Episode 27: Things That Don't Make Sense

In this episode, Donielle and Khrystyna dive into some of the puzzling customs, habits, and practices that leave us scratching our heads. Join us for a lighthearted conversation about things that just don't make sense to us and our attempts to figure out what the reason might be that they persist.
Show Notes

Transcript

D           Welcome to Coffee in Conversation for ESL Listening. I'm Donielle.

K            And I'm Khrystyna, so grab a cup and join the conversation.

D           Hey, hey. Oh, I'm supposed to say in another language, right? 

 K            Oh, that’s true. 

 D           Oh, darn it, I forgot. Okay.

 K            Well, I can do it. I'll say it in Ukrainian. Привит, which means hello. Привит. 

 D           What is it? Privit? Okay. 

 K            Yeah, which means hello.

 D           Well, hello to you too. All right. So, um, how's everything going? Today was… I probably shouldn't…I probably shouldn't, you know, make it obvious when we're doing these things because they don't get released right away, but today was the eclipse.

 K            Yeah, I think we can reveal it because it's kind of a historic moment, right? It doesn't happen often. So did you…?

 D           Yeah. No, I just mean that this could come out two months from now and people would be like, why are they talking about the eclipse?

 K            Did I miss it? No. Did you get to see it?

 D           No, I was in a lesson and it's partial here. I think we didn't get as much here and it was cloudy. 

K            Oh, that’s too bad.

 D           So someone was joking online. They were talking about, yeah, I'm really glad I got those glasses for the eclipse. Look at these fantastic images we got. And they posted like four pictures of just a bunch of clouds.

 K            Oh, that's too bad. We actually had a beautiful sunny day here. Warm, just beautiful. 

 D           Oh, perfect.

 K            So I got everybody at work, we all went outside and we had glasses and we watched it. I thought it was supposed to be close to almost full coverage, but it wasn't. I would say maybe about 90 some percent. 

 D           That's pretty good though.

 K            But yeah, yeah, it was pretty neat.

 D           Yeah, because my, you know, my, my crew, my friends, they went down to, I guess, was it in Carbondale there somewhere? Yeah. They went there to watch it and they sent pictures and it was completely covered and it was really cool looking. 

 K            Yeah, it was pretty neat. Yeah, it was nice.

 D           But yeah, not, not another one for like 20 years over here, right? Something like that.

 K            Well, they say so the last one was in 2017 but it was a different one. But then the one like this one before was in 1970s.

 D           Right, yeah.

 K            It’s been a while.

 D           Yeah. Yeah. It's been a minute. Yep. All right. Well, enough of the eclipse talk. So today we have an interesting topic, I think. We were talking about this the other day and we were having a goofy little conversation and we said, you know, this would be a good topic. And that is very simply: things that don't make sense. Have you ever just thought to yourself, why do we do that? Or why does this happen? Why does this exist? This makes no sense. You know, something maybe a tradition or just something that our culture does or that just always happens and you're like, this makes no sense. I know I say it a lot.

 K            I do too. And you know, I…right off the bat, I can give you an example that happened today while we were talking about the eclipse, the solar eclipse at work. And, one of my coworkers who is from Guatemala was saying that they have this custom that, in her culture, that if you are pregnant, if you're expecting during [a] solar eclipse, if you go outside, you're supposed to wear your underwear inside out and it's supposed to be like red underwear and yes and you're supposed to put some sort of like a metal cover over your stomach to protect the baby, otherwise something's gonna happen to the baby 

D           Oh my goodness.

 K            And I was like, well this makes no sense.

 D           Well, you know, going back to our conversation about superstitions, a lot of that stuff doesn't make sense. That is yet another superstition. And yeah, that's an interesting one.

 K            Yeah, yeah, so, you never know.

 D           Yeah. All right. So, um, okay. So you gave me one. Um, I'm going to tell you about one that I personally think of, and it's sort of, sort of related to what we started talking about daylight savings – the changing of the clocks back and forward every six months, we’ve got to do this. I see no reason for this. I hate it. It's annoying. And I guess historically there was a reason, you know, with farming and stuff like that, but I just don't think it really makes any sense anymore. What do you think?

 K            I absolutely agree that absolutely makes no sense. And it's so sometimes difficult to get used to that time change too, like, and like, I feel like in my family, like for a week, we're like, Oh, this is… already eight o 'clock, but it's only seven. So, uh, do we go to bed soon or not? Or so it's, and you know, the thing is it messes with kids the most, especially when they're little, because it throws off their routine and just, you know like oh I think it's stupid.

