German teacher: Mmm, ahhh-gentive! It’s like a spicy taco!
Alexandria, Virginia
Overheard by: bekkaroo
German teacher: Mmm, ahhh-gentive! It’s like a spicy taco!
Alexandria, Virginia
Overheard by: bekkaroo
Professor: Does anyone know how to write an underscore in Elvish? In high school my friends and I used to have arguments about how much should be phonetic and how much should be character by character. I would spell ‘tree’ chee, and my friend would spell it tree, and I would say, ‘But the T sounds like a ch–!’ and he would say, ‘That’s because you’re a damn foreigner!’
http://overheardatumbc.com/
Black student #1, to teacher: Ayo, man! Naw, naw [babbles on, but no one can understand].
Teacher: … What?
Black student #2: Man, I’m black and I didn’t even understand that!
Manassas, Virginia
Bimbette #1: Is Norwegian to Swedish like English to Spanish?
Bimbette #2: No, it’s like… Like… It’s like Spanish to Italian.
Bimbette #1: Ohhh. Wait, isn’t Italian a dead language?
Bimbette #2: Ummm, I think that’s Latin.
Bimbette #1: Ohhh. You know, my Spanish teacher once told me I was like the scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz.
Berkeley, California
Overheard by: Denim on Denim
College girl: I’m taking this online Arabic course… Did you know their alphabet is just all, like, smiley faces?
Providence, Rhode Island
PSU freshman (attempting to flirt): Wow, that’s an amazing accent! Is it British?
Cute freshman who says Rs like Ws: Actually, it’s a speech impediment.
http://overheardinpdx.blogspot.com/2008/04/library-flirting.html
Overheard by: ellen
Black professor: Actually, it wasn't neither… Excuse me, I had an Ebonics moment. Please forgive me.
Millsaps College
Jackson, Mississippi
20-ish European guy: So, do you like Angela*?
20-ish Asian guy: We’re pretty good friends, yeah. But what do you mean ‘like’ her?
20-ish European guy: You know — like-like her.
20-ish Asian guy: Oh, no, no, no, no, no! We’re just really good friends. I never really thought of her that way. Why? Do you like-like her?
20-ish European guy: I dunno. I think I like-like her, but I thought you like-liked her. [They walk away, still talking.]Woman: Is it just me or did those foreign guys sound like 12-year-old American girls, but, y’know, with funny accents?
Charity pancake breakfast
Hope, Alaska
Overheard by: I’d say closer to 10
Hipster girl: Oh, look, there's a movie theata here too!
Hipster guy: Movie “theata”? Wow, you do have an accent… but your sister, she's really got an accent!
Hipster girl: Actually, she has a speech impediment.
Boston, Massachusetts
Marine with no game to clearly uninterested sales clerk: And we marines say “semper fi” to each other, do you know what that means?
Sales girl: Yeah, it…
Marine, interrupting: It means “always faithful.” It's like Russian or some shit… No. Maybe Italian… Yeah, it's Italian.
Mall
Birmingham, Alabama
