Saying the wrong thing!

[Emp]

Wife just asked how her hair was?

Said it was fine  and jokingly made mention of a bowl.....she's now gone off in a half hearted huff.

To paraphrase Sam Jackson "If my answers upset you do not ask the questions"

Now...i bet i am not the only person here to have fallen into this trap! Least i hope not!

[maryanddavid]

Many years ago, before kids, Mary and myself were on a night out in Dublin at some concert or other. Mary came out ready to head to the do (and looking fantastic), I said that she look great, like something out of a magazine.. the Farmers Journel. Led baloon and all that, but she did see the funny side.

[strontium71]

Literally , just the other day - to a woman at work who's Mother had died a few years back...

'I suppose it'll save you worrying about buying a Mother's Day card then.'

I got quite the glare , but thankfully they know what I'm like at work 

[JayzusB.Christ]

I once sneered at the appallingly drawn picture on a Dutch Gold can, to a girl who then told me her father designed it.

To be fair to me, it was the one on the left.  What was with the triple fanny on his left hand?  And the bubbly neck?  And the stick-on rimless Ben Wilsher shades?  To be fair to Dutch Gold, they've obviously hired a better designer since then. 

[radiator]

Literally , just the other day - to a woman at work who's Mother had died a few years back...

'I suppose it'll save you worrying about buying a Mother's Day card then.'

I got quite the glare , but thankfully they know what I'm like at work 

I take it that you were talking about something else and your comment could have been taking the wrong way, rather than you were deliberately making a joke?

[paddykafka]

I was walking around Dublin city centre a few years back and I met a woman whom I vaguely knew through friends we had in common. We had a very pleasant chat for about ten minutes and then, noting the bulge of her belly through her clothes, I congratulated her on being 'in the family way' as it were and innocently enquired when the child was due.

Her demeanour changed abruptly and with a scowl she replied: "I'm not pregnant!"

Needless to say, our conversation came to a sudden end as she stormed off in disgust.

Ouch!

[Dandontdare]

ha yes, I've done that. I now adopt the Jimmy Carr philosophy when it comes to giving up seats on the bus - "it's better to see a pregnant woman standing than a fat woman crying."

After a very long phone conversation with a  client at work I ended up by taking all the personal details when I innocently asked "is that Miss or Mrs?", to which I got the stony (but still rather feminine) reply "MISTER"

[von Boom]

I've done that in reverse. Speaking to a client I was sure was a man. 'Yes, Mr. ---.' Reply, 'It's Mrs.' 

[JayzusB.Christ]

I was teaching a Chinese teenager, one-to-one, in Beijing.  It was only after three classes I realised 'he' was a girl.  I'm sure I said the wrong thing many, many times during those classes.

[Mardroid]

ha yes, I've done that. I now adopt the Jimmy Carr philosophy when it comes to giving up seats on the bus - "it's better to see a pregnant woman standing than a fat woman crying."

After a very long phone conversation with a  client at work I ended up by taking all the personal details when I innocently asked "is that Miss or Mrs?", to which I got the stony (but still rather feminine) reply "MISTER"

I've had people mistake me for female on the phone. Mind you I often talk quite softly. I even had a gas man call me 'love' once. I'm more amused and a bit embarrassed than outright offended though.

As for pregnant women on buses I would usually give up my seat if she is close to me. (Located physically close, I mean. I don't just give up seats for mates of mine.) I was in an awkward situation once when there was a heavily pregnant woman nearby but there was still a bunch of people even closer to me coking the aisle. I thought of giving her my seat but that would have meant people squeezing past each other and a lot of kerfuffle. Besides there was a seat even closer to her used by a little girl. So I stayed put. (Thinking about it the little girl may have required the seat as much being physically weaker than either me or the pregnant woman, but I tend to empathise less with kiddies, as I figure they're full of beans and can take a bit of standing and can always sit on their parent's lap if they need to sit. I'm not suggesting I'm correct in that estimation though.)

Cue another outspoken woman waxing loudly about the poor pregnant woman left to stand and nobody nearby prepared to do the honours. I don't think she was aiming her comments specifically at me but I felt a bit of a scumbag. And maybe it was right I feel that way.

At least it bothered me, I suppose. Just the other day there were women requesting a standing guy move so the old lady could sit in the empty seat he happened to be blocking. He totally ignored them even when one of them shook his shoulder, staying absorbed in his book. It was as if they did not exist. Now THAT'S selfish. Not that it let's me off the hook. In the end we're only really responsible for our own action/inaction.

[Dandontdare]

I was teaching a Chinese teenager, one-to-one, in Beijing.  It was only after three classes I realised 'he' was a girl.  I'm sure I said the wrong thing many, many times during those classes.

that's okay, you can just blame it on his/her misunderstanding of your language - shift the blame, shift the shame!

When I did my English teaching in France as part of my degree, I had a couple of slip-ups. One young girl said she'd told her dad I was teaching them swear words in class and I had to stop - apparently she'd translated "shut up" (which along with "sit down" was the English phrase they became most familiar with) as the rather rude slang "ta guelle" rather than the more polite and (and intended) "tais toi".

Also, after several weeks I realised that the encouraging "okay" finger and thumb gesture that I was in the habit of using with the smaller kids when they got something right was having the opposite effect because that hand signal means "nul" (zero or worthless) in France.

[Dark Jimbo]

...noting the bulge of her belly through her clothes, I congratulated her on being 'in the family way' as it were and innocently enquired when the child was due.

Her demeanour changed abruptly and with a scowl she replied: "I'm not pregnant!"

Needless to say, our conversation came to a sudden end as she stormed off in disgust.

I've had a variation on that more than once when I worked as a tattooist - the awkward thing is that because you can't tattoo pregnant women, if you had any suspicion whatsoever that a client might be pregnant when she walked in, you simply had to ask her flat out. When the answer was 'no' things always got very awkward.

[The Doctor Alt 8]

Kinda reminds me of this Vid...

http://cheezburger.com/46773505?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+failblog+%28The+FAIL+Blog+-+Fail+Pictures+%26+Videos+at+Failblog.ORG%29

[f4lke]

When i was in my teenage years, i was at my friends house once. At about 18:00 i decided to go home and went downstairs to put my shoes on. I waited for 2 Minuten, then my friend shouted downstairs that he will be there in a second. Just in that moment, his mother comes upstairs from the cellar in front of me and asked me "Are you waiting for Phillip? Is he coming?". My brain needed some seconds to understand this sentence (you know these situations when the other person says something very clearly, but you just need time to process it somewhy). I looked her in the eyes, made a very serious face (remember the processing) and wanted to say "glei", which is a derivation from the german word for "soon" in my province. What i really said was "geil", which is the german word for "Horny".

[Link Prime]

I was at some derivative multi-national conference in Paris a coupla years back.
We were brought outside for some group photos (about a hundred people I think).
As I was in the Hobbit category (being 5'6 and all) I was asked to stand in the front row.

It was a late summer evening, and the particularly bright sunlight was causing my eyes to water as we stood there like grinning sheep.
After about 5 excruciating minutes, I turned to my left and commented to the person beside me; "This is like bloody Chinese torture!"

No prizes for guessing where that person was from...