saying that her boss wanted to see them for a cuddle. I had to explain to her that the word she was looking for was “huddle”.

    Another senior manager, in a very high-level meeting, was getting annoyed at the lack of progress on a given issue and proclaimed to all that it was time “to cut to the cheese”.

  268. cleo*

    I knew someone who was German working in the US. He once told me a story about consummating a meeting and he had no idea why I giggled at his word choice.

    He meant it in the “starting something” sense, not the “having sex to make it official” sense (and isn’t that an icky concept).

  269. SarahKay*

    The department store I used to work at contained a hairdressing salon, and one week there was a special offer for a cut and blow dry for ten pounds. So far so harmless, but it was decided this should be announced over the tannoy every hour. Alas, the poor lady doing the tannoy *actually* offered a cut and blow job for ten pounds.
    After that a tape recorder was purchased and every tannoy from then on was pre-recorded.

  271. Poetic & Noble Land Mermaid*

    I was in a seminar in grad school and was talking to the professor about her upcoming fieldwork in London. I had just read about this great play in the West end that I thought she should go see. Except I couldn’t remember the name, so I told her to google “London horse play.” I didn’t realize what I had said until she dryly told me she wasn’t going to do that.

  272. Phillipa*

    When we completed a task we’d remove it from the whiteboard. So, boss once turned to me and said, very enthusiastically, that he was going to rub one off.

  273. too many mason jars*

    One of my older coworkers heard someone complain about a call center “jerking them around” once and to this day likes to talk about clients “jerking him off” when someone is being frustrating. Nobody has even attempted to correct him at this point, he’s very conservative and religious and the type of person to deal with the embarrassment by going on the offensive (“How do YOU know what that means??”).

    1. Sloane*

      Oh man, I have had this problem! I don’t use the phrase “jerk around” anymore because “off” has slipped out before. I think it’s complicated by an old boss who used to call those he particularly disliked a “jagoff” who “jerked him around” so jerk/jack/jag and off / around are all stored in the same place in my brain. I avoid all of them now.

  274. i2c2*

    My coworker picked today of all days to exclaim, “You know what they say! Don’t kick a gift horse in the mouth!”

  275. Jean*

    Once upon a time, I worked in a grocery distribution center in the logistics department. The assistant produce manager at one of our stores sent in an order and, in order to save time, abbreviated his position as “Ass Pro Man.” I think that order sheet stayed on the bulletin board for a year.

  276. Poetic & Noble Land Mermaid*

    I also had a co-worker who has since retired that loved saying “it’s no skin off my banana”

  277. TheCupcakeCounter*

    My friend, a fellow accountant, says “hundret” instead of hundred. Drives me batty.
    My now 8-year old used to call Gatorade “gator-egg”. We never corrected him because we loved it. Now he can read though and figured it out…stupid education.

    1. Julianne*

      My students (who are English language learners) have a lot of words like that. They’re unique and sometimes funny! Some of them are just things they’ve overgeneralized from their L1s of their developing English language knowledge, like saying “open the SmartBoard” instead of “turn on the SmartBoard,” or using the word “look” in place of “see” or “watch.” Eventually they learn the more conventional uses of these words, so I don’t worry too much about error correction. I actually think it’s one of the fun parts of my job. But then there are things like saying “hanitizer” instead of “hand sanitizer,” which is just a great portmanteau.

  278. Siskins*

    My first job was in a flagship call centre advising employers on pay as you earn tax, statutory payments, benefits etc and we did a lot of work registering new employers for tax. Usually you’d get an agent reeling off a list of directors for you, but some phoned you themselves, usually the ones who were husband and wife companies with the wife as company secretary. That’s what happened to me the day Mr Blows phoned me to register his company and I had to take (and repeat for mandatory confirmation) the necessary details of his wife, a Mrs B.J. Blows.

  279. CJMster*

    I worked with a woman who wasn’t very polished, especially in her speaking. She regularly mispronounced words and butchered grammar, and I often cringed when I had to listen to her speak.

    The worst (best?) example was when a group of us discussed a complicated, troublesome design of software involving tax jurisdictions, and she kept mashing together the words municipality and locality. Her version was something like “municilacality,” and she said it over and over, day after day. She seemed not to notice that she was getting it very, very wrong. A few of us eventually shared our amusement with each other, but we never had the nerve to correct her to her face. I do remember trying to make a point by quietly using the correct words in my responses to her, but that didn’t get through.

  280. davhar*

    I had a boss who always used the phrase “nip it in the butt” instead of “…in the bud”.

    The same boss, in answer to a question in a performance review as to whether I am “well read”, said no. The reason? She couldn’t tell from looking at me what I was thinking.

    I left soon after.

  281. Lily*

    My former boss once said, on camera while shooting a video for social media, that our intern Steve was so funny that he “almost busted a nut”. (Oh the power of a single letter.)

    He used the phrase a few more times that day, until someone had the chance to pull him aside and explain what it actually meant.