 D           I totally think it's ridiculous and a lot of countries have just stopped doing it. And talking about other countries, here's, okay, that already doesn't make sense. But let's take it a step further. What really doesn't make sense is if we're going to do this ridiculous thing, why are we not all doing it at the same time? For example, we'll have our time change, you know, whatever day it is, and in Europe, it won't be for another two, three weeks. So, you know, I teach online and I have students from all over and, you know, it's becoming a running joke now that Donielle cannot figure out what time anything is going to be. You know, I'll be like, well, I guess on, on Monday, I'll check the time in your country and I'll see. I mean, it's just, I cannot get it together.

 K            Yeah, well, it's same here because when I talk to my family, they are usually eight hours, there's usually [an] eight hour difference. But then there's… for two weeks, there's a seven-hour difference. Then it's back to [an] eight hour difference. Then it's six months later that there's again, I think there's seven hours. It's ridiculous.

 D           Yeah. And you know, it's worse is if you have to deal with someone who's in another hemisphere. 

 K            Oh gosh.

 D           For example, I have students in Brazil. Fortunately, they don't change time anymore there. So it's just normal weirdness on my end. But when they're going one direction and we're going the other direction, I'm like, eeeh, my brain can't handle it. What time is it going to be next week? I don't even know.

 K            Crazy stuff, just crazy. So here's something that makes no sense to me. Hawaii, right? Hawaii is a state, one of the United States’ states, right? But it's kind of on its own right there. But you know what they have? They have interstates there, like roads that are named “interstate”.

 D           Yes. And just to be clear, inter for interstate means you're connecting into other states, which is impossible. [because Hawaii is an island]

 K            Yeah. Like, who whose idea was that? And like, how did that come around?

 D           I don't know. You'd think that they would give that a different name. You know? Yeah. That makes no sense. 

 K            Yeah, I thought it was weird.

 D           Well, you know, that's the, that's the theme here. It makes no sense and it qualifies. 

 K            Qualifies is right.

 D           All right. Um, so, oh, I found this one because I was just looking to see what other people thought made no sense and I thought this was funny so I thought I would add that. Fun sized candy. If you ever buy bags of candy and it says “fun size” it means extra small and they're like why is small candy going to be fun? What's fun about that? Make it big - that will be fun.

 K            I don’t understand that either. Right? I don't understand that either. Why is it fun size? Like, why did they decide to call it fun size? Like, I know some sometimes they call it mini, which makes sense because it's small, like a smaller version of a regular candy, but fun size. Why is it fun?

 D           Well, this is marketing, you know, of course they don't want to remind you that it's smaller than normal. So let's call it something else to make you think that it's great. Let's call it fun size. But I just thought that was really funny.

 K            Well, it's kind of crazy because like it's not fun for me to eat less candy. 

 D           No, definitely not. 

 K            More, not less.

 D           More is always fun.

 K            Yes. So how about the... I have a little one that's like an English language one. 

 D           Oh, I have some of those too!

 K            Oh, you do? Okay, cool. So you can drink a drink, but you can't food the food.

 D           No, you cannot.

 K            How did that happen?

 D           Well, as I'm sure anybody listening to this has already figured out, English is super weird. And yeah, there's so many strange things about it. But yeah, you can drink a drink, you cannot food a food.

 K            Now they have to eat the food. Can’t food the food. This makes sense.

 D           Yeah, yeah, that's a good one. Yeah, well, since you're talking about some English ones, let's see if I can find something. This is a simple one that’s kind of funny. Well, the letter W, like, why is it W? Because they kind of look like two V's, not two U's, right?

 K            So it should be double V’s, 

 D           Right? Wouldn't you say?

 K            not double U. 

 D           There's no U in there. It's two V's.

 K            No.

 D           I'm just saying.

 K            Who thought of that? Which genius mind thought that that was a good idea?

 D           I wonder if it goes back to, you know, like way, way, way, way back, there were, what is it…? The U's were actually, they were printed like V's. I'm trying, I can't think of the… I cannot think of an example of it, but like if you look at old architecture or something and there's something written on it and you'll be like, oh, well that should be a U, but it really looks like a V. 

 K            But then what did the V look like?

 D           I don't know.

 K            Or do you think it didn't exist at that time?

 D           I don't know. I think we're gonna have to do some research.

 K            But then when you think of it, like U is like, you know, there's a different pronunciations of like, ah, ooh, right, different phonetical. But then when you think about a W, it's like, wah.

 D           Yeah, you're right. 

 K            So I don't know, maybe there was like a little correlation there.

 D           That does make sense. It looks like double V's, but the pronunciation is more like a U. We've cracked the case. Actually, you've cracked it. Okay. Yes.

