@dave said:
Us British people always find the US liking for the
name Randy very humourous - in English, 'randy' is a slang term, it's
closest meaning in American English would be 'horny'.
Hence we have some Americans failing to make the right impressions with
"Hello I'm Randy!".
Of course the prize for most misunderstood name goes to Randy Bender
(who was a Novell engineer of the month a few years back). In English,
'bender' is a slang term for a homosexual.
Oh, you silly Brits!:)
"Mike Hunt": Man, that brought back memories. When I was a
teen, I called the bowling alley I was in from a pay phone (this was
before cell phones), and asked to speak to "Michael Hunt, oh wait,
better call him Mike". The lady (!) made the page -- oh, the
howls!
One of the most memorable newscasts I've ever seen was around the time
when Toy Story dolls were showing up in stores. One of the
stations in Detroit had an end-of-the-newscast featurette about how hot
(flying off the shelves) these dolls were. At the end of the
featurette, the camera is on the 4-person crew on the set, and the
female anchor asks her co-anchor, "So, do you have a Woodie yet?
How about a Buzz?" He smirks, speechless; the other two guys are
smiling. She turns to the weathercaster, and asks, "How about you
Chuck? Do you have a Woodie?" The three guys are doing the
best they can, but the full grins on their faces show they are dying
inside.
Hopefully, someone explained it to her after they went off air.
And, amazingly, this showed up on one of their "best clips of the year"
shows.
In case someone in the Detroit area is wondering, it was Carmen Harlan (a first-class lady and newsperson) on channel 4 WDIV.