My uncle turned up drunk for my wedding reception. He’d got the venue wrong and had already spent an hour at a different wedding reception eating and drinking, easy to do at Indian weddings with a huge number of guests.
But that’s only half the story. He’d got the date wrong too, and had already done the whole thing the night before.
Something like this has also happened to me when in holiday in Spain. I was looking around nice buildings open to the public, and entered one that I later found out happened to be a university. Walking around I entered one very well decorated hall, also because it started to rain and had to wait somewhere until it passed. To my horror, more people started coming in as well and I realized I was in for some sort of book or thesis presentation on the subject of Spanish language on the Balearic islands.
I barely speak Castilian Spanish (the more common one) and it was instead in Catalan Spanish, so I didn't understand a word, but stayed for the 1-2 hours it took, clapped, and skipped the handshakes/signing part of it.
FYI naming it Catalan Spanish would be akin to naming Welsh as Welsh English. Catalan and Spanish (also known as Castilian) are two different languages, like French and Italian.
So it's normal that you didn't understand much, as even it having some words that are similar the tonalities and some of the constructs are very different.
And they might have been speaking in Balearic, which is a Catalan dialect, and that's sometimes even harder to understand.
I don’t think it is akin; Welsh is almost completely different to English with only a few modern words in common. Just try reading some Welsh as an English speaker. It’s unintelligible.
Catalan is very much a Latinate language, and anyone who speaks Spanish or Italian or French (or even English) can guess the meaning of a lot of words and understand the grammar quite easily.
I had a similar experience in Monza, Italy. Was taking a walk around some old church and a guy was giving an explanation in English so I stopped to listen. They started ushering the entire group into the crypts underground so I just went with the flow.
While showing us where the dead bodies were stored the guy said something like “but you’re all doctors so I’m sure you’re used to it” was when I realised this was an organised event.
I thought this was the difference between the laid back European culture vs the more, um… detailed mindset of the Far east one I grew up in. The Italians probably didn’t care if there were strays while the Singaporean or Japanese organisers would be doing a headcount at every stop.
Doug Englebart and Ted Nelson came to give a lecture at my university when I was a student. I was busy in the lab and engrossed in my work, and realised the time 5 minutes after the talk was due to begin. I was too embarrassed to walk in late, so to my eternal regret I didn't go. I'm more comfortable with that sort of situation now, but I can appreciate the desire not to make a scene.
Haha yeah, same here—I totally get that feeling. Sometimes the best stories end up being the ones we didn’t live through, because we keep replaying the “what if” in our heads. At least we can laugh about it now, and share it here. Makes me feel a bit better knowing I wasn’t the only one who missed out.
I attended a funeral for the family member of a friend of mine. After the funeral we all were to convene at his sister's house. Because of the crowds I parked half a block away and found myself in a group of similarly dressed people walking towards what I remembered to be her house. After maybe 5 minutes of not recognizing anyone, someone simply says "who are you", and after explaining my relation to the deceased, my error became apparent.
This is a weird comment to make when the original comment didn't mention anxiety at all, and wasn't even worded like it was a bad experience or that they felt they were forced to stay there. Maybe they had nothing better to do, they were waiting out the rain after all.
Many years ago I took a look at my high school senior yearbook for the first time since I’d graduated. I spotted a note from a girl asking me to call her after graduation.
I didn’t remember the name (first name only), and the phone number was from a different town 20-30 miles from my high school. Unfortunately I don’t believe I still have the yearbook, so it shall forever remain a mystery. I literally had, and have, no clue.
Yeah! He didn't want to appear rude by just walking out, so he stayed it's been all over the local TV News - he looks a tall guy so yes, he'd definitely be noticed making a sneaky exit!
That being said, it seems like he might be better at blending in than he gives himself credit for:
>You can’t exactly stand up and walk out of a wedding mid-ceremony, so I just had to commit to this act and spent the next 20 minutes awkwardly sitting there trying to be as inconspicuous as my 6ft 2 ass could be
And yet, no one actually seemed to notice him other than the photographer (who presumably didn't know most of the guests beforehand), and the bride and groom only found out he was there because the photographer took a number of pictures with him.
The article clearly explains it: He rushed in, the ceremony started, and then he realized he was at the wrong wedding.
Once the ceremony starts, you stay quiet. Getting up and leaving from aisle seat while the wedding party is coming down the aisle would have been a jerk move.
