Exchanges with People that Make Your Brain Hurt

[WillyNilly]

My DH didn't know until a couple of days ago that Kate Bush did a version of "Rocket Man"
 

Oh dear.  Should I confess I have no idea who Kate Bush is?

I also have no idea who Kate Bush is so I too had no idea she covered Rocket Man (nor can I imagine why anyone would want to)... and I watch E! pretty regularly.

[hobish]

My DH didn't know until a couple of days ago that Kate Bush did a version of "Rocket Man"
 

Oh dear.  Should I confess I have no idea who Kate Bush is? 

I'm American and have never heard of her (I thought it might be one of the former President's daughters), but I do know Rocket Man.

Same here.
  Poor JonGirl's head is goig to explode.

[Diane AKA Traska]

My DH didn't know until a couple of days ago that Kate Bush did a version of "Rocket Man"
 

Oh dear.  Should I confess I have no idea who Kate Bush is? 

I'm American and have never heard of her (I thought it might be one of the former President's daughters), but I do know Rocket Man.

Same here.
  Poor JonGirl's head is goig to explode.

Is this where *I* confess that I have no idea who Kate Bush is, nor did even know what Rocket Man was until a recent episode of Big Bang Theory?

[Amava]

My DH didn't know until a couple of days ago that Kate Bush did a version of "Rocket Man"
 

Oh dear.  Should I confess I have no idea who Kate Bush is? 

I'm American and have never heard of her (I thought it might be one of the former President's daughters), but I do know Rocket Man.

Same here.
  Poor JonGirl's head is goig to explode.

Is this where *I* confess that I have no idea who Kate Bush is, nor did even know what Rocket Man was until a recent episode of Big Bang Theory?

I know Kate Bush and I love some of her songs, but I have no idea what Rocket Man even is. A song I suppose? Oh hey, what the hey, I'll look for it on Youtube, I'm curious now.
Y'all should go Youtube Kate Bush, too. She has a very lovely voice. 

[gramma dishes]

My DH didn't know until a couple of days ago that Kate Bush did a version of "Rocket Man"
 

Oh dear.  Should I confess I have no idea who Kate Bush is? 

I'm American and have never heard of her (I thought it might be one of the former President's daughters), but I do know Rocket Man.

Same here.
  Poor JonGirl's head is goig to explode.

Is this where *I* confess that I have no idea who Kate Bush is, nor did even know what Rocket Man was until a recent episode of Big Bang Theory?

I have no idea who either of them are! 

[camlan]

I have an uncommon last name. .  It was Anglicized over 150 years ago when my family emigrated to New York. It is therefore easy to spell and easy to pronounce if you just sound it out phonetically. To my continual amazement, most people insist upon trying to give the name an accent or pronunciation that bears little resemblance to the way my name looks (or how the original version was pronounced or spelled).  Imagine my name looks like Smith, but people insist upon pronouncing it Smeether.

Last week, I was speaking to a group of people who had received multiple emails from me over several months, but this occasion was our first face to face meeting. I introduced myself and a woman interrupted to ask, "Is that REALLY how you pronounce your name? Smith."

Me: "Yes. That is really how I pronounce my name. Smith."

Her: "Are you sure? I thought it was pronounced Smeether."

Me: "I am quite sure of the pronunciation of my own name. Smith."

Her: "Seriously? Are you sure? Smeether sounds better."

Honestly.

The closer I get to Louisiana or Quebec the more "misunderstandings" I get about my last name. I don't mind the do you pronounce your name Herbert  or "Ay Bear" question. It is the people that argue with me that I'm mispronouncing my name - Herbert comes from the British side of the family not the Arcadian.

You really can't tell what country my last name is from. You can tell that what it isn't--it doesn't look German or French or Spanish or Japanese or Chinese or Indian, but there's no real clue as to what ethnicity/country it comes from. It's actually Scottish, but there's no "Mc" or "Mac" on it anywhere.

And it has a double "L" right in the middle, which in Spanish isn't pronounced as an "L" but more as an "y" sort of sound (I don't speak Spanish--this is the closest approximation I could think of). And the double L is surrounded by vowels.

I used to live in an area with a high concentration of native Spanish speakers and bilingual Spanish/English speakers, and was very used to hearing my name mispronounced and mangled. That didn't bother me. What bothered me was that I would tell the person the correct way to say my last name, and they would argue that I was incorrect.

Just mind-boggling.

[renfield1969]

I had the following brain-breaking conversation at a friend's place of work (and art store). She'd popped in to hand over a Halloween costume for one of her colleagues, and while she was doing that, I had a wander around the shop floor.

