Conversational scrap

[owlfish]

Overheard in an academic building last week:

"Is that a test tube?"
"No, a scalpel."

I wonder how it's possible to confuse these things?

I went to a lecture tonight in which the speaker spoke of the town's worthies. I hadn't realized that people did that any more. It was especially striking to realize that "worthies" included notable sportspeople, not just famous gentry.

Comments

[friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com]

LOL! I am boggling too.

[booksandtea.livejournal.com]

Our scalpels originally come covered in cardboard slips that are useless for further storage. We therefore keep our scalpels stuck into tubes so nobody reaching carelessly into the drawer will lose a finger!

[owlfish]

But then's BOTH a scalpel AND a test tube - not just one or the other. (Very sensible.)

[booksandtea.livejournal.com]

Not in laboratory semantics! We mcguyverize items like this all the time because our budget doesn't allow us to buy the real stuff (which is horrendously overprized anyway). So the dialogue "Is this X?" "No, it is Y." sounds very familiar. And most of the time you cannot return to function X from function Y, so, not "both-and".

[midnightmelody.livejournal.com]

Perhaps a (box of) test-tubes(s) vs. a (box of) scalpel(s), which need to be unpacked in different places?