When I was an intern years ago I went to an event at a hotel in LA. I didn't know what room the event was in, so I approached the concierge, described the event I was there for, and he immediately whisked me to an upper floor, where I began to talk with the other guests. It took about 10 minutes for me to realize that while the people there were also interns, and we were in the same field, they were from a particular company, whereas my event was for an industry group. They had just been flown in from all over the country, so it didn't seem odd to them to see a new face (we were all new faces).
I eventually realized the error and quietly excused myself to look for the industry group meeting (which sadly lacked the delicious catered food and open bar that the first event had). Fortunately I made my exit before the higher-ups had arrived, as they would have quickly realized I was in the wrong place.
I'm not sure I understand this correctly but did they mean just the wedding and not the wedding reception?
In my corner of the world it's still fairly normal to have people attempt to crash a wedding reception and it's typically the role of the best man to bribe them with offerings like a shot of vodka or treats.
I have a distinct memory of my friend's father in law, a man close to 2m tall, walking forward, vodka bottle in one hand, shot glass in the other, while the uninvited guest, with just a shot glass, walking backwards towards the gate to the venue where the reception was held.
On the flip side one night over a decade ago I was out on a walk with my SO when we overheard some rowdy people. We wanted to avoid them, but they caught up to us and it turned out that this was an after-party after their wedding reception. They invited us to join them to enjoy the leftovers with everyone.
Yes, just the ceremony, not the reception. He left as soon as he could (after being held up for the group photo) to attend the wedding he was supposed to be at.
When my father left us, a cousine of mine (from my mother's sise) got confused and parked a couple blocks away. She entered the house where people were mourning, and she realised the people she didn't recognise had to be from my father's side.
Then she approached the casket and leapt forward exclaiming "I'll miss you, Uncle", only to find a lady laying inside.
this happened to my mother-in-law, where she was the crasher.
in North London there is a large Turkish centre that hosts Turkish weddings. She was invited to a wedding there.
Traditionally, the bride and groom stand in the centre of the room and then family members lineup next to them all in a procession.
As you enter the room to reach the bride and groom, you must shake the hands in turn of all of the people in the procession.
When my mother-in-law eventually got to the bride and groom, they realised that the bride and groom were strangers. The accurate wedding was taking place upstairs at the same time.
There are multiple wedding venues in that particular Turkish Centre.
I woke up one morning in college and thought I had overslept. I threw on clothes and ran from my dorm to my class. I walked in two minutes late and grabbed an open seat on the front row, right in front of the teacher.
I didn't recognize anyone and soon realize that I hadn't overslept and was just an hour early. I was too embarrassed to get up and walk out so I sat through the class.
A student once arrived, disheveled and with 20 minutes left, to a midterm. I gave him a stern look and a copy of the exam. While I was grading the exam, I discovered with slight horror that he'd showed up to the first of two classes that I was teaching back to back in the same room -- he was enrolled in the second, and had arrived 30 minutes early. Horror turned to joy as I failed to find a single error on his exam. We had a good laugh as I returned his exam; he was justifiably proud and only slightly embarrassed.
I had a roommate back in college that was a devoutly religious catholic. We went out drinking one Saturday night and he started talking about church (I was and still am irreligious). He convinced me to go with him to mass the next morning.
Next morning we get up, get dressed, drive to the church and walk in all hung over. I hadn't ever been in a catholic church before but it was a huge crowd already seated and there were no seats in the back. The priest was up front speaking. So we walk through the pews looking for a seat and get all the way to the front before we find one. Everyone is staring at us. We sit down. The priest said a few words and I think there was a prayer and like 5 minutes after we sat down everyone got up to leave.
It was daylight savings time change and we hadn't adjusted our clocks being drunk college students. That was my one experience attending mass.
In the Episcopal Church (of the U.S.), and doubtless in others, my understanding has always been that wedding ceremonies are just as open to the public as any other church service. [0]
(In contrast, the reception would be a private event.)
The guy made an honest mistake - like that time I mistakenly stayed in the bar across the street from one wedding venue (that I had been invited to) and then tried to mingle with the crowd once they came out.
I am something of a professional gatecrasher, which is a skill I picked up from a friend many years ago.
Interesting event happening as you’re walking past? Just walk on in, look like you belong, see where it goes. That or carry around a hi vis vest - they fold up tiny and can live in a jacket pocket unnoticeably, and they will allow you access anywhere. Occasionally I’ve had to doodle “STEWARD” or similar on the back. Back in the pocket once you’re in, or you’ll be rigging lighting or serving drinks.