 K            Mystery solved. Okay. So, um, how about this one? Um, I, I read about it and then I was like, Oh, well, yeah, that's crazy. So if you break a bone, right? Like a human bone, once you put it back together, it will grow back together.

 D           Mm -hmm. Right, it'll heal.

 K            Right? But if you... It will heal, yeah, and grow back together. If you chip a tooth...Or you have a cavity, it won't fill itself back up, right? You have to fill it or do some sort of build up or something like that. So how does that work?

 D           I don't know, but I know it's expensive.

 K            Either one, right?

 D           That's true. Yeah, actually either one, but yeah. Yeah, those things are definitely not going to fix themselves though. Sadly.

 K            Because when you think about our bodies, right, when you think about [the] human body, the hair regrows, the skin regenerates, nails grow back, bones heal, organs sometimes regenerate, right? 

 D           Yeah, some of them do, yeah. 

 K            But teeth don't.

 D           No. That's a shame too; that would be nice.

 K            Well, that would be great. That would be great.

 D           All right, well, we're not gonna crack that code. I think that that's gonna be the way it is. All right, so, oh, this has something to do with habits and this is true. Have you ever looked at your watch, and then someone sees you do that. So they say, oh, what time is it? And you have no idea. You've just looked at the watch. Have you ever done that?

 K            Yeah, I guess…I don't have a watch. I usually don't wear a watch. But like sometimes if you look at the phone or something…

 D           Right, same concept. Yeah, you look at the phone, you know you're looking at the time, right? And then you put it down, because yeah, I didn't use to wear a watch either. Same thing, I would look at my phone, oh, okay, put it down and someone, would go, what time is it? [I have] No clue, not even the first clue. I just looked at it. You know what I mean?

 K            It's something that just didn't stay in your memory or you didn't pay attention probably enough to remember. So, but it's still kind of crazy. It's like a weird… you know…

 D           Yeah, like I guess I wasn't that interested to know what time it was. It's more of like just a habit to look at it, you know.

 K            I think that's what it is. Sometimes we just look at our watches or phones just as a habit to kind of look at that. So one thing I noticed too, like we were talking about the human body and all that, you know how in America you have health insurance?

 D           Oh yeah.

 K            So you have health insurance for like most of the issues you have in your body, but you have a separate dental insurance and a separate vision insurance. So it's like, are your teeth and your eyes like not part of your body?

 D           I was going to say this when you were talking about teeth earlier. I was like, yeah, that is so weird. I don't understand that. Like it's almost like it's not really that important. It's just your eyes and your teeth. You know, it's nothing, but you know, we'll take care of the important stuff. But if you want an add on, you know,

 K            And I mean, do they know that teeth don't grow back? Like if you chip it.

 D           Maybe they don't know. Maybe that's the problem. We've cracked the code for them.

 K            So I just thought it was, yeah, I always thought it was weird. It was really strange. Like this makes no sense to me.

 D           Well, you know, we could have a whole episode on what doesn't make sense about our healthcare and insurance. Like, why is your insurance tied to your job? I mean, that's just like, what’s that got to do with your job? It's bizarre, but yeah, but I'll stop there. 

 K            Weird.

 D           Okay. I've got another language one. Okay, so this has to do with pronunciation and I know people are gonna feel me on this one. How the same combinations of letters you feel like, oh, it should have a similar sound, but it absolutely does not. So in the sentence, I had to come up with a sentence, it's not a great sentence, but here it is: Even though I had a rough cough, I made it through the day. That is one, two, three, four words in that sentence with the combination O -U -G -H and four different sounds. Though [tho], rough [ruff], cough [cawf], through [throo]. I mean, that's got to be so frustrating for people trying to learn English.

 K            It is and it again it makes no sense why [the] same combination of letters sound completely different.

 D           Do you have that in Ukrainian language that there's, what you see is what you get, huh? 

 K            Yep, the Ukrainian language is very much about you read it the way you see it, the way it's spelled out. So there's no spelling necessarily that you have to know, have to learn.

 D           Yeah, that's really good. When I've studied both Spanish and Italian, and that's, I always thought was a really good thing about those languages, Italian, not as much as Spanish. Spanish is pretty good. Like you can look at it and even though you've never seen the word before, you can pronounce it correctly. You may not be able to spell it exactly, because you could confuse maybe a C and an S on certain words, but you could certainly read it. Yeah. And I always feel sorry for people coming from those kinds of languages and then they show up in an English class. Oh, have fun.

 K            A whole different ball game there.

 D           It surely is. Yeah.

 K            So I have a fun one that I think makes no sense. Pizza.

