Today, I had to present a program to my supervisors in University. Not being a native English speaker, I used my own invented abbreviations for parameters in the program. Apparently STD is not an appropriate abbreviation for "standard deviation." I can still hear them laughing. FML
Collection
Fall
Dead leaves, the first cold of the season and an umbrella flipped inside out: fall, the season of grace.
Today, I "answered" an email instead of "forwarding" it. As a result, there is a chance that my Master's thesis supervisor gets a message from me starting by the F-word, and complaining about my bad work and inability to understand a deadline. FML
Today, my supervisor forced me to bring the image of a failed simulation to the group meeting, because he thought it looked funny. So did the others and it's now going on our webpage. I have to provide a scientific description of how I made a mistake in my code. FML
Today, I pronounced FAQ as 'fuck' to my boss. I'm not a native speaker. FML
Today, while not feeling well at work, I had to finish up some papers. I was so out of it, I couldn't remember how to spell my name. I had to improvise by pronouncing each syllable of my name out loud. My boss now thinks I'm a dumbass. FML
Today, I was warned that I was failing too many students and it had to stop, so I showed my boss all of the easy assignments a lot of students didn't even turn in. She told me to stop using so many "big words" in them. I teach at a four year University. FML
Today, I presented the worst seminar presentation probably in the entire history of my graduate department. I kept stumbling over questions, and overall, making an ass out of myself. I probably should leave my masters program at how thoroughly I burned myself. FML
Today, I wanted to look clever during a work meeting, so I used a thesaurus to find a fancy word for “important.” I ended up calling a project "pivotal" but mispronounced it as "pee-votal" in front of everyone. FML
Today, a tourist from an English-as-second-language country taught me a new word. In English. FML
Today, I misspelled the word "failure" in front of all my co-workers. Now I'm not given any writing tasks. FML
Today, I went for an interview at a great company. Everything was going well until I tried to demonstrate my knowledge of their industry by using a technical term. Turns out I'd completely misunderstood the term and used it in the wrong context. The interviewer raised an eyebrow, and I could see "Don't call us, we'll call you" flicker in their eyes. FML
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Top comments
Pleonasm 36
They were all like " WTF LOL."
zingline89 18
Did they Clap?
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Comments (155)
olpally 33
OMG!! Lol.
Quiet_one 22
As a native English speaker, I've seen "STD" used as an abbreviation for the word 'standard' before and it was no big deal. I think your supervisors just need to grow up a little. Don't worry about it, OP.
Acik91 26
Well, that was not professional of them. Don't worry, we've all done some stupid mistakes. You should still be proud of the fact you're able to study in a foreign language.
Cinn_fml 23
It's not exactly an uncommon abbreviation for Standard Deviation, I'm fairly certain I saw it on more than one thing during University. Sure, it might make people snigger immaturely on time to time, but they probably knew what you meant and just have a bit of a childish sense of humour. Which isn't always a bad thing. Also, I highly doubt you're the first person to do this, even in front of them.
ICATiger 13
"By the end of the month everybody will have an STD!"
awkward_gothlady 32
Apparently, there's also an STD degree. Not sure what, exactly, it is, but it's something religious.
Epikouros 32
Yes, it's an abbreviation of Sacrae Theologiae Doctor, Latin for Doctor of Sacred Theology, the Roman Catholic doctoral degree for pontifical universities (universities approved directly by the pope).
awkward_gothlady 32
Ah yes. My sister and I noticed a book in my dad's library that was written by someone with STD after their name, and we had a good laugh about that. We wondered if, after getting the title, people said, "I got my STD" or "I am an STD."
perdix 31
I'm sure your ANAL* was excellent. *That's our widely-used abbreviation for "analysis," you should be using that in class, if you want to look knowledgeable.
Rukkus92 16
Don't worry OP, I once made a similar mistake on a project about "saving the daisies".
WishfullThinker 18
Actually, it IS the standard abbreviation (I've taken more than one statistics class). I guess your English was better than theirs.
aj94w 4
STD actually is a valid acronym for standard deviation. It shows up that way in Microsoft Excel and I believe calculators as well. Were the supervisors ten years old?