"This week in errors," Issue 3

This feature publicizes the week's most epic/memorable/blush-inducing language fails. This week's issue focuses on students unknowingly saying/writing wildly inappropriate things.

1). In a class, my students were playing "20 questions" about celebrities to practice asking questions about and describing personal characteristics. Nicki Minaj came up (if you don't know who she is, look here), and one of my students asked the student describing her if the person being described "had a big ass." I couldn't believe what I heard, so I asked him to repeat because I was sure I'd heard it wrong (like the time a student said he made a mistake on a PowerPoint because he "was wrong" and I thought he said he "was drunk"). He repeated, and sure enough, he confidently repeated "ass." He didn't realize that was a bad word because he'd learned it as an equivalent to "culo," which technically it is, but it's stronger in English.

2). This comes from one of my roommate's students. Look at #3.

The girl meant to say "hold me" or "pick me up" ("cogerme" in Spain Spanish), but in parts of Latin America, "coger" means "f***," so when she searched "coger" in a translator, that's what she got.

Un saludo,
Teresa