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Cliffg37 Inner circle Long Beach, CA 2491 Posts |
I was in college when an Arabian man came to speak. This is in the early 1980's. His topic was about poor living conditions in the middle east. He was showing slides of people living homelessly or in meager conditions. One slide showed a group of kids in dirty water trying to drink from pipe dripping dirty water. "There is no water to drink" he said solemnly. At that moment the man who had invited him to speak walked up with a pitcher and glass of water. He had no clue what the guy would say when, it was just hysterically bad timing.
Anyone else seen stuff like that happen?
Magic is like Science,
Both are fun if you do it right! |
MobilityBundle Regular user Las Vegas/Boston 120 Posts |
There's Joe Biden's famous gaffe about asking a person to stand up and be recognized, only to realize that the person was in a wheelchair. Not really a timing thing, but perhaps as cringe-inducing?
A bit more light-hearted story from when I was in college: I was a math major, and at a colloquium or something like that, a French mathematician was giving a talk on something. He didn't have a lot of confidence in his English, and he kept messing up variables in particular. Halfway through the talk, he needed the Greek letter phi, and he didn't know whether it should rhyme with "pie" or "fee." He didn't want to hazard a guess, so he asked the audience how it should be pronounced. One professor, a Cambridge-educated stereotypical old Englishman, said in a very stereotypical English accent, "Well, when I was a lad we had a saying... fee fi fo fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman. So I believe the correct pronunciation is 'fee.'" An American chimed in, noting that there's an American honors society called "fye" beta kappa, so it should be pronounced "fye." A third chimed in, suggesting that physicists say "fye" while mathematicians say "fee." Then the whole thing broke up into mini discussions. I watched in amusement, noting that this was by far the most lively discussion I had ever seen in my (admittedly short) time attending colloquia. As everything died down, and the speaker was still left looking for an answer, finally a voice came from the back: "Well, I think it is 'fee.' There are good thoughts on both sides. But I am Greek, and I feel this should count for something." We went with "fee." |
Art Vanderlay Special user All I Read Was Corinda And Now I Have 642 Posts |
A teacher once addressed his class and made the statement:
"The word Sugar is the only word in the English language where the "Su" is pronounced as an "Sh" A student from the back then shouted out: "Are you sure?" I don't know if it is true but I hope it is!!!
THE MAN WHO CONTROLS THE ELEMENTS!
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ed rhodes Inner circle Rhode Island 2885 Posts |
The last two seem to be examples of really GREAT timing frankly!
"...and if you're too afraid of goin' astray, you won't go anywhere." - Granny Weatherwax
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