The Light Fantastic

11

The miscommunication between natives and foreign explorers Terry describes here occurs in our world as well. Or rather: it is rumoured, with stubborn regularity, to have occurred all over the globe. Really hard evidence, one way or the other, turns out to be surprisingly hard to come by. As Cecil Adams puts it in More of the Straight Dope: “Having now had the “I don’t know” yarn turn up in three different parts of the globe, I can draw one of two conclusions: either explorers are incredible saps, or somebody’s been pulling our leg.”