Awkward Phone Call: A Scientist's Unexpected Encounter

[Alpharup]

I once called my old high school physics tutor by phone. He was not that fluent in English. He needs to be appreciated by me because without him, mechanics would have been much difficult...
Our conversation began and we spoke about some concepts, how life went on and so on...He was talking about his present students and at one point..

Tutor; Mechanics and electro-magnetics are difficult to understand...

(He paused for a second)...


Me(Without any intentions, innocently); For you, sir?

Tutor; No no... For the (present) students..


And so our conversation continued..I think he took it lightly..With a flow, I asked him this awkward question, unknowingly.

Have you faced such an awkward moment on phone?

 

[HayleySarg]

Hehehehe.

I find that such intricacies of humor don't always translate well between cultures and languages.

I had an adviser from the Ukraine who would use Colloquialisms in odd ways.

 

[256bits]

Tutor; Mechanics and electro-magnetics are difficult to understand...

?

The completion of the sentence would be a phrase such as '.. for me.", or, in this case "... for the students." With the completion being left out, it is for the listener to choose 'the best case scenario' taking into account the topic and previous dialogue.

Having said that, how would you have known he wasn't doing a wandering stray jump to another topic and was referring to his dog who was having a difficult time with mechanics and electro-magnetics.

 

[AlephZero]

The most awkward momemt (for the other people involved!) was an unexpected phone call I once had at about 2am. The operator asked me if I would accept a reverse-charge call from a number I have never heard of. I asked who was calling, and after a long pause the operator answered, "It's your father". To which I replied, "I don't think so, he died 20 years ago".

Long silence, then the operator hung up!

 

[strangerep]

The most awkward momemt (for the other people involved!) was an unexpected phone call I once had at about 2am. The operator asked me if I would accept a reverse-charge call from a number I have never heard of. I asked who was calling, and after a long pause the operator answered, "It's your father". To which I replied, "I don't think so, he died 20 years ago".

Long silence, then the operator hung up!

Weird. That's almost word-for-word the same as a dream I once had. Are you sure you weren't having a dream too?