  282. AMPG*

    For reasons I still don’t understand, my MIL uses the term “half in the bag” to mean “exhausted and sleepy” instead of “drunk.” I was caught off guard when she used it to describe my toddler, but didn’t challenge her. But then my husband started using it in public in cases where it could be badly misinterpreted (e.g. about himself while driving) and I had to correct him.

  283. LibKae*

    Old boss used the word “supposably”. First time she said it I laughed because I thought she was making a Friends reference … nope, just didn’t know how to pronounce the word

  284. Other Duties as Assigned*

    Two true stories of copy editing:

    1-A newswriter submitted his story to me for an edit which contained the phrase “nooks and grannies.”
    Me: “Grannies should be crannies, with a ‘c.'”
    Him: “Are you sure?”
    Me: “Yup.”
    Him: “What the hell is a cranny?”
    Me: “It’s like a nook.”

    2-A coworker shared with me a short bio she was going read by way of introducing an important guest. In it, she referred to him as an “infamous author.” She thought “infamous” was equal to “really famous.” Uh, no, not the way you think.

    1. AvonLady Barksdale*

      Re: 2 – ever seen Three Amigos? Because if that was a favorite of hers… I get it.

  285. FeralCatt77*

    I had to tactfully and politely take one of our administrative assistants aside and explain that a “nooner” wasn’t the same as a lunchtime meeting.

  286. NotMyRealName*

    My colleague from overseas kept referring to furnace skid chills as “Skid Marks” in a company presentation. Someone had to tell him that in the UK “Skid Marks” are a slang term for what you find in your underpants.

  287. Volunteer Coordinator in NOVA*

    I worked at a food bank and our the director of communications was emailing a journalist who was going to highlight a new program that we had and wrote about our new food panty instead of our new food pantry. Luckily the journalist was very nice and pointed it out to her but she still made the mistake a few more times. I made sure to have word autocorrect panty into pantry just in case!

  288. Julianne*

    Older male (like, in his 70s) board member at a non-profit I worked for called his Blackberry a Blueberry. No one at the organization ever corrected him because he was a Big Deal (former state legislator and decades-long advocate for our cause), and also because most of us found it delightful.

  289. AK*

    Not a work story, but I knew a sweet older man who thought the phrase ‘turn on’ meant being interested in something, enjoying something or caring about something. So as a way of making casual conversation, once someone implied they had a hobby he would ask them if it was a turn on for them. As in “Does knitting/cars/stamp collecting/volunteering at the shelter turn you on?”. He also seemed perplexed that people always answered in the negative even when they clearly did this thing for fun.

    1. Kathleen Adams*

      There was a time not all that long ago (1960s-1970s) with that is indeed exactly what “turn you on” meant, e.g., “Whatever turns you on, dude.” It acquired the sexual meaning pretty rapidly, too, but the non-sexual meaning was still quite common for quite a while after that and the two meanings lived on side by side for quite a while.

      I think the original slang meaning referred to drug use, but I could be wrong about that.

      1. AK*

        True, but I’ve only ever heard the non-sexual meaning in set phrases like the example you gave. I might just have missed out on that still being a usage in the wider world. It was certainly amusing for me to see it imported into regular questions!

  290. AvonLady Barksdale*

    I worked with a very, very bright but sheltered young woman who once asked me if I was aware that in some countries, women buried the placebo after giving birth. We had the type of relationship where I had no problem correcting her, but that was a good one.

    My partner has a colleague who consistently mispronounces words in some situations and uses the wrong words in others. And he uses “whenever” when he means “when”– “I picked up a bottle of wine whenever I went to the grocery store”– which is unfortunately common in my part of the country among people under 30 (so I’ve noticed, though I’m sure people over 30 do that too). Plus he giggles a lot. I told my partner flat-out that I worry about this guy’s prospects after they graduate because his overall presentation and manner of speaking is so child-like.

    1. Julianne*

      I have a coworker who uses “whenever” for “when,” too! And she does it in both writing and speaking.

      1. AvonLady Barksdale*

        It makes me insane!!! I started to doubt myself whenever I said “whenever”. Like right now.

  291. Princess Carolyn*

    I found a file called “Gorilla Marketing” on our server recently. There were no gorillas.

  292. Basia, also a Fed*

    There was a guy who used to work in a different office at the same company as me. He always said “so-and-so jacked me off” when they made him angry. I kept telling him to stop but he didn’t. Someone later sent me a link to a website that said this is a Pittsburgh thing (which is where the guy lived).

  293. Non-Prophet*

    When I started working, I was assistant to the CFO. He would often send me drafts of financial reports and ask me to “embellish” them a bit. I was concerned that he was asking me to do something illegal or immoral. But that seemed out of character, because he was an honest man who acted with unfailing professional integrity. Turns out that he thought “embellish” just meant to add more detail for further explanation…he had no idea that it sounded like he was asking me to cook the books!

    2. MommaTRex*

      To me, “embellish” would work if you are speaking of bedazzling something – add more! But with a financial report? NO.