Through this I have ended up with friends, work, and anecdotes galore.
I’ve also been chucked out of a few things but that’s definitely the minority - most of the time when people are like “so are you with the royal brigadiers…?” I’ll just say “no, I’m gatecrashing”, and they assume I’m joking until they realise I’m not, but by that point we’re already on our fourth round.
There was an even crazier story when someone was fired from Apple, but still kept coming to the office to work on their project for free for like half a year before someone noticed.
Or the stories about Musk firing people for the smallest nuissance, and then their immediate superior sending the "fired" person to another department the day after - next time Musk would see that person and not remember he "fired" them
I don't understand the dig here. Is that that Elon is required to memorize the face of every single person he interacts with? That he isn't allowed to fire people he manages when he sees behavior or actions that don't align with what he wants in his orgs?
Also, what exactly is the source of this information? I spent multiple minutes googling for an anecdote of him firing someone for a small nuissance, or firing someone and then not recognizing them later, or firing someone and then them getting surreptitiously moved to a different department.
I'm fine if this actually happened, Elon definitely sucks. But otherwise this just feels like weird middle school gossip.
Weren't there also stories of people being afraid of stepping into elevators with Steve Jobs? He'd ask them about the work they were doing and if the answer didn't please Jobs he'd fire them
I had something like this happen to you me once, though not at Apple.
I was quite young in my career and ended up on an elevator with the CEO. I got super nervous and just started running my mouth about something I perceived as a problem within the organization (!).
On Monday he called me into his office and reamed me. Though I don't think chewing a young employee out in such a situation is the best approach, I'd say I at least deserved a, "Ok, listen youngster..." sort of dressing down.
My boss pulled me aside later and said, "Don't ever talk to a CEO. Nothing good can come from it." I followed that advice the rest of my career.
Something similar happened to me in college. I got to my class late, and there was only one seat left, in the middle of the row in the large auditorium, so I had to make a big commotion getting to it. I finally sit down and pull out my notes, only to realize that whatever this substitute teacher was talking about was totally Greek to me. After a while, it dawned on me - I wasn’t late for class, I was super early! Since I made such a commotion getting to the seat, and since I didn’t want to do that again, I just sat there and pretended to take notes. My class was the one after, and I left the room when everyone else did, went to the bathroom, then came back, just so no one would notice that I was going to the much more junior class right after. :D
While Catalan speakers would be very unlikely to say "Catalan Spanish", there is a conception that there are many "lenguas españolas" (Spanish languages, as in languages that are part of the country of Spain). In this formulation even Basque is a "Spanish language" (as a language of Spain), even though it isn't linguistically related to Castilian Spanish.
Notably, the constitution of Spain uses this phrasing in its article 3:
1. El castellano es la lengua española oficial del Estado. Todos los españoles tienen el deber de conocerla y el derecho a usarla.
2. Las demás lenguas españolas serán también oficiales en las respectivas Comunidades Autónomas de acuerdo con sus Estatutos.
3. La riqueza de las distintas modalidades lingüísticas de España es un patrimonio cultural que será objeto de especial respeto y protección.
In English:
1. Castilian is the official Spanish language of the state. All Spaniards have the duty to know it and the right to use it.
2. The other Spanish languages are also official in their respective Autonomous Communities, in accordance with their Statutes.
3. The richness of the different linguistic modalities of Spain is a cultural heritage which shall be accorded particular respect and protection.
I've heard a minority of (seemingly highly educated) people prefer to say "Castellano" instead of "Español", maybe as a deliberate reference to this concept.
While "Catalan Spanish" is certainly a nonstandard term, when contrasted against "Castilian Spanish" it does make some sense: it's the Romance variant that developed in the Catalonia part of Spain, vs the one that developed in Castile.
I see the point. But it hangs on a thin string. One more stretch and you'd get "west-side Spanish" for Portuguese, or some sort of "gaelic Spanish" for Occitan.
I learned Spanish in Madrid - there's definitely no Catalan dialect of Spanish - it's either/or. And the northeastern Spanish accent is perfectly understandable (unlike, say, Galicia or Andalusia).
So it's surprising that OP thought Catalan was a version of Spanish, because it's completely unintelligible to anyone who learned Spanish as a second language (like myself) - not sure about native speakers. I can't even pronounce the street names in Barcelona when I visit.
