15 April 2020

Hat Trick

I have done lots of work on misunderstandings involving World Englishes; but we should remember that people in the UK and USA misunderstand each other as well.

Seth Myers (an American) was talking to John Oliver (from England) about the problems of recording his weekly show from home, and John Oliver says he has managed to record three shows successfully. This is how the conversation proceeds:

SM : well, three out of three is very er impressive
JM : that's right, it's a hat-trick
SM : yeah, you've done a hundred

Even though John Oliver holds up three fingers to illustrate that 'hat-trick' means three successes in a row, Seth Myers hears it as 'hundred'. The reasons for this are that 'hat-trick' is a British idiom, and also because they were talking together at the time.

Here is a link to the YouTube video.