  294. Jaybeetee*

    A few years ago, when I was way too deep into reading Sherlock Holmes, I started not-fully-intentionally using older-fashioned terminology in my day-to-day speech. One day at work, I was surprised at something at work, and yelled out. Seeing a colleague a moment later, I mentioned, “By the way, if you heard a loud ejaculation in the hallway, sorry, that was me.” (I’m female). His jaw dropped, and it took me a moment to remember what that word means in the here and now. I don’t think I ever got as far as calling a building an “erection” though.

    2. Undine*

      The sentence I’ve always wanted to find in a Victorian novel, but alas never have:

      Sir, if you continue to make love to me in that reprehensible manner, I shall have to forgo all further intercourse with you!

  296. Boundary Wizard*

    The very religious administrator at our small school told me that we needed to go “gang bang” one of the other mothers at the school. As in, a group of us needed to work to convince this mother to do a particular thing (volunteer to run the spelling bee). I immediately corrected her understanding of the meaning of that word and she was mortified. I thought it was hilarious but knew that I had to fix it because she would die if it had been anyone other than me. I still tease her about it to this day.

  297. Spinach Inquisition*

    I had to explain the following: Bulgogi is not the same as bukakke.

    One is a tasty treat/the other is… not.

  298. Brogrammer*

    I regularly abbreve “Assistant Manager” as “AssMan,” but that’s totally intentional.

  299. Lube of the Library*

    Okay… I’ve got a few to share from my former manager who I will refer to as Tobias Fünke (see the Wikipedia page for Arrested Development for reference)

    · Tobias would refer to our small windowless server room as “the closest”. Tobias and a computer tech named Jim were working on the servers and I was made aware that my help might be needed later. I’m sitting in a communal office with a few others, when Tobias runs in sweaty and out of breathe and says to me, “Do you want to join Jim and I in the closet and bang this out?”

    · In responding to a question in an all-staff meeting, instead of saying, “I’ll look into that”, Tobias said, “I’ll make sure that I’m eyeballs deep in the situation.” Not only is that not a saying, it only makes sense if you know the other phrase that he’s intentionally/unintentionally (?)referring to.

    · I work at a library. Tobias and I were having our weekly check-in where he was trying to pay me a compliment. This is what he said: “I really like how you aid other teams in the library and hop on projects that you know need assistance. I see your role here as being paramount to making the library function as a whole. You are the lube of the library.” Lube of the library. Thanks.

    2. Lube of the Library*

      Gah! I made some crucial spelling errors on this post. Damn you, potato phone!

  300. Mme Marie*

    I’ve been in the unfortunate position of having to explain to my sister why her university students using a team name for a official school event that included the term “bukkake” was probably not appropriate.
    The same year, my mom brought Cards Against Humanity for us to play at Christmas… which includes a card in the deck with the same term. So I also got to explain what it means to my Mom.

    1. Amber Rose*

      Now there’s a word that has an unfortunate tendency to show up in the worst possible places.

      I remember one of my younger coworkers trying to explain it to our sales manager, a nice older guy with a daughter in her 20’s (who also works here). Awkward!

    3. JennyFair*

      I have totally been the person that has had to have this explained during a CAH game. Fortunately not by my kids, though…

  301. Typhon Worker Bee*

    One of the senior teachers in my high school insisted on calling his colleague Miss Zealot, instead of Miss Zettle.

    She taught religious studies and was mortified.

  302. Big Tuna*

    My GrandBoss used to always refer to himself as “anal” because he really paid attention to detail and wanted things done a certain way. Once, after a thorough department report, he said “As someone who loves anal, this was great!” a couple weeks later he said something similar. As far as I know, no one has told him and he’s still walking around saying stuff like that. Smh.

  303. Elizabeth West*

    Bullyboss at Exjob used “irregardless” all the time. Whenever I heard him say that on the phone, I would silently giggle to myself. I hated him and any evidence of incompetence on his part amused me to no end.

    I can’t think of any at work, but in my chat room, we have a running joke about a rogue keyboard that goes to live at certain people’s houses from time to time. The worst offender uses autocorrect a LOT. Some of her best include:
    –wizard of pox (Wizard of Oz)
    –cap man (Pac Man)
    –poops (oops)
    –Olety wow (she was drunk and trying to type “Holy wow”; this one is actually part of our lexicon now)

    And my favorite was when she typed, “Android’s got a program that lets you drag your ginger along the screen keyboard and then pairs out with auto correct.”
    Someone replied, “Dragging gingers sounds like a hate crime.”

  304. This Daydreamer*

    I used to work in a bookstore that was within walking distance of a certain regional burger chain. One day one of the assistant managers was musing aloud about where he was going to go to lunch. “What am I going to do for lunch? Maybe I’ll do 5 Guys.” I thought it was an ambitious goal for a thirty minute break.

    Another time I had a customer looking for a popular holiday book called The Christmas Jars. Only she asked for The Christmas Jugs. I’m, well, a bit top heavy and was horribly tempted to say something like “Here they are, baby!”