 D           Okay.

 K            So, pizza is round.

 D           Generally.

 K            Generally right when you think of it, but when you buy pizza, they put it in a square box.

 D           Right?

 K            And when you eat pizza, you eat it in triangles.

 D           Hey, just trying to get all the geometry in there, that's all.

 K            Exactly.

 D           Maybe we can get parallelograms in there somehow.

 K            Like, if you're gonna put it in a square box, wouldn't you just make a square pizza?

 D           Yeah, I mean, certainly some people do make square pizzas, but I don't know. It seems like it would be easier. Yeah.

 K            Like you can cut it into squares because some so some pizzas, like some places do cut it into squares. But then because pizza is round, there's also some triangles in between, which you only just get crust because that little triangle is not going to have any topping or sauce on it. So it just, it's just strange. Like, I don't, I don't know. Really strange.

 D           Well, you know, people pretty much are used to their circular pizzas. And it's probably hard to make a circular box. So that's the best they can do.

 K            Make a square pizza, come on.

 D           No tradition.

 K            All that wasted space in that square box

 D           Forget about the waste of space, all the pizza I could be having in that box.

 K            Exactly! All those corners could be filled in with pizza.

 D           Mm hmm. I'm all for it. All right. Somewhat related to food, sort of. And this is a recent thing that's kind of driving me crazy. And I say this a lot now that it doesn't make sense. I'm not sure what to do about it. It's a recent problem. Do you ever go to say a coffee shop and you order your coffee, and they've got those little digital screen thingies and they flip it around and you have to, you know, put in the information and you've got, and there's a place there for a tip. And you know, American tipping culture, that's another topic for another day as well. But this takes it to a whole new level of having to tip now for everything. And then you feel like shamed in a way because the person is standing right across from you and you feel like a jerk to press zero, you know, for the tip. Do you feel that way?

 K            Yeah, I agree. And it's like, I feel like with prices of coffee nowadays, like those things are already included in it. So, most of the time, like on a regular basis, if I buy coffee a lot, I don't usually leave tips, but usually during holidays.

 D           Yeah

 K            I will always tip baristas at the coffee shop during holidays. But I agree. You know, if you're buying coffee and usually like when you even think about the tips, it's usually like a dollar or two or five. And I was like, well, that's half the, like pretty much 50 % tip right there.

 D           Yeah. But the thing is the coffee shop is one thing. I can't remember where I saw it that I was like, come on. You'll find them at places where there really has never ever been an expectation of tipping. Cause we've always had, you know, like a jar or something at the coffee shop. And if you wanted to put something in it, you could, but I have seen these screens at places where you would never think to tip. And I find myself faced with those things. And again, I'm feeling like, am I a jerk if I don't leave a tip? Why am I leaving a tip? So yeah, that's got to go.

 K            Well, and even I feel like nowadays more and more places are like including tips and you know, and you're like, okay, oh, it's like, was I always supposed to tip them? Or is it a new thing? 

 D           Nah, it's a new thing.

 K            I feel like I just don't know anymore.

 D           I know. But you know what though, I'm gonna go off on a little bit of a tangent here for a second. You know, our tipping culture is a problem. It's very difficult and it's weird and it doesn't make sense. There's another thing that doesn't make sense. And maybe with the trend to do this kind of thing all the time now, people will get so frustrated that this will push some kind of a change in our tipping culture because I don't know, it's weird.

 K            Well, I think it all goes, I'm going to continue your tangent here. I think you all goes back to that people at the places like fast food or hospitality or rest, you know, coffee shops and all that. Their wages are so low…

 D           Well, yeah.

 K            …that a lot of the times tips is the only way you can, you know, make not even decent but half decent wage. So I think that's why.

 D           Oh yeah, I definitely understand that. I just don't understand why that's the case. Really not just paying them proper pay, you know, not have to be fooling around with this. But anyway, I digress. That's for another conversation.

 K            Kind of going along with that - something that did not make sense to me in American culture when the first time when I visited was going to the store and you see the price on the product or item when you get to the cashier to pay for it. It's a different price because they add tax on the end so I really struggle with, I mean, I'm used to it now, but I still, I feel like I struggle with that because I'm always, I was always used to growing up that if somebody says it's $5, this is what I'm going to pay for it. It's not $5.50. It's not $5.60. It's not $5.27. It's going to be $5. Right. So, and I always feel like it's really not fair to people who maybe somebody has only this amount of money when they look at the price, this is what they can afford, or this is what they have enough money for. And then you go to the cashier and then you check out and it's like, Oh, I’m supposed to pay more. So it makes absolutely no sense to me.