> it's completely unintelligible to anyone who learned Spanish
This is wild. The languages share a lot of vocabulary and grammar.
> I can't even pronounce the street names in Barcelona when I visit.
This is also wild. I can see there are some words like "passeig" and "plaça" which aren't immediately familiar, but they're not far from the Spanish equivalents. And you could have a good shot at pronouncing many other streets like "Gran Via" and "Diagonal".
Scottish bloke rocks up to the wrong wedding, simple mistake.
Top thread on HN riffs on Catalan independence. To be fair, Scotland and Catalonia both cite each other as exemplars.
For me, I'm fighting for Wessex's independence from England and hence Britain oh and the UK. Eventually I'll fight for Somerset, then Yeovil and finally Brunswick Street. Not sure how it will all work.
Nominative tribalism can be a force for good or bad but rarely makes a useful contribution to an article about a daft mistake that has a heart warming finale.
My uncle turned up drunk for my wedding reception. He’d got the venue wrong and had already spent an hour at a different wedding reception eating and drinking, easy to do at Indian weddings with a huge number of guests.
But that’s only half the story. He’d got the date wrong too, and had already done the whole thing the night before.
Three wedding receptions in two days. Not many people would have done that even when actually invited to all three.
Hardcore!
So the night before, was he at the wrong venue as well?
Yes, I believe the same venue that he first went to on the second night, so the wrong one.
Something like this has also happened to me when in holiday in Spain. I was looking around nice buildings open to the public, and entered one that I later found out happened to be a university. Walking around I entered one very well decorated hall, also because it started to rain and had to wait somewhere until it passed. To my horror, more people started coming in as well and I realized I was in for some sort of book or thesis presentation on the subject of Spanish language on the Balearic islands.
I barely speak Castilian Spanish (the more common one) and it was instead in Catalan Spanish, so I didn't understand a word, but stayed for the 1-2 hours it took, clapped, and skipped the handshakes/signing part of it.
FYI naming it Catalan Spanish would be akin to naming Welsh as Welsh English. Catalan and Spanish (also known as Castilian) are two different languages, like French and Italian.
So it's normal that you didn't understand much, as even it having some words that are similar the tonalities and some of the constructs are very different.
And they might have been speaking in Balearic, which is a Catalan dialect, and that's sometimes even harder to understand.
I don’t think it is akin; Welsh is almost completely different to English with only a few modern words in common. Just try reading some Welsh as an English speaker. It’s unintelligible.
Catalan is very much a Latinate language, and anyone who speaks Spanish or Italian or French (or even English) can guess the meaning of a lot of words and understand the grammar quite easily.
I had a similar experience in Monza, Italy. Was taking a walk around some old church and a guy was giving an explanation in English so I stopped to listen. They started ushering the entire group into the crypts underground so I just went with the flow.
While showing us where the dead bodies were stored the guy said something like “but you’re all doctors so I’m sure you’re used to it” was when I realised this was an organised event.
I thought this was the difference between the laid back European culture vs the more, um… detailed mindset of the Far east one I grew up in. The Italians probably didn’t care if there were strays while the Singaporean or Japanese organisers would be doing a headcount at every stop.
Couldn't you just leave? Like what if you had genuinely been there intentionally but had an emergency at home? People understand
Doug Englebart and Ted Nelson came to give a lecture at my university when I was a student. I was busy in the lab and engrossed in my work, and realised the time 5 minutes after the talk was due to begin. I was too embarrassed to walk in late, so to my eternal regret I didn't go. I'm more comfortable with that sort of situation now, but I can appreciate the desire not to make a scene.
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Yes of course but most don’t think that
Haha yeah, same here—I totally get that feeling. Sometimes the best stories end up being the ones we didn’t live through, because we keep replaying the “what if” in our heads. At least we can laugh about it now, and share it here. Makes me feel a bit better knowing I wasn’t the only one who missed out.
I attended a funeral for the family member of a friend of mine. After the funeral we all were to convene at his sister's house. Because of the crowds I parked half a block away and found myself in a group of similarly dressed people walking towards what I remembered to be her house. After maybe 5 minutes of not recognizing anyone, someone simply says "who are you", and after explaining my relation to the deceased, my error became apparent.
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This is a weird comment to make when the original comment didn't mention anxiety at all, and wasn't even worded like it was a bad experience or that they felt they were forced to stay there. Maybe they had nothing better to do, they were waiting out the rain after all.