    Somewhat related was a situation I had to deal with in another customer interaction. A man walked up to the information desk, looked around to make sure no one was nearby, and very quietly asked if we had any books about testicles. A bit awkward, but I was a professional. I asked him if he was looking for something about testicular cancer or sexuality or maybe men’s health. He stared at me like I had three heads. “Um, I said Tesla coils.” In my defense, he did act like he was asking about something embarrassing….

    1. Gazebo Slayer*

      For some reason I just laughed harder at the “maybe I’ll do 5 Guys” being an ambitious lunch break harder than I’ve laughed at anything else on this post. Like, cry-laughed. Well done.

  305. LurkNoMore*

    First dinner with new SVP and upper management and they’re checking their emails for a list of names that I had just forwarded. When the SVP couldn’t find it, I asked him he had ‘checked his junk’. Of course, meaning his junk folder but that second part never made it out.
    SVP thought it was hilarious and proceeded to asked if I had checked my junk every time we talked on the phone for the next 4 months!

  306. Merci Dee*

    I work for a company that’s headquartered overseas, and all of our programs come over from HQ. Usually, IT techs just try to translate as much as they can into English, and then build in the parts that are specific to our location. It usually makes for some interesting forms and paperwork.

    Since I deal with state and local sales taxes, I do a lot of transactions with 3 particular accounts. The label for the state and city accounts are fine. The county, on the other hand, is a little bungled. I still sigh every time I see an accounting doc with tax charged to the “cunty” account.

  307. Betty Cooper*

    I used to work with someone who was trying to use the word “exhortation” in a meeting, but kept saying “extortion.” I don’t know how successful I was at covering up my giggling.

  308. Lauralyzer*

    Definitely a case of a middle-manager trying to sound smarter than she was. She would constantly use “problematical” instead of “problematic”. Made me cringe every time.

  309. league*

    I was reading old incident reports from before I arrived at this workplace, and in one, a customer was yelling at a staff member, telling them a policy was “asinine.” The staff member said, “You can’t use curse words in here,” and kicked them out. The first syllable was the important one, I….guess?

  310. Michael*

    I worked at an Australian university’s overseas campus in a non-English speaking country, so often had to review my colleagues use of English. Some highlights:
    * explaining that Future Alumni Program (FAP) is not a good choice of name.
    * telling my boss we needed to recall 500 brochures advertising a “pubic speaking” competition.
    * Hearing an old gentlemanly lecturer complain that his students weren’t very good at oral. He thought he could use it as shorthand for oral presentations.
    * In the rainy season, variations of “I’m very wet” after someone got caught by a downpour.

  311. Jean-Ralphio*

    I used to work at a tech support agency that worked with homeless shelters. The local branch of a national chain of shelters liked to put their acronym on business cards and awards rather than spelling out the full name. That’s how I ended up with a plaque on my desk that read “CUM.”

  312. Yomi*

    I had a coworker who used to spell the word come as “cum” in pretty much all communications, but primarily in text messages. I don’t think she ever did it in anything official because it wasn’t a job where that would come up, but finally a coworker said that the most recent text was “nasty” and the girl couldn’t figure out what she meant. There was a 20 minute argument about whether that was the right word to use or not.

    She walked away still thinking she was right.

  313. Really Rosie*

    We had a client for years that would ask for quotes by saying “Please summit”. As is “please submit your quote”. I’ll never know how his office didn’t correct that.

  314. Minnock*

    “I’ll distribute the copulated packets.” Collated, one hopes. This was a school principal, but there were, mercifully, no children in the room.

    1. anonintheuk*

      ‘Since the smoking ban people tend to copulate outside bars’.
      I hope they meant ‘congregate’.

  315. Kate*

    My skills are improving, at my new job (started last month) I managed to stay completely calm and straightfaced while someone told me about a suppository of law and evidence.

    1. Anonicat*

      We once had a Prime Minister call someone a suppository of wisdom.

      Can you imagine if there was such a thing? Would taking one be a required before taking political office?

  316. Anon Accountant*

    Our secretary, Jane, used to say “I’m going to choke his chicken!” when she was mad at a man.

    A coworker politely said “oh, you mean wring his neck, right?”. Jane said “Yes but they mean the same thing”.

    We explained it to her and she was horrified at what she had been saying. Especially because she’s said it for years and no one explained it to her.

    (For those who don’t understand it means to grab a man’s private parts and um… yeah you got the picture).

  317. Ivebeenherebefore*

    Three real quick ones
    I had to explain to my mom that the S in S.O.L didn’t stand for sorry.
    My dad once called a British lady a fox he meant good looking she didn’t interpret it that way
    Former North Texas State University radio station called KNTS. The university changed it’s name to University North Texas. The radio station smartly didn’t change.

  318. MPGH*

    One of my favourite ever Reddit posts was by a guy whose manager was guilty of quotation marks for emphasis.

    It got awkward when she would email the entire team with, “I’d like to thank Richard and Steve for their ‘hard work’!”