 D           Yeah, it's true. I mean, I remember in my teenage years, like first going out on my own, you know, making teeny tiny money and I had to go grocery shopping and I'd be sitting there mentally calculating what I'm buying. Like, do I have enough money for this? Okay, now what about the tax? Yeah, it's a problem.

 K            Right, right. Well, and you think of it too, like, if you’re buying big purchases, right, and we'll think about like, oh my gosh, I mean, not even like car house, but, oh, there was something about the other day, like a chair or something like a piece of furniture, right? And you know, you're already paying for that. And then I see that, you know, tax is additional $20. I'm like, that's really not what you think of it, right?

 D           Yeah. Yeah. It changes the concept of, you know, what you feel like you're paying for something. You know, you think you're paying, you know, Oh, that's, that's pretty good price. And then by the time they add the tax, you're like, eh, I guess I wasn't such a great price.

 K            I think the worst part is like about buying cars because you're, you're negotiating and this and that, and you finally got to the price and then they're like, well, but now we've got to add tax and a title and something else and clean air tax and dirty air tax and you know, mow your grass tax and sweep your road tax. And I was like, okay. It's just like. It's crazy. Again, makes no sense to me.

 D           It is. But you know what, just to go off on that just a little bit, that you had that reminded me of something else that doesn't make sense is when you go to buy a car and you walk in and you talk to the person there, the dealer [salesperson] and they're like, oh, I like this car and they've got a price and you can't just pay the price that's on there. You can do all this negotiating. I hate that. I just want to pay what it is. But then you come up with a price and then the person is like, I got to go talk to my manager. And so they go back to the back and you can kind of see them talking and you're like, they're not even talking. You know, they're not, they know what they can pay. You know, half the time I think they just make a show of going back there. Like they're really checking with their manager and then they come back. Oh, I'm sorry. They wouldn't do it.

 K            No, and the thing is, and it becomes such an ordeal, right? It takes you all day to buy a car, even though you know what you want to pay and they know how much they're going to sell it for. But this whole back and forth, I know last time when we were buying my car, my husband – we’re just making fun of it because every time, you know, we'll say the price and they're like, Oh, let me go talk to my manager. And then they're standing there and KC's like yeah, probably talking about baseball from last week or… what the heck? Which is crazy. I don't know. But you know, the funny thing is that in some cultures, if you are not negotiating or haggling, it's offensive. When I was in Uzbekistan, some, you know, years ago, when we so I was like, I was a student college student there and all that. When we were going to their market to like buy food and all that stuff, we were told that you are supposed to negotiate the price. Like if, if they tell you a price, don't ever accept that and pay because it is offensive.

 D           Ugh.

 K            I was like, oh no.

 D           I hate that.

 K            But you know what, I know we've talked about this before, especially about our husbands and like negotiating and in my family, I am the negotiator, my husband, they see him coming from mile away. And I swear when they see my husband coming, they raise the price. Like, because I will negotiate and I will usually get the price down, but he can never negotiate. And I feel like they raise the price just to make him pay more.

 D           Yeah, well, I can, I can definitely sympathize with that because I don't like negotiating. I'm not good at it. I don't want to do it.

 K            But your husband is good at negotiating.

 D           Oh yeah, oh, definitely. Yeah. Sometimes a little too good.

 K            No, I remember once we were talking about buying cars and I think I told you I was like, like, going to take Anil [your husband] me to buy a car instead of my husband because he can't negotiate.

 D           Yeah! He bought a car once and he drove it around for like a year and I guess he decided he didn't really like it. So he wanted to trade it in. So he took it back to the same place he bought it. Went back and forth again. We were there forever. I'm like, come on, let's just go. And he's like, no, no, no. He kept pushing for more and more. He ended up selling that car for the same price he bought it for the year before. 

 K            Oh my gosh.

 D           I'm like, what? I mean, who does that? Only him. No.

 K            No, nobody does that, it's impossible.

 D           He did it.

 K            Gosh, I'm telling you: next time I'm coming to Alabama to buy a car so I can just borrow your husband for it.

 D           Come on down! He will hook you up. Well, I had a big list of a lot more stuff that doesn't make sense, but I see it's probably about time to wrap this up. What do you think?

 K            Sounds good. We might just have to have another episode to talk more about this.

 D           Yeah, well, you know, specifically, I was thinking I'd like to talk about things in movies that don't make sense. I think that could be a whole episode because I'm always complaining. What are you doing? Come on. Why? Why? Why? Why? So next time we can try that. 

 K            Sounds good.

 D           All right, well until next time, here's to good vibes, good coffee and great conversation. Cheers.

 K            Cheers.