‘What accidentally hilarious misuse of a phrase have you heard?’ – 21 people who made a simple expression very, very funny
12.
‘Now that you mention ghostbusters… I used to know a woman who’d only ever heard the song and thought the refrain was ‘Who you gonna call? Those bastards’.’
–360Saturn
13.
‘I once had a really lovely African colleague, English was her second language and she was brilliant. At Christmas time in the store, unpacking Christmas stock, she pulled out a glittery reindeer from a box and said ‘Oh it’s a… It’s a… Christmas Horse’ so loud that we all heard. Needless to say they’ve been Christmas Horses for me every year now. I miss Gloria.’
–SelmaEggs1
14.
‘I will always remember the time in my early teens when we had a German exchange student. One day I yelled down the stairs that the cat had thrown up on the carpet in his room and my mum yelled back ‘Oh, you’re joking?’ at which point Ingo yelled back in his thick accent: ‘No! I tell you he is not joking!”
–ItsDominare
15.
‘My Romanian ex always referred to incense stick as incest sticks.’
–TweakUnwanted
16.
‘Built like a shit brick house.’
–Taashaaaa
17.
‘My eight-year-old daughter says she is ‘full to the grim’ instead of the brim!’
–Longjumping-Back-270
18.
‘My adult step-daughter comes out with loads of these. She’d heard people saying ‘why do you have to be so cantankerous?’ (because she often is) and she thought the ‘can’ was ‘‘kin’ (when people say fuckin’ and drop the first syllable, like ‘‘kin ‘ell’ for example).
Anyway, she’s spent a couple of months using the word ‘tankerous’ in work before we heard it and corrected her.’
–ThunderSexDonkey
19.
‘A friend must have misheard or misunderstood the expression ‘my bad’*, and has used ‘my bag’ ever since. As in: ‘Oh no, my bag – I thought you asked for tea, not coffee.’ Never had the heart to correct them!
*I think it’s an American expression isn’t it? Usually used as a way to express regret at an error without having to actually utter a real apology.’
–No_Application_8698
20.
‘Not quite a phrase, but my brother in law thought you pronounced ‘meme’ as ‘me-me’, like the word ‘me’ twice.’
–pruaga
21.
‘Our choir director is not a native speaker. She has excellent english skills but sometimes trips up on idioms. We had a nature-themed concert coming up and she was musing over what to call it. She told the choir she was leaning toward calling it ‘The Call of Nature’ (we did explain why we were giggling, at least!).’
–WordWizardx