While I was waiting, one of her other colleagues came over and started to chat with me, and by the time he'd finished, we were BOTH wishing he'd left me to ogle the sharpies...

Him: So, you're from England?
Me: Yes.
Him: Wow - I've never been. So what's London like?
Me: [slightly puzzled] Um - it's a big city. I've been a couple of times.
Him: [eyes widening] So...you don't live there?
Me: Um, no.

So far so fair enough. I don't expect people outside of the UK to necessarily have heard of Bristol (despite the fact that it's a sizeable city with a sizeable place in history), and given the amount of travelling I've done, I am sort of used to the automatic assumption that I must come from London.

Him: [eyes saucer sized now] Oh. Um...so it must be pretty rural where you live, huh?
Me: Um, no.

So...the only big city in England is London and the rest is fields?

Him: [eyes about ready to drop out of his skull now] Oh...so you're from a coal mining area?
Me: Um, not really.

Have to say not really to that one because there *used* to be mining in the Bristol area. But I also knew that this guy wasn't thinking of that, he was thinking of giant spoil tips and huge mines a la Yorkshire and South Wales.

I also boggle completely at the logic says "if not London, fields. If not fields, mines."

Him: [speechless]
Me: I live in Bristol. It's a large city - though I don't think it's the same size as Philadelphia. It's about a hundred miles to the West of London, just before you get to Wales.
Him: [speechless]

And the irony of this, of course, is that this guy was living in a state that was founded by someone who came from...Bristol. *sigh*

My wife and I just got back from Calgary, and a couple times we ran into a conversation that we had a few times when we visited Australia. It didn't really hurt our heads, but it put our personal geography into perspective.

Local person:     Where in the United States are you from?

Us:                     Baltimore, Maryland.

Local person:     ...Where's that?

Us:                     The east coast.

Local person:     ...?

Us:                     We're from New York.

Local person:     Oh! Okay.

[Shoo]

My DH didn't know until a couple of days ago that Kate Bush did a version of "Rocket Man"
 

Oh dear.  Should I confess I have no idea who Kate Bush is? 

I'm American and have never heard of her (I thought it might be one of the former President's daughters), but I do know Rocket Man.

Same here.
  Poor JonGirl's head is goig to explode.

Is this where *I* confess that I have no idea who Kate Bush is, nor did even know what Rocket Man was until a recent episode of Big Bang Theory?

I have no idea who either of them are! 

I'm assuming they are referring to Rocket Man the Elton John song.  No idea who Kate Bush is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2hu2EwCm-k

[PastryGoddess]

I had the following brain-breaking conversation at a friend's place of work (and art store). She'd popped in to hand over a Halloween costume for one of her colleagues, and while she was doing that, I had a wander around the shop floor.

While I was waiting, one of her other colleagues came over and started to chat with me, and by the time he'd finished, we were BOTH wishing he'd left me to ogle the sharpies...

Him: So, you're from England?
Me: Yes.
Him: Wow - I've never been. So what's London like?
Me: [slightly puzzled] Um - it's a big city. I've been a couple of times.
Him: [eyes widening] So...you don't live there?
Me: Um, no.

So far so fair enough. I don't expect people outside of the UK to necessarily have heard of Bristol (despite the fact that it's a sizeable city with a sizeable place in history), and given the amount of travelling I've done, I am sort of used to the automatic assumption that I must come from London.

Him: [eyes saucer sized now] Oh. Um...so it must be pretty rural where you live, huh?
Me: Um, no.

So...the only big city in England is London and the rest is fields?

Him: [eyes about ready to drop out of his skull now] Oh...so you're from a coal mining area?
Me: Um, not really.

Have to say not really to that one because there *used* to be mining in the Bristol area. But I also knew that this guy wasn't thinking of that, he was thinking of giant spoil tips and huge mines a la Yorkshire and South Wales.

I also boggle completely at the logic says "if not London, fields. If not fields, mines."

Him: [speechless]
Me: I live in Bristol. It's a large city - though I don't think it's the same size as Philadelphia. It's about a hundred miles to the West of London, just before you get to Wales.
Him: [speechless]

And the irony of this, of course, is that this guy was living in a state that was founded by someone who came from...Bristol. *sigh*

My wife and I just got back from Calgary, and a couple times we ran into a conversation that we had a few times when we visited Australia. It didn't really hurt our heads, but it put our personal geography into perspective.

Local person:     Where in the United States are you from?

Us:                     Baltimore, Maryland.

Local person:     ...Where's that?

Us:                     The east coast.

Local person:     ...?

Us:                     We're from New York.

Local person:     Oh! Okay.

