my mum was relaying a story about a lesson she gave her primary school pupils, and at one point she used the word "twunt."

I said "You can't say that in the classroom!"

She said "Why? What does it mean?"

I said "Well it's a combination of the words. . . never mind, just stop using it, please."

God bless her, she'd overheard it and thought it might be just a fun word the kiddies would enjoy.

I gave my then boyfriend a stylish new bike helmet. This was to replace his old one, which was over-sized, and an awful violet colour. Can you see where this is going? So, over the turkey with his parents (a glass of wine in me) we were all discussing our choice of gifts for each other. I exclaimed "It had to be done. His other helmet is huge, and purple".
Cue uproarious laughter. Mother-in-law had to whisper an explanation to Father-in-Law. I continue to be mortified.

...met his girlfriend's parents. She was very naive, and her parents were both strict in the sense that their eyebrows were permanent furrows of disapproval. It was not going well.

So it's almost inconceivable that on that night of all nights she should choose to quell my friend's nervous inanities with "Oh, you're such a dildo!". My friend reports that she had no idea what it meant, but the unusual motion of both sets of parental eyebrows indicated that they did.

And from David Niven's bio...It's the Oscars and there's an announcer calling out the arrivals of the stars as their cars draw up to the red carpet. (I'm paraphrasing the quote)

"Here we have Mr Errol Flynn...Here's Joan Crawford!...Here's Alfred Hitchcar's cock!"

....occasionally get embarrassed about the things they or their friends may have let slip in my hearing. I think it's quite sweet. The notion that they could ever say anything I haven't heard before seems rather far-fetched.

I created my own comic, Yippee!, when I was about ten and it was obviously influenced by Whizzer And Chips, Monster Fun etc It had a starring character of a boy who was made of elastic that I innocently called Rubber Johnny. My Dad said I should call him Bouncing Billy or Elastic Man but I wasn't having any of it.

Discussing my friend's wedding, I said: "Ich habe meine Freundin genommen".

I was trying to say: "I took my girlfriend along". What I actually said was: "I gave my girlfriend one."

How the Germans laughed …