If its a lecture hall, Leaving may make them VERY noticable and force others to move to let them through.
Imagine having a final thesis presentation only for one of the facualty leave mid presentation without a word.
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Many years ago I took a look at my high school senior yearbook for the first time since I’d graduated. I spotted a note from a girl asking me to call her after graduation.
I didn’t remember the name (first name only), and the phone number was from a different town 20-30 miles from my high school. Unfortunately I don’t believe I still have the yearbook, so it shall forever remain a mystery. I literally had, and have, no clue.
What a classy move to quietly ride it out and avoid doing anything to distract from the ceremony.
Yeah! He didn't want to appear rude by just walking out, so he stayed it's been all over the local TV News - he looks a tall guy so yes, he'd definitely be noticed making a sneaky exit!
That being said, it seems like he might be better at blending in than he gives himself credit for:
>You can’t exactly stand up and walk out of a wedding mid-ceremony, so I just had to commit to this act and spent the next 20 minutes awkwardly sitting there trying to be as inconspicuous as my 6ft 2 ass could be
And yet, no one actually seemed to notice him other than the photographer (who presumably didn't know most of the guests beforehand), and the bride and groom only found out he was there because the photographer took a number of pictures with him.
"Wrong wedding <leaves>" could have removed the tension of most weddings?
The article clearly explains it: He rushed in, the ceremony started, and then he realized he was at the wrong wedding.
Once the ceremony starts, you stay quiet. Getting up and leaving from aisle seat while the wedding party is coming down the aisle would have been a jerk move.
When I was an intern years ago I went to an event at a hotel in LA. I didn't know what room the event was in, so I approached the concierge, described the event I was there for, and he immediately whisked me to an upper floor, where I began to talk with the other guests. It took about 10 minutes for me to realize that while the people there were also interns, and we were in the same field, they were from a particular company, whereas my event was for an industry group. They had just been flown in from all over the country, so it didn't seem odd to them to see a new face (we were all new faces).
I eventually realized the error and quietly excused myself to look for the industry group meeting (which sadly lacked the delicious catered food and open bar that the first event had). Fortunately I made my exit before the higher-ups had arrived, as they would have quickly realized I was in the wrong place.
I'm not sure I understand this correctly but did they mean just the wedding and not the wedding reception?
In my corner of the world it's still fairly normal to have people attempt to crash a wedding reception and it's typically the role of the best man to bribe them with offerings like a shot of vodka or treats.
I have a distinct memory of my friend's father in law, a man close to 2m tall, walking forward, vodka bottle in one hand, shot glass in the other, while the uninvited guest, with just a shot glass, walking backwards towards the gate to the venue where the reception was held.
On the flip side one night over a decade ago I was out on a walk with my SO when we overheard some rowdy people. We wanted to avoid them, but they caught up to us and it turned out that this was an after-party after their wedding reception. They invited us to join them to enjoy the leftovers with everyone.
Yes, just the ceremony, not the reception. He left as soon as he could (after being held up for the group photo) to attend the wedding he was supposed to be at.
When my father left us, a cousine of mine (from my mother's sise) got confused and parked a couple blocks away. She entered the house where people were mourning, and she realised the people she didn't recognise had to be from my father's side. Then she approached the casket and leapt forward exclaiming "I'll miss you, Uncle", only to find a lady laying inside.
this happened to my mother-in-law, where she was the crasher.
in North London there is a large Turkish centre that hosts Turkish weddings. She was invited to a wedding there.
Traditionally, the bride and groom stand in the centre of the room and then family members lineup next to them all in a procession.
As you enter the room to reach the bride and groom, you must shake the hands in turn of all of the people in the procession.
When my mother-in-law eventually got to the bride and groom, they realised that the bride and groom were strangers. The accurate wedding was taking place upstairs at the same time.
There are multiple wedding venues in that particular Turkish Centre.
You just reminded me how awesome the wedding scenes were in the Diriliş: Ertuğrul TV show. [1]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlaVdEv74NU&ab_channel=TRTDr...
I woke up one morning in college and thought I had overslept. I threw on clothes and ran from my dorm to my class. I walked in two minutes late and grabbed an open seat on the front row, right in front of the teacher.
I didn't recognize anyone and soon realize that I hadn't overslept and was just an hour early. I was too embarrassed to get up and walk out so I sat through the class.