  319. LizBee*

    I used to work for a woman who was completely incoherent in three languages. Unfortunately, she was also a bully, so turns of phrase that I’d normally find endearing became irritating instead.

    The one that sticks with me is that she would say “sense and sensibility” instead of “common sense” or “sensible”. For example, “We need to approach this with a bit of sense and sensibility, if you know what I mean.” No, Boss Lady, we frequently did not know what you meant.

  320. Soupspoon McGee*

    I worked with a college president who used to say “prideful” instead of “proud,” as in “We are prideful of our achievement.” But her mother was an English major, so she was impervious to correction. You might say she was prideful about her language usage.

  321. Shiloh*

    At one of the largest employers in my small-ish town, only ppl with college degrees generally were considered for leadership. It was so visible and so discussed that it lead a lot of people trying to convince each other (themselves) of their intelligence in spite of not having a college degree. It wasn’t any one word (usually) but the sheer volume day after day that still makes me chuckle, years later (I don’t work there anymore). One I do remember was “functionable.” Like, the driver was late to delivery because his trailer wasn’t functionable

  322. Nelly*

    Many years ago one of our employees went insane in a stairwell, punching walls, trying to vandalise the place and when other staff tried to calm him down he punched two people. He was arrested and blamed it on ‘roid rage’.

    Everyone was talking about his ‘roid rage’ defence, and I asked: ‘Why couldn’t he get his haemorrhoids treated at the doctors instead of doing this?’

    I didn’t understand why he had to get so mean with everyone else just because he had some bum grapes. I mean, I haven’t had ‘roids myself, so maybe I’m not sympathetic or something, but really? Are they that painful that you’d punch someone?

    No one at work let me live that one down for a very, very long time.

  323. Serendipity*

    I work in life insurance.

    I once sent out official correspondence with a signature “kind retards” instead of “kind regards” – the G and T are right next to each other on my keyboard and spellcheck didn’t pick it up.

    What’s worse? It was dealing with a mental health issue. To this day I’m still teased about it.

  324. Must Love Cats*

    This thread has educated me and certainly made me laugh today.

    I had a colleague who emailed his team about collaborating with another agency whose initials were WTF. For whatever reason, he decided to use WTF instead of their name throughout the entire message. They still laugh about it 3 years later. I think someone told him later.

    Speaking of moms…mine makes up her own acronyms as well as using LOL inappropriately (like others have stated here.) SYLAAWC…See You Later Alligator, After While Crocodile.

  325. Kimberly*

    I worked at a small museum. The volunteers who ran the gift shop had ordered some Christmas/Holiday cards. One set of cards that were ordered specifically where secular. Some in that set had a Santa or winter theme others were generic happy holidays you could add your personalized message.

    The volunteers went bolistic. According to them, secular was a synonym for sacred. They were on the phone screaming at the vendor about being anti-American (this was the first time I had heard of the War on Christmas, and I live in Texas.) So I went into the museum library and got the big Oxford dictionary. The kind that comes with its stand and is printed on paper roughly equivalent to onion paper or that airmail paper my Mom used to write home to Canada on. I showed them the word secular in the dictionary. They accused me of forging the page. They thought I had gone into the office printed out one two sided page of words and definitions and some how bound them into this thousand page book. It was the last straw – the week before my cousin had sent a link from a hospital page that was a picture of her newborn. They had said it was child porn because it was a picture on the internet of a child. It was just her daughter’s face in close up not a bear rug picture from the 1950s. The board had excused that as they didn’t understand computers. This time not only did I complain and they go to him with the ridiculous story of me forging the dictionary page, but a manager from the vendor called and complained about how their employee was treated. They were not fired but they had to work out of the other building and all communications with vendors had to go through an employee.

  326. Happy Pirate*

    Slightly off topic but it really sets my teeth on edge when people use ‘consume’ in the context of ‘consuming healthcare or podcasts or blogs etc.’. This is SO NOT the meaning of the word. If consume means just ‘utilise or avail the services of’ you could just as easily ‘consume’ a chair by sitting in it or consume a fork by using it to consume your dinner. Ugh…
    Also ‘optics’ is starting to rear its ugly head as a synonym of appearance or public image. Please, no.

    1. The claims examiner*

      Oh my god optics. Make it stop. Why can’t they just say “looks like”? Why wasn’t that good enough???

  327. enr987*

    My mother once received an email from someone she worked with thanking her for her “inciteful” comments on a recent issue. To make matters worse, it was apparently a rather inflammatory issue…

  328. Sci Fi IT Girl*

    Oi – several years ago I was using dictation software (like Siri) to do various documents and sign them. You can train it to use a word of your choosing to be your password – obviously you don’t use the actual password and you pick something you don’t say all the time – then the program enters in your long password. Background – English is my 2nd language. I also had a big newfoundland dog – that I sometimes called Fluffy.

