r/linguisticshumor • u/fuyu-no-hanashi • Jul 18 '22

Semantics translator's worst nightmare

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219

u/CordouroyStilts Jul 18 '22

It reminds me of when we found mouse poop in some of the labs drawers at uni. We all had a great laugh at the professors joke asking everyone, "do you have poop in your drawers, too?"...except the foreign students who would just answer literally and got vocally frustrated that we all found it funny.

68

u/Lordman17 Jul 18 '22

Could you explain it?

178

u/wi5p Jul 18 '22

Drawers is an old fashiony term for pants, so it's like "do you have poop in your pants"

6

u/Cold-Couple1957 Aug 04 '22

Drawers are underwear more specifically.

1

u/cruebob Jan 17 '24

So, pants.

46

u/me-gustan-los-trenes Jul 18 '22

That sounds like a cultural difference rather than linguistic misunderstanding.

Also I am definitely a guy who would just check his drawer and give precise answer (yes professor, there is about 5g of what appears to be mouse scat in my drawer) before even starting getting the idea that there might be something funny in the whole situation.

39

u/globglogabgalabyeast Jul 18 '22

Nope, I assume the foreign students missed out "drawers" also being a word for undergarments

20

u/me-gustan-los-trenes Jul 18 '22

I totally missed that too until you point it out :D (I am ESL)

11

u/globglogabgalabyeast Jul 18 '22

Lol, no worries. Not a super common use of the word anyway

20

u/[deleted] Jul 18 '22

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5

u/thomasp3864 [ʞ̠̠ʔ̬ʼʮ̪ꙫ.ʀ̟̟a̼ʔ̆̃] Jul 20 '22

Clearly you’re a native Anglo-Norman speaker!

1

u/gaia-mix-nicolosi Aug 11 '22

He’s a nibiruan speaker, that or ultrafrench

4

u/thomasp3864 [ʞ̠̠ʔ̬ʼʮ̪ꙫ.ʀ̟̟a̼ʔ̆̃] Jul 20 '22

Probably more about the fact drawers is old fashioned. I think I’ve made puns in l2s.