[HPforGrownups] another play on words that slipped by me

[Amanda Lewanski]

No: HPFGUIDX 24888

Steve Vander Ark wrote:

<cool snip about fairy lights>

> Makes me wonder how much else I'm missing because I was born on the
> left side of the Atlantic. And how much gets lost in translation for
> other countries!

I know that "Spellotape" is lost on many Americans, because we don't say
"cellotape," we tend to say Scotch tape or something. I had never heard
the usage "cellotape" until I was in college, and someone was relating a
joke a British girl had told them (rather off-color, involving a
chicken, and the punch line was "wrap her in cellotape" and nobody
laughed, because none of us knew what that was).

And related, nobody I knew who read the Hitchhiker's Guide got the joke
about Ford Prefect--we just thought it was funny that he thought such an
odd name would be innocuous. I only found out a few years ago that the
Prefect had been a car marketed by Ford in the UK. They don't have them
over here.

The fairy lights in-joke is marvelous. You're right, I wonder what else
we poor benighted Americans are missing.

--Amanda


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