    I morphed that into ‘Fluffer’ as my password verbal. I was batch signing docs so dictating a lot of “fluffer.” I finally I noticed that whoever was at the neighboring computer would giggle (and I mean try so hard to suppress the giggles) when I was signing off documents. Finally one of my coworkers kindly told me what a fluffier does. ::mortified::

    1. Sci Fi IT Girl*

      He quoted Princess Bride “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

  329. JKP*

    When I was in grade school, I overheard my mom’s friend tell her that her kids couldn’t do something because they were playing badminton. Because of the context and her tone of voice when she said it, I thought “playing badminton” meant that someone was pouting or sulking over something. I was a grown adult before anyone questioned my use of the term. I would say things like “Yeah, she’s still playing badminton because she didn’t get that promotion.”

  330. Julie Noted*

    Not an instance of using words incorrectly but of industry jargon not working outside the industry:

    We had a marketing consultant do some stakeholder survey work, and present a report to our very non-marketing executive. She didn’t seem to understand why a room of adults kept dissolving into fits of giggles. One of the headings on the top page was “penetration and satisfaction”.

    1. Anonicat*

      Part of the reason it’s pronounced wireless rOWTer is because Australian engineers, who invented a critical part of wireless tech, kept sniggering every time their American counterparts said rOOTer.

      Root here is very crude slang for sex. Yet somehow there is a suburb in Sydney called Rooty Hill.

      1. biobottt*

        Really? ROWT is a very common pronunciation of route in the US. At least in my region, it’s much more common to pronounce it that way when using route as a verb; for example, “they re-routed traffic.” It’s more likely to hear route pronounced ROOT when it’s a noun.

    2. JustaTech*

      I work in prostate cancer and every time our marketing people talk about “penetration” I have to suppress a snort/giggle.
      If only there were another word!

  331. Lynne*

    In a hospital workgroup with various people reporting out on their part of a group project. One guy had developed a form to monitor progress and was asked “have you shown the doctors your tool?” I did not dare make eye contact with my work Buddy sitting right across from me.

  332. Lynne*

    My favorite nurse story: background info is when starting an IV, if you go through the vein, you’ve “blown the vein”. Co-worker had tried and failed to start an IV on a very elderly man and had to call intern to come try. She met him outside the patient’s room and said “he’s just so hard, I blew him twice”. That was 20 years ago and it still cracks me remembering how she realized what she’d said and the blush just bloomed on her face.

  333. Gazebo Slayer*

    I once worked very briefly for a tiny business whose owner told me to put a “back address” on an envelope. He vocally hated being asked questions about anything and would berate me about my incompetence and laziness if I did, so I didn’t dare go back for clarification. I guessed he meant put an address sticker on the back of the envelope, so I did.

    He apparently didn’t know the phrase “return address” and he’d made up this substitute. Yes, he was a native English speaker.

    I literally ended up in the hospital after a week and a half at that job.

  334. Kat*

    My husband once explained to the extended family why we gave our child a bisexual name (he meant unisex).

  335. M*

    I’ve heard coworkers talk about when the company started using a file storage service called My Box. A colleague led a webinar to explain how to use it. Basically it was full of her explaining things like:
    I just love My Box.
    Ya’ll can put whatever you want in My Box.
    My Box will take anything.
    My Box is never going to fill up.

  336. Drew*

    Not work, but I’ll embarrass my family (if they read this, which they won’t):

    Dad was taking family pictures a couple of years back and, after one particularly good effort, said “That’s the money shot!” Cue my sister and I both saying “NO DO NOT SAY THAT.” (The conversation went downhill from there until my sister got frustrated and explained it in *very* graphic detail while I curled up and died.)

    1. Tableau Wizard*

      apparently I’m naive on this one because I’d have no idea what to object to about “That’s the money shot”

  337. MB*

    I was looped in an email conversation with several people who weren’t native English speakers and one of the sentences that caught my eye was, “Sorry for any incontinence.”

  338. Freddled Gruntbuggly*

    This thread has me laughing, learning (sometimes things I didn’t really want to know!), and discovering yet more previously innocuous phrases which have been dragged into the gutter and must henceforth be eschewed.

    Eggcorns abound: check out http://eggcorns.lascribe.net for almost everything you’ll want to know on the subject.

  339. Jess G*

    I have one! In my last job, a manager and I were dealing with a complex issue requiring several steps to address. We started by coming up with an interim solution. Then she started talking, repeatedly, about how we needed to get working on a… final solution.

  340. Elfie*

    I don’t think this has been mentioned yet – when David Cameron once said “Too many tweets makes a twat!” (although, as a non-Twitter user, I do agree with him!)

  341. GirlInAGreenDress*

    A Canadian colleague once told me (a Brit) that he and his girlfriend were going on a cottaging holiday. I nearly died!
    I had to tell him that ‘cottaging’ has a very different meaning over here.

    1. saffytaffy*

      This is like when my British classmates kept asking me if I like roasts, do I roast often, and I just sat there confused and smiling.

  342. Annie Mouse*

    I once heard a colleague tell the nurse his patient had had a psychadelic episode…

  343. anonintheuk*

    At lunch with a former colleague, who gazed at her steaming bowl of pasta and said ‘I look forward to getting this down my gusset’.