Hehe, I'm from Baltimore as well.  I usually use Washington DC as a reference

[Diane AKA Traska]

My DH didn't know until a couple of days ago that Kate Bush did a version of "Rocket Man"
 

Oh dear.  Should I confess I have no idea who Kate Bush is? 

I'm American and have never heard of her (I thought it might be one of the former President's daughters), but I do know Rocket Man.

Same here.
  Poor JonGirl's head is goig to explode.

Is this where *I* confess that I have no idea who Kate Bush is, nor did even know what Rocket Man was until a recent episode of Big Bang Theory?

I have no idea who either of them are! 

I'm assuming they are referring to Rocket Man the Elton John song.  No idea who Kate Bush is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2hu2EwCm-k

Elton John?  Is he from Glee?

(KIDDING!)

[Tiamet]

I'm assuming they are referring to Rocket Man the Elton John song.  No idea who Kate Bush is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2hu2EwCm-k

Is Kate Bush one of those UK stars who have never cracked the US market?  She is well known in the UK (perhaps not currently a major star, but certainly famous).  I don't know much about her, but I don't follow many musicians.  I've certainly heard of her.

[Moray]

Ain't the internet grand?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kate_Bush

[norrina]

I had the following brain-breaking conversation at a friend's place of work (and art store). She'd popped in to hand over a Halloween costume for one of her colleagues, and while she was doing that, I had a wander around the shop floor.

While I was waiting, one of her other colleagues came over and started to chat with me, and by the time he'd finished, we were BOTH wishing he'd left me to ogle the sharpies...

Him: So, you're from England?
Me: Yes.
Him: Wow - I've never been. So what's London like?
Me: [slightly puzzled] Um - it's a big city. I've been a couple of times.
Him: [eyes widening] So...you don't live there?
Me: Um, no.

So far so fair enough. I don't expect people outside of the UK to necessarily have heard of Bristol (despite the fact that it's a sizeable city with a sizeable place in history), and given the amount of travelling I've done, I am sort of used to the automatic assumption that I must come from London.

Him: [eyes saucer sized now] Oh. Um...so it must be pretty rural where you live, huh?
Me: Um, no.

So...the only big city in England is London and the rest is fields?

Him: [eyes about ready to drop out of his skull now] Oh...so you're from a coal mining area?
Me: Um, not really.

Have to say not really to that one because there *used* to be mining in the Bristol area. But I also knew that this guy wasn't thinking of that, he was thinking of giant spoil tips and huge mines a la Yorkshire and South Wales.

I also boggle completely at the logic says "if not London, fields. If not fields, mines."

Him: [speechless]
Me: I live in Bristol. It's a large city - though I don't think it's the same size as Philadelphia. It's about a hundred miles to the West of London, just before you get to Wales.
Him: [speechless]

And the irony of this, of course, is that this guy was living in a state that was founded by someone who came from...Bristol. *sigh*

My wife and I just got back from Calgary, and a couple times we ran into a conversation that we had a few times when we visited Australia. It didn't really hurt our heads, but it put our personal geography into perspective.

Local person:     Where in the United States are you from?

Us:                     Baltimore, Maryland.

Local person:     ...Where's that?

Us:                     The east coast.

Local person:     ...?

Us:                     We're from New York.

Local person:     Oh! Okay.

At least this person had the excuse of not being from the US. When I was living and working in North Carolina, I once had a co-worker (born and raised in the town we were working in) ask me upon learning I was from Maine, "Do they speak English there?"

[rose red]

I'm assuming they are referring to Rocket Man the Elton John song.  No idea who Kate Bush is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2hu2EwCm-k

Is Kate Bush one of those UK stars who have never cracked the US market?  She is well known in the UK (perhaps not currently a major star, but certainly famous).  I don't know much about her, but I don't follow many musicians.  I've certainly heard of her.

I've heard of Kate Bush and I've heard Rocket Man many times, and I didn't know she covered that song.   I don't know why that makes the brain hurt.  Is there a back story about the OP's husband I missed?

[elephantschild]

I'm going to snip the quote tree, but it's much the same when you live in parts of New York state that aren't, well, New York City. In fact, I just visited NYC for the first time a few months ago after a lifetime spent in New York state!

A few of mine who grew up in the same hometown (very rural part of the state) went to college out of state and constantly had to deal with people who assumed she was from NYC. When they learned her hometown had more cows than people and one stoplight in the entire municipality, they were dumbfounded. One person actually tried to argue with her that she couldn't have grown up in New York, it must have been Pennsylvania or Ohio or something. 

Trying to explain that I live in a city in New York state that isn't New York City can get brain-hurty as well.