A student once arrived, disheveled and with 20 minutes left, to a midterm. I gave him a stern look and a copy of the exam. While I was grading the exam, I discovered with slight horror that he'd showed up to the first of two classes that I was teaching back to back in the same room -- he was enrolled in the second, and had arrived 30 minutes early. Horror turned to joy as I failed to find a single error on his exam. We had a good laugh as I returned his exam; he was justifiably proud and only slightly embarrassed.
I had a roommate back in college that was a devoutly religious catholic. We went out drinking one Saturday night and he started talking about church (I was and still am irreligious). He convinced me to go with him to mass the next morning.
Next morning we get up, get dressed, drive to the church and walk in all hung over. I hadn't ever been in a catholic church before but it was a huge crowd already seated and there were no seats in the back. The priest was up front speaking. So we walk through the pews looking for a seat and get all the way to the front before we find one. Everyone is staring at us. We sit down. The priest said a few words and I think there was a prayer and like 5 minutes after we sat down everyone got up to leave.
It was daylight savings time change and we hadn't adjusted our clocks being drunk college students. That was my one experience attending mass.
This reads almost like a scene from the IT Crowd.
“The Work Outing”, the episode with a vaguely similar plot which made me cry with laughter the first time I saw it, is available for free on Youtube: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cj490uNht4o&pp=ygUVaXQgY3Jvd2Q...
The scene where Maurice finds himself behind the bar serving drink had me crying in laughter
"I'm disabled" still makes me giggle just thinking of it.
Or Harold and Maude obsessed with weddings instead of funerals.
In the Episcopal Church (of the U.S.), and doubtless in others, my understanding has always been that wedding ceremonies are just as open to the public as any other church service. [0]
(In contrast, the reception would be a private event.)
[0] https://www.episcopalchurch.org/glossary/celebration-and-ble...
Same is true for the Catholic Church. Weddings and funerals are both open to the public if anyone in the community should wish to attend.
The guy made an honest mistake - like that time I mistakenly stayed in the bar across the street from one wedding venue (that I had been invited to) and then tried to mingle with the crowd once they came out.
I am something of a professional gatecrasher, which is a skill I picked up from a friend many years ago.
Interesting event happening as you’re walking past? Just walk on in, look like you belong, see where it goes. That or carry around a hi vis vest - they fold up tiny and can live in a jacket pocket unnoticeably, and they will allow you access anywhere. Occasionally I’ve had to doodle “STEWARD” or similar on the back. Back in the pocket once you’re in, or you’ll be rigging lighting or serving drinks.
Through this I have ended up with friends, work, and anecdotes galore.
I’ve also been chucked out of a few things but that’s definitely the minority - most of the time when people are like “so are you with the royal brigadiers…?” I’ll just say “no, I’m gatecrashing”, and they assume I’m joking until they realise I’m not, but by that point we’re already on our fourth round.
> That or carry around a hi vis vest - they fold up tiny and can live in a jacket pocket unnoticeably, and they will allow you access anywhere.
Probably won't work as well at a wedding.
Tuxedo works fine for a wedding. I'm a wedding musician, so I'm often in a tux, and nobody questions it.
Let's hear some stories!
There was an even crazier story when someone was fired from Apple, but still kept coming to the office to work on their project for free for like half a year before someone noticed.
Or the stories about Musk firing people for the smallest nuissance, and then their immediate superior sending the "fired" person to another department the day after - next time Musk would see that person and not remember he "fired" them
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I don't understand the dig here. Is that that Elon is required to memorize the face of every single person he interacts with? That he isn't allowed to fire people he manages when he sees behavior or actions that don't align with what he wants in his orgs?
Also, what exactly is the source of this information? I spent multiple minutes googling for an anecdote of him firing someone for a small nuissance, or firing someone and then not recognizing them later, or firing someone and then them getting surreptitiously moved to a different department.
I'm fine if this actually happened, Elon definitely sucks. But otherwise this just feels like weird middle school gossip.
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Weren't there also stories of people being afraid of stepping into elevators with Steve Jobs? He'd ask them about the work they were doing and if the answer didn't please Jobs he'd fire them
I had something like this happen to you me once, though not at Apple.
I was quite young in my career and ended up on an elevator with the CEO. I got super nervous and just started running my mouth about something I perceived as a problem within the organization (!).
On Monday he called me into his office and reamed me. Though I don't think chewing a young employee out in such a situation is the best approach, I'd say I at least deserved a, "Ok, listen youngster..." sort of dressing down.