  344. only acting normal*

    We use a lot of acronyms where I work. Once during a presentation a colleague said “BDSM” instead of another combination of those letters. Only two of us listening appeared to notice and started silently shaking with laughter, but maybe we only lost our composure because we caught each other’s eye.

    Worse was my father who used “minge” instead of “whinge” (meaning to whine or complain) when I was a kid, frequently and loudly, in public, even after being told what it meant.

    1. only acting normal*

      My father also thought “barf” meant fart, and wouldn’t be corrected about that either.

      And I have a colleague who says “off piece” – all the damn time – instead of “off piste”.

  345. saffytaffy*

    I wonder if any of my colleagues are going to post here referring to me as “that girl who keeps saying que pasta instead of que pasa”. No one’s ever corrected me to my face, so I HOPE everybody knows it’s just wordplay.

  346. The IT Manager*

    Lots of these make me feel like shaking my fist at “kids these days” turning all kinds of acronyms into dirty words. There seems to be a lot of laughing at people who don’t know the internet generations latest sexual term/acronym or pornographic terminology. That’s mean spirited. It’s one thing to misuse a brand new term (Netflix and chill), but it’s entirely different to giggle when somebody doesn’t know that a term has been changed by “kids these days” to mean something sexual.

    Another one that comes to mind AF to mean as f&$@. AF has been the acronym for Air Force since WWII era. This trendy usage doesn’t replace the original meaning.

  347. Z*

    Related.

    We had a client who wanted to name something “Tig Ole Bitties.” I had to explain to my boss what it meant so he could tell the client “No.”

    1. Bow Ties Are Cool*

      Now I’m desperate to know what sort of thing the client wanted to put that name on…

        1. Z*

          A specific type of trust whose name could show up on tax and other government filings. We now have a blanket policy of naming all of those trusts after the client.

  348. WeShouldHaveKnownBetter*

    I worked on something that had file with a config section, which was named “knobs” until someone from the UK team we worked told us to change it.

  349. SophieChotek*

    I do not drink alcohol — I have an (almost) allergic reaction to it. Anyway, one time I was talking about not drinking alcohol and my mother looked at me and said, “So I guess you are an Abolitionist.” I blinked and said, “Well, yes, I do not believe in slavery.”

    [I guess she was thinking Prohibition –> Teetotaler.]

  350. More Shining*

    I once was talking to the person in our (tech) office who fills the beer fridge about getting some ciders in. One local cidery I particularly like is Maiden Rock, and I misspoke and asked him to order the “Maidenhead Cider”. He looked askance at me and asked me what the name was again. I repeated, loudly in our open floor plan office, “Maidenhead”. One of my friends in the office was DYING, laughing into his sleeve, and I abruptly realized my mistake, blurted out “MAIDEN ROCK” and scurried away.

    My friend still makes fun of me for this. Sadly, we only have Freewheel Cider in our beer fridge now.

  351. An American Auditor in London*

    I’m an American living in London and I didn’t realise that “to table” something means different things. In the US, it means to set something aside (“let’s table that for now…”) but in the UK, it means to bring it to the front of the discussion.

    My first job here was at a very process-led workplace, where meeting agendas were strictly adhered to (for good historical reasons). Once a colleague tried to introduce a topic not on the agenda, and we had a brief discussion and a vote(!) on whether to “table” it. I thought it should wait – so voted with the “table it” side, which won by one vote. I was very surprised when he then started talking and didn’t understand what had happened!

  352. Bow Ties Are Cool*

    At the now defunct company I worked for out of college, near the end of my time there (because the defunct-ness was starting to happen), a bigwig gave a speech at an all-hands meeting about the company’s efforts to eliminate redundancies to save money. Only, throughout the speech, he kept using “duplicity” when context indicated that he meant “duplication”.

    The speech ended with a rousing “There’s a whole lot of duplicity in this company, and we’ll all be better off when it’s eliminated!”

    I thought I was going to pass out from the effort of holding in my laughter.

  353. anyone out there but me*

    Sat in a class recently and had to force myself to stay. I wanted to run out the door because one of the speakers kept saying “fatal death” instead of “fetal death” and “Maylasia” instead of “malaise”……

  354. The claims examiner*

    My husband’s coworker said she was going to give him a “diaphragm” of the “petitions” that we’re going to go up in his office when he got a new cubicle. He said he told her he had no idea what she meant but that he definitely didn’t want to have sex with her.

    Also during one of my summer jobs in college I had to make fried chicken every day so I smelled like it when I came home. Imagine my mother’s surprise when I explained what “chickenhead” means after she used the term to describe me several times.

  355. The claims examiner*

    Oh I have one about myself also. I use “FU” for “follow up” and for “funeral home” in my notes at work. Nobody says anything about it and I’m not going to stop!

    1. Grammar Gal*

      I use FU too! I don’t think it’s that bad, as F U would be the abbreviation that would upset people…

  356. Grammar Gal*

    Many of my coworkers say “Let Bob or I know if you’d like to discuss” or “send your reports to Josie and I by the end of the day” and it drives me insane.

  357. aeldest*

    I had a coworker who was in charge of sending out confirmation emails about appointments– unbeknownst to us, she was sending out emails making sure everything was “set and stoned” for their appointment date! (supposed to be “set in stone”)

    We found out, several months after she started doing this, because someone replied “I’m not stoned right now, but maybe it would make the appointment more enjoyable, LOL!” and coworker read it out loud in the office because it was funny. She just didn’t realize how funny.

  358. saf*

    I work for a church. I have an ongoing problem with a mis-heard and thus mis-used word.

    The meal after a funeral is often called a “repast.” Sadly, we have a bunch of people who think it is a “repass.” They get SO upset when they see it spelled “repast” in an obit or on the program.

  359. CJMster*

    Slightly off-topic but related in my mind, and about a close family member rather than a colleague:

    My relative has mispronounced two important words all my life: Michigan is “Mitch-again” and Washington is “Warsh-ington.” She even lives in Michigan and has for 60 years! But she grew up in rural Indiana, and I assume her odd pronunciations were learned from her parents. I’ve never corrected her, but oh … the urge is strong.

  360. Rhodoferax*

    My boss at the last factory I worked at consistently had ‘scroll up’ and ‘scroll down’ backwards. It made things awkward when we were looking at a document on the same computer because one had to intuit that he meant the opposite of what he was saying, but correcting him would get an angry tirade about how he was right and one was wrong.

  361. Capt. Dunkirk*

    Not a mis-use of a word, but a Lost In Translation situation.
    I had a coworker that spoke English as a second language. One day another coworker was describing someone and said they were “anal”, which, of course, is shorthand for “anal retentive”.
    The non-native English speaker asked, “What does this mean? “Anal”?”
    Someone responded, “Oh you should Google it!”.
    I stepped in an explained the PG version to her before she got a chance.

  362. Ivebeenherebefore*

    My old boss thought it funny that spellcheck offered up Maidenhead as a correction for my last name. I didn’t find it as humorous.

  363. michelel72*

    Last week, my manager was in his office, in a meeting with our testing supervisor. They called me in for a technical question, and in the discussion we all agreed another group had messed something up … but the testing supervisor said they’d “porked it”. I sputtered a bit — the programming supervisor and I will merrily use off-color language with one another in private, but the testing supervisor seems much more staid, so I thought she had just accidentally misstated “borked it” and would probably want to know. She said, no, she’s always heard the term “pork” to mean “mess up” without work-inappropriate connotations. Maybe it really is a Massachusetts North Shore thing ….

  364. Typhon Worker Bee*

    My husband just reminded me about the friend who thought “emasculated” meant “very masculine”. He once told some clients “I love smoking cigars, it makes me feel so emasculated”

    1. nnn*

      That one is interesting, because “effeminate” roughly means “feminine”. But “emasculate” means “make less masculine”. These words really shouldn’t work that way!

  365. Boy Scout*

    At Boy Scout camp one summer, my mother referred to the gathering time around the flag as needing a half hour formating (a bad choice of trying to make a verb from formation).

  366. Beautiful, talented, brilliant, powerful musk ox*

    Dear, slightly naive previous roomie had a manager (who probably knew EXACTLY what he was saying) describe the quick job they did at work as “wham, bam, thank-you-ma’am” and roomie innocently used the term several times before someone corrected her.

  367. Newlywed*

    I had a boss who referred to the “eñe” as the “dildo” multiple times in front of our bilingual client in a meeting. The ñ was a part of the brand’s name, and she kept emphasizing how we should “emphasize the dildo” and use it for branding purposes. I was too new to say anything, and no one else wanted to because (I later learned) they all hated her and thought it was hilarious that she actually thought that was the name of the symbol.

  368. W. S. Gilbert*

    So technically, this was a coworker trying to *avoid* misusing a word:

    My coworker hollered over the cube wall asking me what “onanistic” meant. He’d just read it in a news story and said he figured it was easier asking me than looking it up.

    I told him there was a guy named Onan in the Bible and he sinned. As a contractor working in the client’s office, I wasn’t about to get into the details over a cube wall.

  369. Ace*

    A little late to the party, but ooooof. Here and there I’ve seen people use the word “niggardly.” The honest-to-goodness definition of that word is stingy, but for obvious reasons it is a word best avoided.

  370. Gwenderful*

    My coworker has a habit of using the word putz when she means futz. She was mortified when I told her that she was using the wrong word.

  371. MissCarrion*

    I work as a transcriptionist/medical typist, and generally work for a physician who’s native language isn’t English. Most of the time his English is very good, and he has said many times that if he has something wrong I am to just correct it (we normally are only supposed to type exactly what is dictated). This works well, but I do have a favorite substitution he makes. He consistently subs ‘exacerbated’ and ‘exasperated’. Which is hilarious when he dictates that a patient’s condition is exasperated with cold weather and high winds – me too, medical condition, me too.

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