My boss pulled me aside later and said, "Don't ever talk to a CEO. Nothing good can come from it." I followed that advice the rest of my career.
Oh and the CEO canceled my end of year bonus. :)
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Are you perhaps referring to this?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33229793
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GMyg5ohTsVY
Aside from Craigs talk which i think never was released publicly my favorite talk
I thought “whoops, wrong wedding” was a little anti-climactic.
It's a cute just so story. Maybe not super interesting, but a fun read
Something similar happened to me in college. I got to my class late, and there was only one seat left, in the middle of the row in the large auditorium, so I had to make a big commotion getting to it. I finally sit down and pull out my notes, only to realize that whatever this substitute teacher was talking about was totally Greek to me. After a while, it dawned on me - I wasn’t late for class, I was super early! Since I made such a commotion getting to the seat, and since I didn’t want to do that again, I just sat there and pretended to take notes. My class was the one after, and I left the room when everyone else did, went to the bathroom, then came back, just so no one would notice that I was going to the much more junior class right after. :D
Seinfeld episode if I ever seen one, something something Kramer with some side shenanigans...
You may be referring to Catalan language. I'm not aware of any "Catalan variant" of Spanish.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
While Catalan speakers would be very unlikely to say "Catalan Spanish", there is a conception that there are many "lenguas españolas" (Spanish languages, as in languages that are part of the country of Spain). In this formulation even Basque is a "Spanish language" (as a language of Spain), even though it isn't linguistically related to Castilian Spanish.
Notably, the constitution of Spain uses this phrasing in its article 3:
1. El castellano es la lengua española oficial del Estado. Todos los españoles tienen el deber de conocerla y el derecho a usarla.
2. Las demás lenguas españolas serán también oficiales en las respectivas Comunidades Autónomas de acuerdo con sus Estatutos.
3. La riqueza de las distintas modalidades lingüísticas de España es un patrimonio cultural que será objeto de especial respeto y protección.
In English:
1. Castilian is the official Spanish language of the state. All Spaniards have the duty to know it and the right to use it.
2. The other Spanish languages are also official in their respective Autonomous Communities, in accordance with their Statutes.
3. The richness of the different linguistic modalities of Spain is a cultural heritage which shall be accorded particular respect and protection.
I've heard a minority of (seemingly highly educated) people prefer to say "Castellano" instead of "Español", maybe as a deliberate reference to this concept.
> I've heard a minority of (seemingly highly educated) people prefer to say "Castellano" instead of "Español"
I would expect castellano in Spain, and español in the Americas. Does this align with your experience?
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While "Catalan Spanish" is certainly a nonstandard term, when contrasted against "Castilian Spanish" it does make some sense: it's the Romance variant that developed in the Catalonia part of Spain, vs the one that developed in Castile.
I see the point. But it hangs on a thin string. One more stretch and you'd get "west-side Spanish" for Portuguese, or some sort of "gaelic Spanish" for Occitan.
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I learned Spanish in Madrid - there's definitely no Catalan dialect of Spanish - it's either/or. And the northeastern Spanish accent is perfectly understandable (unlike, say, Galicia or Andalusia).
So it's surprising that OP thought Catalan was a version of Spanish, because it's completely unintelligible to anyone who learned Spanish as a second language (like myself) - not sure about native speakers. I can't even pronounce the street names in Barcelona when I visit.
> it's completely unintelligible to anyone who learned Spanish
This is wild. The languages share a lot of vocabulary and grammar.
> I can't even pronounce the street names in Barcelona when I visit.
This is also wild. I can see there are some words like "passeig" and "plaça" which aren't immediately familiar, but they're not far from the Spanish equivalents. And you could have a good shot at pronouncing many other streets like "Gran Via" and "Diagonal".
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Scottish bloke rocks up to the wrong wedding, simple mistake.
Top thread on HN riffs on Catalan independence. To be fair, Scotland and Catalonia both cite each other as exemplars.
For me, I'm fighting for Wessex's independence from England and hence Britain oh and the UK. Eventually I'll fight for Somerset, then Yeovil and finally Brunswick Street. Not sure how it will all work.
Nominative tribalism can be a force for good or bad but rarely makes a useful contribution to an article about a daft mistake that has a heart warming finale.
tbf, Catalonia and Caledonia are homophones when uttered by an American dyslexic
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